Friday, November 14, 2008

Wish List

I heard my first Christmas song of the season on the radio, which, combined with reading this article, motivated me to start my wish list

1.) I wish my Senator would craft a bill that would make it a federal crime to reduce total economic benefit.

The BBC article informs us that Senator Dianne Feinstein is
Crafting a bill that would make it a federal crime to sell tickets to the historic event.
with the event being Obama's inauguration.

Currently 240,000 tickets are being handed out to the public, free of charge by Senators, while there are reports that tickets are going for as much as $40,000 each.

My assumption is that these tickets are going to friends of(or people that gave money to) the senators. At a minimum they are going to people who would like to see the event.

The bill that Senator Feinstein is purposing would make it a federal crime (meaning that the FBI has jurisdiction to investigate) to use the free market for economic gain, also known as Capitalism.

Using a quick cost benefit rationale, if I received a ticket I would value it at a given amount (say $100). If someone valued seeing Obama's inauguration at $50,000 and offered me $40,000 for the ticket. Common sense would lead me to sell the ticket, amassing $39,900 of benefit for myself, and allowing my counter party to gain $10,000 in economic benefits. Total economic gain to society is $49,900.

I'm not sure why the Senator decided the government needs to be involved in this issue and prevent both sides from gaining.

Due to the public perception that "deregulation" and the "free market" caused our current economic woes, I hope that my Senator will not step in the way of personal decisions.

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