VladMolina

A 16 oz container full of potentially harmful beach litter sounds like, well, alot. I am surprised anybody is really willing to do that much work for a free coffee.

How many of your 18 businesses from last year are participating this year?

You might be right.

As an economist, its a little bit fascinating that anybody is participating in this at all. Basically businesses are giving away business, and individuals are working for way less than minimum wage. Normally, that doesn't work all that well. I'm glad you guys are an exception! Sounds like a great project, good luck.

So are people really doing 30 minutes of work on the beach in exchange for a free cup of coffee (and of course the satisfaction of helping out the community)? Or were most of the cups returned to businesses for rewards last year for bigger rewards? Do you know the average retail price of a reward that was actually collected?

This sounds like a really great idea that could be featured in a book like Freakonomics someday.

Matt,

You often point out many examples of how journalists, lawyers, regulators, and politicians fundamentally fail to understand what financial market professionals actually do and how they actually think. What do you think is the root of this lack of understanding? Are finance guys just incomprehensible people? Are they terrible at PR? Do people just have an axe to grind?

How can people (besides you) improve public understanding of financial markets and professionals in those markets?