I was in e-mail contact with Gard Goldsmith a couple of days ago, and he told me a story that I thought perfectly exemplified the difference between the way markets operate, and the way the government/political world operates. Gard, hope you don't mind me taking your story and running with it!

It starts with him mentioning that he ran into a lady at work who was looking for the book "New Moon, which is the second in the best-selling "Twilight" series, by Stephanie Meyer (you're right G-Man, she's a pretty lady!). Well, this woman told Gard that her daughter loved the series and that they'd called their library to get it, but that there was a TWELVE person waiting list for it!

Gard's friend's bookstore, "Annie's Bookstop", on the other hand, HAD it, for half-price! The woman saved some money, which is good, since that woman already had some of her cash taken to fund the library that didn't respond to her daughter's interests.

The key here is that the library serves political agendas, and has to carry things that aren't even sustainable in the market at the levels they fund them in government. Garrison Keillor is an example. Filling the library with his new poetry anthology to the tune of dozens of copies for a "reading group" doesn't seem to match consumer demand, but it certainly matches the political agenda of leftists on staff at the library who love the utterly boring Garrison Keillor. So, shelf space is reserved for things on which people normally wouldn't waste that much money, while popular items can't be gotten as swiftly as the market demands.

Now, imagine that "New Moon" is a liver transplant, or a special eye exam, or a procedure for skin cancer that, well, COULD wait, but would do better if it were done early. The same lesson applies: government payment turns away from freedom, turns away from market demand and the supply that responds to it, and harms people. Market freedom provides abundance and decreasing prices as productivity increases.

The sad thing is that this little girl may some day have to deal with a government-run health system that works as inefficiently as the library, and then, it won't just be the girl's reading intersts that are at stake.

Be Seeing Ya!