The New York Times reports on this innovative idea for alleviating the city's parking problem, which the budding entrepreneur in the story rightly conceptualizes as a trading opportunity. His idea in a nutshell is to link people who are leaving a parking space with people in the area looking for a space, via his "trading floor."

The most revealing part of the story, however, has nothing to do with the idea: "... a quick-eyed auto mechanic named Tommy Gleeson spotted her and deftly maneuvered his beige BMW into striking position for the spot."

Auto mechanic. Beige BMW.

Yet another piece of evidence that graduate school was a waste of time.