Have you been to one of the top 100 highest grossing independent restaurants?

I have dined at two on the list: #45 St. Elmo Steak House and #51 Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn. I last visited St. Elmo's a couple years ago. My parents took me to Frankenmuth on one of our annual summer vacations; I was somewhere in the teen years.

Don't think that being near the top is all that great. You may be #2, but you'll still end up in bankruptcy.

I'll be heading to Baltimore in a few weeks, so maybe I'll check out #52.

I was going to do something like this from my office...

...but the government beat me to it.

Dorothy as economic theorist

A new way of looking at The Wizard of Oz.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the world's best-loved fairytales. As Judy Garland's famous film nears its 70th birthday, how much do its followers know about the story's use as an economic parable?

Dorothy in Kansas conjures up nostalgic thoughts of childhood Christmases hiding behind the sofa from the Wicked Witch of the West. Or those flying monkeys.

It's unlikely its young fans will have been thinking about deflation and monetary policy.

But the story has underlying economic and political references that make it a popular tool for teaching university and high school students - mainly in the United States but also in the UK - about the economic depression of the late 19th Century.

Black Friday

Are you out there in the world, spending lots of money on clothing and electronics and toys and such? You're supposed to be, you know. Just be careful.

As Smokey the Bear might say: only YOU can prevent an economic depression.

UPDATE: Everyone is talking about the Wal*Mart stampede. I swear, that story makes me ashamed to be human. What is so important about a Tickle Me Elmo or a $3 DVD that people trample and stamp out a person's life for it? Black Friday, indeed.

"it’s the best description I have yet read of a huge economic problem that we know how to solve"

David Leonhardt of NYT named his pick for the top economics book. It's about everyone's favorite topic: healthcare.