The great Devine one opines: This year, with the postal rate increase, people pay 35 cents to get a 32-cent stamp. The change shows up not as three one-cent stamps, but as a three-cent stamp, which currently is one of the most useful stamps around, since it fills the gap between the old 29-cent stamps and the new. But students are still leaving their change in the machine for others to are still leaving their change in the machine for others to pick up! This seems totally irrational. Au contraire amigo! If students are leaving their stamps it is only because the marginal cost of taking the $0.03 stamp does not match the marginal benefit = $0.03. Surely, if the stamp was of greater value, say $3.00, the affluent students would not leave it behind. Hence, for some $0.03 < marginal cost < $3.00 the students would gladly take their stamps. The job for a neoclassical theorist -- all theorists who employ an atomistic choice theoretic methodology -- is to specify the nature of the costs (because pecuniary and psychological). Clearly a costly activity. Indeed, this energy expenditure will vary according to the height, size, diet, and weight of the student. Moreover, as Becker's 1985 JPE article indicates, the marginal price of effort is related to the individual's market opportunities, time, and home work activities. All of which will surely vary by race, class, and gender. Moreover, even under the assumptions of identical utility functions, sub- jective valuation will differ because of differences in para- metric specifications. Second, the handling and preservation costs of maintaining the three cent stamp as well as the additional effort require to lick and place two stamps ($0.29 and $0.03) instead of just one must be weighed into the balance. Third, some students will leave the $0.03 stamp as an act of charity. Thereby, creating a pareto superior redistribution of income. Fourth, leaving the $0.03 stamp behind dramatically confirms consumer surplus (at least for Loyola students). The admininstration could alleviate this issue by increasing the price of stamps to $0.35. Sorry Jim, disaffirmation of rationality is dead. Live long and prosper, patrick l mason