Parsimony

Lionel Messi signed a $41 million contract with Paris St Germain. I don’t follow soccer too much. My parents are both Scottish so Glasgow Celtic jerseys can be found throughout the house. I also played as a youngster but although I keep track of what goes on in Europe I am no expert. But is Lionel Messi the Tom Brady of soccer or sorry football? European football that is. Another gifted young man that found his sport and excelled. But $41 million? Really? No one. No one. No one should make $41m. No soccer player. No football player. No basketball player (where $41 million is quite common). No business person.

And the only reason they make that much money is because all of us fans are idiots! We are idiots because we pay the prices they ask. But it goes further than that. My fundamental challenge with people spending money is that they pay too much for everything. And that hurts the cheap, parsimonious guy like me. I routinely will go out with the family and say to myself, okay don’t be cheap, spend whatever it takes. And then when we get to the arena, ballpark, mall, theme park, the prices are ridiculous, nonsensical, criminal!

But if there is a guy like me that is cheap there are obviously guys and gals out there that are the complete opposite. It’s not that they necessarily have money and can afford it, it's that they have absolutely no sense of the value of something. A $20 beer at an arena seems a bit outlandish doesn’t it? A $5 bottle of water? A $7 ice cream bar? Yet I’m the bad guy. I’m the cheap guy for trying to get my kids to guzzle down 3 bottles of water each before entering said venues. I’m the cheap guy for hitting the convenience store on the way to stock up on whatever the kids want. All in $15 bucks vs. $75 at the final destination.

You may respond with the only reason that Messi can be paid that much is because the big corporations are paying hefty advertising dollars to get their products in front of the idiot fans. And that would be true but only supports my theory further.

Everything we buy, everything, is overpriced. It’s not priced so that the owner that took risks and paid employees and supplied a needed commodity or product could fairly receive a reasonable profit and income for its venture and risk. It’s priced to what the market will bear. What the ultimate idiot will pay. If you have no idea what I’m talking about YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Get some financial sense!

There are definitely those that have more money than they know what to do with so therefore can afford to pay whatever is asked but they make up a small percentage. (they are of course the owners of the businesses that are selling the overpriced products.)

There is a house in the small town next to ours that is asking $7m! It’s nice but not that nice. And whose in that snack bracket that they can live in what is an otherwise normal neighbourhood but pay that kind of money? An idiot. That’s who. I recall the supply and demand curve in school. I never remember which curve is which but I know that if demand decreases prices will go down. Remember, I’m not that smart but that’s pretty simple. If you don’t pay for the $5 bottle they will decrease the price. If you don’t buy the expensive shirt, they will decrease the price. I go as far as looking at a shirt that they are asking $100 for and think, that must have cost $5 to make. So Mr Shirt Company owner drives a Maserati, lives in a $7m house and vacations in his villa in France because some dumb ass thinks he looks good in a $5 shirt and donated $95 to the owner.

I just saw a website that will make you a custom t-shirt. The guy in the ad on Youtube says, and I’m not kidding, ‘...and don’t worry the prices are great!’ $68! For a t-shirt! And that’s US DOLLARS. Not Pesos or Yuan or Rubles. I don’t care how great a shirt it is, it’s a t-shirt. But they had 800+ reviews averaging 4.6 *’s. Who are these people. Bots maybe? Or just IDIOTS!!! So now every time I see someone driving a nice car, a really nice car, I know they are being overpaid. I know they are charging too much for their product or their service. Doctors. Lawyers. Financial Advisors. Manufacturers. But you can’t blame them. They are working with market forces. And market forces are driven by idiots. So for the benefit of us all, please, please, please, stop being an idiot! And don’t you dare spend $68 on a t-shirt.