Almost two months ago I attended a Saturday lecture series with my dad at Stanford where one of the topics was about the ethics and morality of markets. The basic question that was posed was whether everything should be for sale. The speaker talked about how in some country a cheating person can pay a service to provide an alibi to their spouse or significant other about where they were on a particular night. There were other examples, but this idea came to mind last weekend while the HyWy, her brother, and I were in Los Angeles. We went to a theme park and as is the trend in theme parks everywhere these days you can buy passes for the front of the line. I'm surprised this revenue stream didn't exist when we were younger. Back then everyone waited in the same line and the only people that went faster were those that got there earlier. It seems that once the park squeezed the last bit of money they could they invented a new way to get more money by having people pay to cut in front of others.
At what point will everything cease to be for sale? I wonder if one day police officers will carry around credit card machines to allow traffic law violators to pay on the spot with a credit card (so there is no possibility of bribery) and if they do so they could pay less money than those who wait for a court date and/or traffic school. I guess if people are willing to pay for something a market will be created.
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