Value pricing

Carol Harbaugh the USDOT official directly in charge of the value pricing program is retiring, and applicants to replace her are being interviewed. Her sense of mischief, among other things, will be missed. By some. Example: this newsletter publisher has an aversion to conference lunch chicken, which Carol noticed because on the conference application form where they ask whether you have any special dietary requirements we regularly wrote stuff like: “No rubber chicken. Red meat or fine fish only.” At the next value-pricing conference in New York we got formally presented with a be-ribboned package containing a present of, horrors, a real life-size rubbery, rubber chicken.