I’ve been going to physical therapy for my left hip and leg and realized that pretty much everything I do there I can do at home if I get just a few more relatively cheap pieces of equipment. I’ll save time and money and I’ll save my insurance company even more money. Of course I don’t value a dollar saved for the insurance company at a dollar, but I value it more than zero. I care about others, after all, whether they be the insurance company or other beneficiaries.
So I went on the web and looked for 2 kettle ball weights. Sure enough I found a good deal on Amazon, especially when you consider that Amazon eats the shipping cost.
That got me wondering: “What don’t they have?” I’m sure there are many things: cars and houses, for example. But a huge percent (over 50?) of consumer goods seem to be available on Amazon.
Somehow that reminded me of the following joke that either Mr. Peel in middle school or Mr. Jasper in high school told the class.
A guy goes into a restaurant and sees a big sign: “If we can’t provide the food item you want, we’ll give you a check for $500.”
Wanting to make the money, he orders an elephant ear sandwich. He waits and waits, and finally the manager comes to him with a check for $500.
“You didn’t have elephant ears, did you?” asks the customer triumphantly.
“Oh, no sir, that wasn’t the problem,” answers the manager. “We’re well stocked with elephant ears. It’s just that we ran out of the right size bread this morning.”
I love Amazon and I love free markets.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Dec 11 2021 at 10:50am
I feel the same way about both markets in general and Amazon in particular.
I do sometimes worry that genuine admiration for markets blinds us to circumstances (climate change, R&D, in which taxes or regulation could improve on an already good situation. This is not to say that many taxes and regulations are either not as good as the could be or sometimes actually harmful.
Philo
Dec 11 2021 at 1:48pm
Whatever the situation, there are government actions that could improve it. Still, it would be very unwise to invest government with the power to “make things better” in general.
Jon Murphy
Dec 11 2021 at 2:06pm
“Could” is a long away away from “will.” “Could” can mean “has a 1% change of improving” to “has a 99.9% chance of improving.”
My opinion based off my research: Even ignoring public choice issues, the theoretical conditions needed for government intervention to improve market outcomes are extremely strong. Empirically, those who call for intervention often make basic mistakes in their analysis (see, for example, The Pigou Problem by John Nye).
Mark Barbieri
Dec 11 2021 at 11:13am
You might benefit from Amazon more than you realize. From my experience, it seems like the price of virtually everything is higher in the part of California where you live compared to the part of Texas I live in. Yet we both pay the same price for stuff on Amazon. So you get a larger discount over the local cost.
David Henderson
Dec 11 2021 at 11:25am
Interesting. Thanks.
Dylan
Dec 11 2021 at 2:06pm
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Dynamic pricing means all sorts of things go into what price you’re displayed, including your zip code, device you’re using, whether you’ve looked at the item before. I did some testing with online travel sites and Amazon a few years back when I was looking at somethings. With two different computers, and one on a VPN that put me in a different part of the country and using a private browsing window. Lots of pricing differences, although it wasn’t uniform on which setup gave me a better price.
Danno
Dec 11 2021 at 1:16pm
I like Amazon too but sometimes their customer service is horrible. I hate customer service chat bots. Yesterday I had a problem with a wrong item being delivered. Amazon blamed the third-party seller and I needed to wait 48 hours before initiating a claim with Amazon.
Dylan
Dec 11 2021 at 2:11pm
Customer service, particularly from big companies, is almost always horrible. But, I’ve generally found Amazon to be the exception to that rule. And it isn’t by accident, Amazon’s dedication to customer service is drilled into the employees. There not perfect of course, but I’ve had much, much better experience with them than someone like the cable or phone company, and much better than other big tech companies like Alphabet, Microsoft, or Netflix.
David Seltzer
Dec 13 2021 at 5:08pm
Love the elephant ears joke. Years ago in NJ, blue laws prohibited the sales of apparel on Sundays. Retailers decided to give dresses away but charged the customer for the hangers on which various dresses were hung.
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