[Avodah] early bird specials and ribbis

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, February 8, 2007 8:37 am, R Zev Sero wrote:
:> It would seem that it such cases your chiluq would boil down to
:> an issur on the lashon. Writing:
:>     Admission: $20, $10 for early birds who sign up by Feb 15th
:> would be mutar, but writing:
:>     Admission: $10, $20 for late sign-up after Feb 15th
:> (or the more common, "at the door") would be assur?

: Yes, the lashon should match the reality, that they're offering
: a discount for early payment, not a penalty for late payment.

But it's kind of arbitrary whether you view the base price as X and a discount
to Y for early payers or a base price of Y with a penalty bringing it up to X
for late ones.

So, you argued two chiluqim, that I can tell:
1- Norm.
2- Whether the later payer is covering a real cost due to his lateness.

Let's talk of a case where the norm is ill defined. Many dinner attendees pay
for their rubber chicken beforehand, others at the door, and many shul members
or parents at a school function get billed later.

: If they misdescribe what they are doing, that could be a problem.
: The lashon on mechirat chametz, otzar bet din, etc., must also
: be correct, or it could be a problem.

And my point is that in many situations, both leshonos are equally valid
descriptions of reality.

Second, it depends on the nature of the real cost.

a- Sometimes this too is ill defined. Back to the shul dinner. The shul wants
to minimize the number of people who pay at the door, as that adds variability
to the number of meals to order. This pricing scale motivates people to
pre-register. One can say they are paying for the cost of wasted meals. But
then, so are the people who pay regular price.

b- The most common cost to later payment is interest being charged. Bizman
hazeh, getting money later isn't just opportunity cost of what I would have
done with the money, but also the fact is your bank is paying you interest
instead of my bank paying me. Present value of money, based on yeild curves,
is part of my professional bread-and-butter. The dollar isn't be'etzem the
same dollar.

Inflation is also an effect that makes the dollar paid later less money than
it used to be.

Accounting for these things is considered ribis, AFAIK. And yet, they are real
costs incurred by the shul because people pay later. So it seems non-obvious
to me that ribis is defined by whether I invented the differential to motivate
people to commit early, or whether I am passing along a real cost.

Is the shul's loss due to paying an accountant to keep track of your bill or
meals they must overbuy to allow you the option of just showing up any more
valid a motivation than the shul's loss due to not collecting interest from
the bank?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter