🍴Free lunches: Ain’t no such thing?

You may know it as TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, and TNSTAAFL. In any case, as the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”—otherwise known as getting something for nothing. Metaphors aside, that wasn’t always the case. In days of yore, there was a “free lunch”—though it wasn’t exactly free. US saloons [used to offer patrons]( a gratis meal with the purchase of a drink, thinking they’d suck customers into drinking the day away, which would offset the cost of the meal. It was hugely popular with drinkers and snackers alike (though business owners had to contend with customers grousing about their soggy potatoes). Perhaps surprisingly, it seems to have also [served a social function]( helping to feed thousands of hungry people across the country. The most generous bars did not even require a liquor purchase. Occasional good intentions notwithstanding, the burgeoning temperance movement was vehemently opposed to the practice. In 1897, the [Raines Law banned the free lunch]( in New York (providing some relief to New York bars that found it a financial drain); in 1919, Prohibition put an end to the American saloon more generally. But the phrase hasn’t gone away. Most often, it crops up as a reminder to look for the hidden costs in your mutual fund, the fine print in your user agreement, or that extra baggage fee. It’s a good story, and we promise it won’t cost you anything. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] Free lunches March 27, 2019 The original free lunch --------------------------------------------------------------- You may know it as TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, and TNSTAAFL. In any case, as the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”—otherwise known as getting something for nothing. Metaphors aside, that wasn’t always the case. In days of yore, there was a “free lunch”—though it wasn’t exactly free. US saloons [used to offer patrons]( a gratis meal with the purchase of a drink, thinking they’d suck customers into drinking the day away, which would offset the cost of the meal. It was hugely popular with drinkers and snackers alike (though business owners had to contend with customers grousing about their soggy potatoes). Perhaps surprisingly, it seems to have also [served a social function]( helping to feed thousands of hungry people across the country. The most generous bars did not even require a liquor purchase. Occasional good intentions notwithstanding, the burgeoning temperance movement was vehemently opposed to the practice. In 1897, the [Raines Law banned the free lunch]( in New York (providing some relief to New York bars that found it a financial drain); in 1919, Prohibition put an end to the American saloon more generally. But the phrase hasn’t gone away. Most often, it crops up as a reminder to look for the hidden costs in your mutual fund, the fine print in your user agreement, or that extra baggage fee. It’s a good story, and we promise it won’t cost you anything. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Have you tried the Quartz app yet? --------------------------------------------------------------- 👉Keep up with news for you, curated by Quartz editors 👉Engage with an informed community of leaders, subject-matter experts, and curious minds 👉Personalize your feed with the topics you love [Get the app for free]( Brief history [1875:]( The New York Times reports on the “custom peculiar to the Crescent City” of the “free lunch-counter,” where people get free meals with the purchase of a 15 cent drink. In time, it becomes a feature of saloons throughout the country. [1892:]( Robert Ingersoll, an American freethinker, agnostic, and public orator, writes a treatise about heaven in the Chicago Tribune. So far as he was concerned, celestial happiness would have to be worked and paid for: “There is no free lunch business about getting to heaven.” [1939:]( W. F. Loper, an Indiana school superintendent, tells members of a local Rotary Club that human misery is the scourge of Americanism. As a remedy, he suggests, “children need to be taught… that there is no such thing as a free meal.” [1940:]( Addressing North Tarrytown High School’s graduating class, NYU School of Business dean John Madden advises: “I can’t tell you what the future will bring, but I can tell you that there’s no such thing as ‘free lunch.’ Great results are not accomplished by wishful thinking.” [1975:]( Jack Bogle founds Vanguard, a pioneering mutual fund company that was the first to offer low-fee index funds and championed the doctrine of diversification. By offering higher returns with relatively low risk, it was the investing equivalent to a free lunch. [1975:]( Economist Milton Friedman publishes a book of essays on public policy called There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. He won the Nobel prize the following year. [2018:]( Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies are barred from offering their employees free lunches at their headquarters, in an attempt to help local restaurants. (The companies can, however, buy food for their employees at those restaurants.) Sponsored by David Yurman The rules have changed --------------------------------------------------------------- You don’t have to limit yourself to one ring day after day. Exercise your options and express your style by choosing, mixing, and stacking David Yurman designs for any occasion.[Explore David Yurman men’s bands]( Fun fact! Employer-sponsored lunch does not count as a tax-deductible expense in the United States—unless it’s “furnished for the convenience of the employer.” Employer-sponsored snacks, on the other hand, do come with a tax break, though the days of unlimited workplace [Babybels]( may be numbered since the deduction was [halved in 2018](. Giphy LIBERTARIAN INSPO TANSTAAFL’s lunar origins --------------------------------------------------------------- Post-prohibition, the concept of the free lunch—or rather, its impossibility—was re-injected into popular culture in Robert Heinlein’s 1966 science fiction novel [The Moon is a Harsh Mistress](. The book describes a rebellion of a lunar colony against the earth, where “TANSTAAFL” (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch) serves as both a motto and a moral code for the hardscrabble moon dwellers. Heinlein has fallen out of favor of late, but he was once considered one of the [Big Three giants of 20th century science fiction]( along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. His fiction has a discernible libertarian bent: Self-reliance was the most valuable quality in a Heinlein character, while corporations and governments were generally wasteful, inefficient, and untrustworthy. