The Fallacy of Supply Regulation

We all know, at least in sketchy terms, of the concept of "supply and demand." This is something that the government willfully ignores and the willful ignorance is on a bipartisan basis.

Here is a principle that the government, and I mean at all levels, ignores: If there is a demand, a supply will be made available.

Here is a second concept: If the demand is there, trying to stop the supply will only drive up the price.

Here is a third: If enough people want the supplied item and the government outlaws the item, the government will only turn the population into criminals.

Let's start with the obvious: Prohibition, the "noble experiment" of writing socitial goals into the Constitution by ratifying the 18th Amendment. It was a complete and utter failure. Once the legal sources of supply were abolished, criminal networks sprung up to supply the demand. The government tried to stop the supply, but the demand was so strong and the money was so good for the criminals that the government had to surrender the effort.

All throughout Prohibition, there were few attempts to choke off demand, for alcohol was (and is) the drug of choice of the majority of Americans. The Astors, the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers were not going to go to jail for having a liquor cabinet or a wine cellar.

But the prohibitionists never learn, they shifted instead to the next "killer menace", drugs. I wrote about that here, so I won't go into the governmental stupidity aspect now. The attempts to control the demand for drugs has been pathetic and, at their core, racist, for the efforts to crack down on drug users have focused primarily on Blacks.

So now we come to illegal immigration and the demand by the mouth-frothers of the GOP for border fences and all other manners of idiotic proposals. Here is a truth to wrap your heads around: You do not see a lot of people from wealthy countries jumping the border. The illegal immigrants are (largely) economic migrants seeking economic opportunity. Life is very hard in their home countries and the jobs beckon here.

And yes, the same thing is going on with guns, in the attempts by various mayors to "crack down" on the gun trade.

If you want to change things, you have to work the demand side as well as the supply side. If you want an easy example, ask yourself if you have seen a "pet rock" for sale in a store recently. (Google that if you're under 35.) The demand for SUVs and the bigger pickups has fallen off as a result of the price of gasoline rising.

But demand side controls are not popular. No politician is going to support tossing a bunch of white suburban kids into prison for having some reefer, at least not any politician who wants to be re-elected. And if the price of stopping the illegal migrants translates into far higher food costs and farmers going out of business, you can bet your sweet ass that the thugs in the GOP will shut up about this, let the employers hire illegals with no penalty (as they did int he 1980s) and find another issue to scream about.

There's always gay marriage for them to demagogue about, and I'll tear into them on that at a later time.