Supply and demand.

Please close your eyes, stop your busy brain for a second, and say those three words.  Give me a quick one-sentence explanation of what it means to you.

Okay, ready?

Supply and demand.  Did that phrase register with you?  Was it a simple concept, an obvious and common thing like salt and pepper?  Or did it kind of bounce off, a hazy theory, something you have heard of, but never really thought about?

Even if you can’t give a pretty definition, you probably do understand the concept.  While economists can discuss nuances of the law of  supply and demand for years, the basic concept is simple and intuitive:  the less there is of something, the more valuable it is.  A pound of gold is worth more than a pound of rocks, because there are a lot of rocks in the world, and only a little bit of gold.

Supply and demand is why we get up in the morning and go to work.  We have needs and wants, we want our families to live better.  Every single waking moment of our lives we are active on both sides of the law of supply and demand.  We want to improve ourselves so that the demand for what we do is higher (competition), so we can make more money.  Others want to get our money, so they try to provide something we demand (competition).  The price of everything in the world is controlled by supply and demand.

I can think of no concept more critical to the success of every human being than a gut-level understanding of the law of supply and demand.  It is as undeniable and righteous as the law of gravity.  It should be the basis of our education system.  Sadly, it isn’t.  In fact the law of supply and demand is increasingly ignored, denied and dismissed in our schools, in the media, and certainly by our government.

To keep this sermon to a manageable length, here is an illustration:  if you had a choice between two identical loaves of bread – one cost a dollar and the other cost two dollars – which one would you buy with your own money?  Duh.

Now, if you had a choice between two employees doing the same work – one cost $50,000 and the other cost $100,000 – which one would you buy with your own money?  Double Duh!  So why do federal employees receive more than DOUBLE the compensation of the private-sector employees who pay their salaries?

How can that happen?  The law of supply and demand has been broken.  There is no scarcity of federal employees (over a half million of them make more than $100,000 per year).  They are no more valuable than their private-sector counterparts.  What’s going on here?

The answer is:  Corruption.  Pay to play.  Quid pro quo.  We have allowed government employees to unionize.  The unions promise money, logistical support, and votes to elected officials in exchange for more union jobs and higher pay and benefits.  Get me elected, I’ll pay you back, with somebody else’s money. Pay me back, I’ll get you elected.  The taxpayer has no input or control over this.  It is a done deal.  The law of supply and demand has been broken, and until we eliminate government employee unions, this corruption will escalate until our economy and nation is destroyed.

There are many more examples of government breaking the law of supply and demand – crooked contracts, cronyism, manipulating interest rates, all the things that make elected officials stinking rich.  But this one – government employee unions – is the big kahuna, because of the vast number of people involved.  ObamaCare promises another 21 million government union employees.  It’s the perfect crime.

I can’t help but wonder if more Americans understood and recognized and respected and enforced the law of supply and demand, would they hold their government accountable?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

These days the buck stops nowhere
No one takes the blame
But evil is still evil
In anybody’s name
If dirt were dollars
If dirt were dollars
If dirt were dollars
We’d all be in the black

If Dirt Were Dollars – Don Henley