I have never professed to understand the ins and outs of economics, and taking a college course in this subject just proved to me that I should leave it the heck alone. All those supply and demand graphs looked good on paper but the whole concept seemed to me to be a master plan for a type of legal fraud.
Take the very American holiday known as Thanksgiving. For weeks before, the price of gas (petrol to us Limeys) had been slowly sinking; to our great delight. Then the great Thanksgiving shopping hype began, and for just a few days around the 4th Thursday in November the price of gas skyrocketed. It’s supply and demand, I was told. Then explain to me why this concept doesn’t apply to other commodities that are time/date sensitive. Why doesn’t coffee cost more in the mornings? That’s when more coffee is consumed. To be fair, the same system applies to hotel rooms. When a hotel room is available most of the year for about $60 a night (just an arbitrary figure), why does the same room cost double, or even triple because some well known people are clouting a wee white ball around on some very nicely mown grassy golf course in the area? You and I know that said hotel is still paying the same for their power and other utilities, so what gives them the idea that they can up the cost of a night’s stay? Yeah, I know! Supply and demand. What really amazes me is the brainwashing that these hotel guests seem to have had. They all know that the prices are jacked up beyond reason for these few days, but they happily, and with no malice aforethought, go right ahead and book for the next year at the inflated price! Same as air travel. The plane fills up with passengers and flies from point A to point B, all things being equal, with the passenger paying x hundred dollars. Now – same plane, same passenger load, same route, but a change of date and the price spirals. The plane still travels at the same speed, still employs the same number of service personnel, still consumes the same amount of fuel, but because it is now Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring break the air fare is doubled/tripled/quadrupled. This is why I have never understood why it costs more to travel at the weekend. One would think it would cost less because most people who work during the week have more time to travel at weekends, and therefore the planes would be full. But let me tell you gentle reader that this is not the case! Want to fly at the weekend? That’s prime travel time, for which we are going to make you pay through the nose! It may well be the law of supply and demand, but to my obviously non economically trained brain, it’s just wrong.
I am sure that if any economists are bored enough to take the time to read this blog, they will be laughing cynically and giving pitying looks to anyone who cares to observe them. This probably explains why I never seem to get ahead financially. My demand is high, but the supply seems a little lacking these days. What am I doing wrong, people?