the tip jar

There are no bagels like Miami bagels. I'd even put the NY bagel from NY against a Miamian Bagel.

Never mind the Cubano food, Miami is the place for bagels. I'm even going to bet I can find a top notch New York Pizza place as well...

So I just got back from getting some bagels and couldn't help but notice the tip jar. It is ubiquitous. These things are everywhere.

Have they always been?

When did the tip jars start emerging from the primordial soup of capitalism and start evolving?

There really hasn't been any evolution of the tip jar come to think of it. You would think it would have. Maybe that would make a great coffee book...a drive across the country taking pictures of unique tip jars...

I believe the tip jar and just tipping rates in general are directly proportional to the excesses sloshing around in the economy. How much the 'average system joe' 'Ieconomy' is delivering above his needs. (Nothing against tipping or the servers who need them for a living. All I am saying is the tip jar represents something greater.)

Are tip jars in other countries? Or maybe they are tip pots? Made out of clay? tip urns...Tip barrels in the OPEC countries...and countries with excess hyper-inflation...

During the depression era, how well did the tip jar perform?

I am nominating the tip jar as a leading economic indicator. Are you reading Bernanke?

Wouldn't it be great if system players like Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, starting putting out a tip jar on their desks. For a good economic prognosis and to do a better job, his tip jar would have to be stuffed with dollar bills and loose change (which equates to millions of dollars and stock options when it's run through a highly complex economic algorithm that takes into account all the econometric principles that are beyond you and me...

"Well the tip jar on the fed chairman's desk must make sense, the economic indicators tell us so!"

"The guy name george who is trying to act as a president" would need his as well. His would be the patriotic tip jar covered with American flags and symbols of Americana, like the Haliburton Corporate logo.

The Pope would have his holy tip jar (jewel encrusted with some reproductions of Davinci code painting)...

Dan 'Charlie' Brown, for that matter, would have one. With Dan Brown's, he'd actually have to learn to write in order to get tips however....

Perhaps a cheap street times tip jar? Mine would be a negative tip jar. I encourage you to take something and leave something else. It would be more of a geocache tip jar...

Actually, I have been pondering an 'artistic' way to express some of my ideas. Since I have no traditionally accepted artistic talents (such as painting, writing, sculpting or animal husbandry) perhaps i will take the tip jar thing one step further and actually design them for different people around the world...might be fun...