A reader writes to Miss Manners to complain that often she can’t find a seat at a bookstore coffee shop, even though she’s a paying customer and some of the people seated seem not to be buying anything. She suggests that it is obvious that this is not the way to manage a coffee shop in a bookstore and asks Miss Manners how she can politely get the seat she wants. Miss Manners responds:

If you want to manage a coffee shop, Miss Manners suggests you first talk to those who do.

She goes on to explain that bookstores may “do better selling books by being a neighborhood center than they would by checking to see that the tables are occupied only by people who are eating and drinking.” But in any case, the bookstore managers are likely to have a better sense of this than customers who have not invested in the business.

That’s good advice for the Obama administration: If you want to manage a bank, an insurance company, an automobile manufacturer, or any other company, you might try talking to people with expertise. Better yet, you might even let those with skin in the game manage their own companies. If they make mistakes and the government doesn’t bail them out, bad managers will soon enough be weeded out.