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is no different, and TANSTAAFL, where nothing is given and everything is earned, exemplifies his ethos. Moon seems to have found its greatest fan base among libertarians, inspiring economist Edwin G. Dolan’s 1971 book [TANSTAAFL: A Libertarian Perspective on Environmental Policy](. Though Heinlein’s book is now a relative rarity on most modern bookshelves, that could change: a 2015 plan to turn Moon into a [Hollywood movie]( remains up in the air. Quotable “It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.” —Theoretical physicist Alan Guth, [quoted by (and often misattributed to) Stephen Hawking](. Here’s a good explainer on [what they’re talking about](. Have a friend who would enjoy our Obsession with Free lunches? [ [Forward link to a friend](mailto:?subject=Thought you'd enjoy.&body=Read this Quartz Obsession email – to the email – AP Photo/Jim Mone Pop quiz What is the etymology of the word “lunch”? From the Spanish lonja, meaning “slice” or “hunk” From the French allonger, meaning “to lengthen, make long”From the Scottish lounge, meaning “to loll idly, move indolently if at all”From the Old French launcier, meaning “discharge with force” Correct. Lunch was more commonly known as luncheon until around the 19th century. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. EXPLAIN IT LIKE I’M FIVE! Why are index funds a “free lunch”? --------------------------------------------------------------- The best way to make money on the stock market—without taking on too much risk—isn’t through special knowledge or even good luck. Instead, the most efficient way is buying a bunch of different stocks. (You can [thank economist Harry Markowitz]( for proving it.) Even better, over the long run, is holding a cross-section of all stocks in the market, via a broad-based index like the S&P 500. Index funds have grown increasingly popular—not least because they offer low fees, because you don’t need a high-priced fund manager to simply buy all the stocks. Late last year, fund giant Fidelity decided to drop all fees on some of its index funds in response. A free lunch? Not exactly. [Fidelity’s plan]( a bit like the original saloon-keepers’: By not charging fees for some funds, it hopes to bring customers on board who will then pay more for other services—and perhaps not always knowingly. Federal investigators are now probing whether Fidelity—which has struggled to match the low-cost structure of Vanguard—improperly hid a so-called “infrastructure fee” that it charged some mutual funds. The [Wall Street Journal]( (paywall) obtained an internal Fidelity document that admitted “its traditional business model is ‘broken’ and characterized the infrastructure fee as a solution to that problem.” [Read the Obsession on index funds]( By the digits [$2,500:]( Annual cost of providing Meals on Wheels to feed one elderly person in Portland, Oregon. (The cost varies according to location.) [13.87%:]( Average annual return of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares fund [$500,000:]( Collective K-12 school lunch debt in the Washington, D.C., area for the first semester of the current academic year, racked up by students who could not afford to pay for meals in their school cafeterias [$5.45:]( Erstwhile daily lunch allowance for Merrill Edge traders, who could have salads or sandwiches delivered to their desks. The practice was scrapped in 1994, saving the company roughly $500,000 a year—or 0.04% of its net income. [$1.75:]( Price of a New York City public school lunch, offered free to 1.1 million students every day [28%:]( Estimated share of Pret A Manger customers who have been given something for free, such as coffee or a snack, by an employee. (There are no hard and fast rules, but the CEO has joked it doesn’t hurt if a cashier has a bit of a crush on you.) Watch this! Economist Milton Friedman, who didn’t coin TANSTAAFL but is often credited with popularizing the idea, addresses the Cato Institute in Washington DC in 1993 with a spirited talk about political aphorisms (including this one). Watch it over your deskside sandwich, and ponder whether “nobody really spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.” For extra credit, ask yourself whether this Creative Commons video (posted by user Libertarianism.org and hosted by Youtube) is itself a kind of free lunch. take me down this 🐰 hole! The sweet side of Facebook.com --------------------------------------------------------------- [obs obsession free lunch] You might never work for Facebook, but you can enjoy the treats on offer to staff at distance via this meticulous Instagram account: [@1hackerwayeats]( is dedicated to showcasing the free “chef-made food and sweets” provided at “Facebook’s campus cafes.” There are 11 campus restaurants spread over the company’s 57-acre Menlo Park campus—responsible for what’s sometimes called the Facebook 15 (pounds) acquired by new employees after starting at the firm. Mouthwatering highlights include “rose wine cake with raspberry buttercream”; “blueberry claufoutis”; and “dulce de leche rice pudding cake with candied almonds. Maybe there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but the free desserts are hard to deny. Giphy Poll Is there such a thing as a free lunch? [Click here to vote]( YesThere ain’t!What are you doing with this data? 💬let's talk! In yesterday’s poll about [death cafés]( 53% of you said “sounds healthy.” 📧 Pat wrote: “I found it interesting. However, I’m a genealogist so I spend a lot of time with dead people. I love walking through cemeteries to read the inscriptions on gravestones.” 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20free%20lunch&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) [🎲 Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Natasha Frost]( and [Oliver Staley]( edited by[Jessanne Collins,]( and produced by[Luiz Romero.]( The correct answer to the quiz is From the Spanish lonja, meaning “slice” or “hunk” . Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! If you click a link to an e-commerce site and make a purchase, we may receive a small cut of the revenue, which helps support our ambitious journalism. See [here]( for more information. 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