Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A Lesson In Supply and Demand

Alright Junior, Aspiring, Deputy, Official and Otherwise Economists!

Test time!

Read this and translate it using the chart below!


And a second question young men.

"What lesson did the wonderful world of economics teach us from this experiment?"

16 comments:

Bullitt315 said...

What ever happened to "fraud"?

Even if he has to pay support for the ridiculous "best for the kids" test she is still guilty of fraud. We don't punish people for perjury or fraud anymore and we wonder why more people are committing perjury and fraud...

Jose said...

"What lesson did the wonderful world of economics teach us from this experiment?"

Since the S2 line is not a vertical atop the y axis, I can conclude that information about the real risks of donating or freezing sperm have yet to percolate to the general UK male population. Either that or there's a non-trivial number of unbelievably stupid men in the UK.

Aeroguy said...

Proves me wrong, I thought freezing your seed and getting snipped was the safe route. If you want to have the option of having kids I guess you're going to be vulnerable no matter what. You can chalk that as another point in favor of the Captain's position on having kids.

Anonymous said...

We should murder our offspring

Ryan Fuller said...

Come on people, those are terrible answers!

I would say that the legal abuse detailed here increases the cost of both marriage and sperm donation, resulting in fewer men willing to go that route.

End result is a shortage of husbands and sperm, as indicated by the new intersection of supply and demand being further to the left on the X axis.

Ecclesiastes said...

The graph shows that lower costs of production yield greater total return even at lower prices.

I don't see how this applies to the described situation ... yet.

Sonny Ortega said...

How in the frickin hell can this court ruling be legal? This is insane!

Robert said...

"We should murder our offspring"

Women are already doing this by the millions. Men have no "choice" in the matter.

Anonymous said...

Who says crime doesn't pay?

Ryan Fuller said...

I can't be the only one here apart from the Captain who knows what supply and demand curves look like.

P is price. Q is quantity. S1 and S2 are different supply curves, with S2 showing higher prices.

The graph shows how higher prices (a steeper supply curve) result in lower quantity demanded. (the quantity demanded is further to the left at the market clearing price with the higher prices)

The story shows a guy getting hit with unexpected costs imposed upon him by a woman who is unquestionably evil. If the price of marriage goes up, less guys will get married.

Taking it a step further, if you assume that the demand in question here is men's demand for marriage, we can see that from supply curve S1 the producer and consumer surplus are about equal. When women can impose enormous costs on men through fraud (S2), the price of marriage at the market clearing level is much higher and the vast majority of the economic surplus goes to women.

It makes a life of reading, video games and anime a little more appealing by comparison.

Ecclesiastes said...

Higher litigation costs will result in fewer children?

Later in life, women are faced with a reduced ability to have children. This will justify ever more extraordinary efforts to have them, but the total return to society will be less?

Reduced numbers of men qualified to be fathers will justify ever more extraordinary and expensive efforts to breed with them, but the total return to society will be less?

As one becomes older, life is more precious, but this won't justify deferred rewards?

Lawyers make everything worse?

Come on, Aaron. Help us out here. What is the product?

Captain Capitalism said...

Ah, very good tries junior, deputy, aspiring or otherwise economists. The correct answer I was looking for was;

Underground economy.

Anonymous said...

By "underground economy", do you mean that women will bypass the artificial insemination market (due to rising costs and smaller sperm supply) and bypass the marriage market because more men will drop from the eligible bachelor pool, meaning they will get it done outside these markets by one night stands? or having "friends with benefits".

Ryan Fuller said...

I'm not seeing the "underground economy" angle in your graph, captain.

I'm declaring Death of the Author on this one. I like my interpretation better. :)

Captain Capitalism said...

Mr. Fuller,

All you must do is search "underground economy" and "insemination" and you will see just how far society has collapsed.

Ecclesiastes said...

I think I deserve at least half credit for:

"Reduced numbers of men qualified to be fathers will justify ever more extraordinary and expensive efforts to breed with them, but the total return to society will be less?"