{"id":959,"date":"2022-04-29T23:30:56","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T03:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/?p=959"},"modified":"2023-05-06T16:47:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T20:47:07","slug":"when-larry-met-sally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/?p=959","title":{"rendered":"When Larry Met Sally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scarcity.\u00a0 The very term conjures up images of long lines of people hoping to get food from empty shelves in the old Soviet Union or the proverbial barren landscape devoid of growth and warmth that features just as often in romantic poems from a hundred years ago as in the dystopian motion pictures of modern times.\u00a0 But we while we should continue to enjoy the melodramatic images of such works of art as T.S. Eliot\u2019s the Wasteland<\/em> or Suzanne Collins' the Hunger Games<\/em>, the word scarcity should actually summon mundane images of our day-to-day lives since each of us lives with scarcity simply because we can't get everything we want.\u00a0 And for such humdrum settings such as one's ordinary life being a vehicle to convey economic (or any kind of) wisdom, no better medium exists than the standup comedy routine at the hands of a skillful comedian.<\/p>\n

The specific comedian who will be the featured player of this installment is Larry Miller.\u00a0 Larry is a well-known comic who is famous for some of the most hilarious and insightful routines like the 5 Levels of Drinking<\/a><\/em> or The Secret of Skiing<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 He is also, by his own admission, a character actor and, to anyone whose had the pleasure to see him in Pretty Woman<\/a><\/em>, For Richer or Poorer<\/a><\/em>, or 10 Things I Hate About You<\/a><\/em>, a very good one at that.<\/p>\n

Back to economics.\u00a0 Larry has a wonderful way of encapsulating the essential character of things within a very funny message (his mannerisms don\u2019t hurt the presentation either).\u00a0 To wit, consider this terse take on the economy.<\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/LarryMilleEconomy.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

In the space of about a minute he lays out the universal scenario for scarcity: on one hand, the want or need for a good or service and, on the other hand, the lack of resources to make or to trade for the good or service being sought.\u00a0 And the good news didn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0 He boldly went on to proclaim the final piece of the puzzle, the fact that often the scenario doesn\u2019t have a happy ending and the desire remains frustrated and unfulfilled.<\/p>\n

It is that last point, that denial of many of our wants is inevitable, which modern thought finds disturbing.\u00a0 So disturbing, in fact, that many of us delude ourselves in thinking that is just shouldn\u2019t be this way.<\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019s fun to laugh at his characterization of \u2018people in Washington\u2019 who, upon realizing that they can\u2019t afford the Ferrari they very much want, choose to order not just a single red one but enough red ones so that every member of the House and the Senate (hence the number 535) can be seen cruising around Dupont Circle in theirs.\u00a0 But we should be careful about how far we throw our scorn, as these \u2018people\u2019 represent us and, as a quote attributed to H.L. Mencken says<\/p>\n

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.<\/div>\n

We should be laughed right alongside these \u2018people in Washington\u2019 precisely because most of us think we \u2018deserve\u2019 not to have to say to ourselves \u201ctherefore I won\u2019t get one.\u201d<\/p>\n

To illustrate this point, consider this brief anecdote.\u00a0 There was as old show that often aired on PBS called Economics USA<\/a><\/em>, one of the many shows in the line of Annenberg CPB-funded educational programs (now branded under Annenberg Learner).\u00a0 The episode in question (now seemingly lost with the modern revision) compared and contrasted two men who had started on the assembly line.\u00a0 One of them accepted a position as a manager and moved up to a higher paying job but with greater responsibility.\u00a0 The other wanted to stay on the assembly line but begrudged the first one making more money than he did.\u00a0 This worker said something to the effect that \u201cit wasn\u2019t fair that those guys made more money\u201d and he wondered why only they should have more when ordinary guys like him deserve \u201ca boat and two houses\u201d too.\u00a0 Okay, maybe not the height of comedy but the shear willful disregard made me laugh.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this anecdote isn\u2019t universal enough to convince the skeptical reader.\u00a0 Consider this brief clip from the Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em> in which Sally, Charlie\u2019s younger sister, asks her older brother to help her write a letter to Santa.\u00a0 After some polite if perfunctory remarks to that jolly old elf, Sally\u2019s dictation takes a \u201ccommercial\u201d turn in which she begins listing all the things she deserves for Christmas and ends with the famous line \u201cAll I want is what I have coming to me! All I want is my fair share!\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/FairShare.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

There you have it: the entire tension in our modern economy is boiled down to the competition between \u201cTherefore I won\u2019t get one!<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cAll I want is my fair share!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, in days of yore when people really were poor and labored in bad conditions, the rallying cry to get a fair share did have a moral spine.\u00a0 But in today\u2019s advanced standard of living, it isn\u2019t easy to side with Sally over Larry.\u00a0 Too often Sally\u2019s position is simply a sanitized way of saying I want not only what my neighbors have (even if they worked harder than I did), I want more.\u00a0 And thus, envy rears its ugly head and green eyes.<\/p>\n

I call it envy because it is frankly hard to call it anything else.\u00a0 The key to many decisions made by \u2018rational actors\u2019 in the economy seem to hinge far more making sure one comes out ahead of everyone else rather than that one has what one needs or has earned.\u00a0 And much of our modern life emphasizes it.<\/p>\n

We see baseball players holding out for more money just to be able to brag that they have the bigger paycheck.\u00a0 We see people buying products they don\u2019t need for more than they can afford just to \u2018keep up with the Jones\u2019. We see young people accumulating enormous levels of debt just to say they went to college.\u00a0 All throughout these examples the common theme of envy weaves its way through, and advertisers make sure to stir the pot by continuously pushing a message that is best summarized as an old radio thirty-second spot succinctly put it \u201cYou know you want it; you know you deserve it!\u201d.<\/p>\n

While I am sure I don\u2019t know how to determine who deserves what, I am sure that we would all be a lot better off if we behave much more like Larry and far, far less like Sally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scarcity.\u00a0 The very term conjures up images of long lines of people hoping to get food from empty shelves in the old Soviet Union or the proverbial barren landscape devoid... Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commoncents.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}