The Economics of Getting Screwed
By Andrew F. Boardman
[email protected]
Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
Watch late night television any night and you'll see hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of infomercials. What causes groups of
(presumably) otherwise intelligent, rational human beings in certain
circumstances to bend over, pull their pants down, and let con
artists have their wicked way with their wallets? Or their votes?
Or their rights?
Here's an exercise: take a guess at how much it costs to buy a
full half hour advertisement on any given channel. Even the late
night cheap spots. Multiply that by the number of times some of the
worst of these infomercials run, and don't forget that many will run
on multiple channels at the same time, some more than once per night
on a given channel.
Now add to that the amount it might cost to produce one of these
infomercials. Keep in mind that, yes, the entire "audience" are paid
extras, and most of these shows are filmed and produced by union
employees.
Infomercials are pretty expensive pieces of work to create and
run constantly, but consider the revenue that the psychic hotlines,
get rich scheme artists, and other "no value high pitch" salesdroids
must be generating in order to afford, and increase, the numbers of
infomercials.
Depressing, isn't it?
Not as depressing as going to a political convention and having
some slick bastard bleeding the audience emotionally, and more to the
point financially, by telling them things you can just tell he
knows better than to believe himself.
After getting quite frustrated by this and other almost identical
situations, I decided to analyze it with the old standby tool:
economics. We know where the dollars are going, but why are the
they there for the con men, and where are they coming from?
Everyone has dreams, prejudices, hobbies, favored forms of
entertainment, etc. Someone who likes to read science fiction is
willing to pay for sci-fi books, watch sci-fi television shows, and
go see sci-fi movies. Someone who likes billiards is willing to buy
books on billiards, buy a billiards table, a nice cue (maybe more
than one, and some crappy ones for his friends to play with), a set
of billiards balls, and a rack. This willingness to spend money in
economics is called "demand". We create demand for the goods and
services we're willing to pay for.
We have demand for things that do not even exist, because if they
were here we would pay for them. A great part of capitalism is
determining what has demand, and creating the good or service, called
"supply". Those goods or services with greater demand will command a
higher price, created higher profits, thus removing resources from
less profitable goods or services, and freeing them up for those with
more demand.
This is the oft-referred to "invisible hand of the marketplace",
as coined by Adam Smith. The market is a self-correcting mechanism,
where resources are moved from goods and services with lower demand
to those with higher demand.
The problem does not have to do with those who create psychic
hotlines, get rich quick schemes, nor political con men. They are
only reacting to demand! The problem is with those who provide the
demand. These people have little demands within them, often things
they are willing to pay to hear. Some examples:
"Life is harder now that it ever was for anybody before.""You can lose weight and look better without any effort!"
"Your failure isn't your fault!"
"Health care is a right, you should get it for free!"
"Jobs are rights, too! You should get one no matter what your qualifications, intelligence, skills, or education."
"All your problems can be solved by the supernatural!"
"Most Americans are already Libertarians, they just don't know it!"
When enough demand is generated for these statements, it is only
a matter of time before a capitalist, ever on the prowl for needs to
be met, will supply the statements. Sometimes even semi-credibly.
Not that it often matters, because anyone with that kind of a demand
is more than willing to meet the supplier half way (especially if
supply is low).
The demand is caused by people who don't have the ethical and
intellectual backbone required to face these demands within
themselves and say, "Wait, this is utterly stupid."
Blaming the supply side might be helpful as a stress outlet, but
it is useless in fixing the problem. The market will always bring us
suppliers if the demand is great enough. Fighting fundamental
economic truths is the job of the government, not you. And it's
pointless for them, too.
The solution is, and can only be, getting rid of enough demand so
that the market shifts resources away from the con artists and
towards more productive uses.
How do you do this? First and foremost, while we all tend to
have a sense of what a person or a group wants us to say, we must
avoid this at all costs! If you do not, you are reacting to the
demand, rather than trying to affect it. You will have no effect on
a person if you tell them what they already want to hear.
You must tell them what they do not want to hear. Loudly, and
confidently. If you have something you want to tell them is that
they want to hear, put it off until you've finished telling them all
the things that they don't want to hear. Once you've shown them that
you are not a supplier, not out to stroke their ego for reward, only
then is it okay to tell them they were right in a few cases.
People will not be changed, demand will not be altered, when that
person perceives that you are a supplier. "Why think? He said I was
right!"
The correct response is:
"You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong wrong wrong!"
Andrew F. Boardman is a Software Development Engineer for a privately
held company in Denver, CO. He has been a libertarian (the
"non-aggression principle" kind) for 10 years, and is a founding
member of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus. He recently lost
the election for the L.P. State Chair position in Colorado, and has
been more relaxed ever since.
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