Sunday, March 15, 2009

So I'm Watching MANSWERS...

And they ask the question;

"How much can a pimp make?"

Among the many interesting statistics (women pull an average of .7 tricks per hour, roughly translating into $560/day in earnings), the most interesting was the average cut the pimp takes.

25%?

33%?

50%?

No, they take on average 80% of the earnings.

I personally have a hard time believing it, but given it's the black market and thus no government intervention and thus a truly free market, there has to be a logical reason for an 80% cut.

I'm think the women need to form a union.

Jimmy Hoffa, where are you?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"So I'm Watching MANSWERS..."

I'll feel ashamed for you, in case you don't. :)

Actually, I wouldn't say that prostitution is a free market. A market where every participant is arrested on sight and in which every transaction is illegal is arguably the least free market imaginable.

It's precisely because the shadow of government is looming over the prostitution industry that prostitutes take such a small percentage. Prostitutes, because they have to hide their job from the government, have to fall back on the protection of a pimp. That kind of environment makes their relative negotiating power extremely lopsided.

I'd be interested in seeing what percentage the legal prostitutes in Nevada keep. I'd imagine it would be much higher.

Anonymous said...

It's questionable to call a black market a free market. Even basic laws (e.g. right to property, right to form a union) don't exist in a black market.

How could the prostitutes form a union in a black market? There is clearly some power asymmetry between them and the pimps. And they have nowhere to go to claim their rights.

Again, politics cause more trouble instead of solving problems. They wanna help prostituting women? Then legalize prostitution.

Alex said...

Heh. The pimps ARE the government, as far as the prostitutes are concerned.

You were joking, right?

Anonymous said...

Would it be fair to call Obama and Pelosi PIMPS? Are they going to take 85% of our hard earned money??

Hot Sam said...

I wish I had seen that. Definitely exploitation. I don't think gangsters take that much of a cut.

This weekend mustve been gang week on cable. I saw shows on the Irish gangs in Boston, Crips and Bloods in LA, and the Aryan Brotherhood. It's amazing the money these people could make, even while in prison. A 15 year old could make $4000 a day selling crack and get his own mother hooked. 'So easy, a child could do it' one seller said.

Some were making fortunes in drugs and murder while working as FBI informants. Their relatives were politicians. Unreal. It really makes you wonder how much corruption we have in big city politics.

The Tenderloin in SF and NY got their names from the cuts of meat the cops there could afford from all the bribe money they got.

Where's Batman when we need him.

Anonymous said...

"Jimmy Hoffa, where are you?"

Wasn't that the question of a lifetime?!

I think I know, if you're interested...

The Big Seester

Bike Bubba said...

Actually, I think that there IS a union, associated pretty closely with the Socialist Party, for "ladies" of the night in the San Francisco bay area. (where else?)

Dunno about the "free market" in prostitution, though, as significant portions of the participants are pretty much initiated into the profession at gunpoint--or by some vicious crime or drug use. Which would also explain the "cut" that the pimp takes, and why many European nations don't ban prostitution, but do ban pimps.