What’s Valuable Now That We Have No Money?

I wish I knew.

When the bottled-water craze began, I remember thinking my Dad wouldn't believe that people would pay $2 a bottle for what's essentially free out of the tap. It's even worse in hotel rooms. I think my hotel-room record is now $7.95; it may have been $8.95. Either way, I wouldn't touch it. I might break it. I vaguely recall something in an economics class about "time and place utility," but that only takes me so far.  I imagine a camera hidden in the room and appearing on Candid Camera if I give in.

Neither have I really understood the economic value created that generated such obscene incomes on Wall Street. Don't get me wrong; I'm not bashing Wall Street salaries, and I don't think high salaries were the cause of our current mess, like most of my fellow citizens apparently do. I realize there is some value in "channeling saving into investment for a more productive economy," but that too only goes so far.  

I'm just as jealous of those who earn even higher incomes playing with a ball. Some people were born with good hand-eye coordination and have a certain facility with round balls-either throwing a large one through a hoop or a small one over the edge of home plate, or whatever.  What is it about balls, anyway, that earns the best of their master more than brain surgeons?

During the Olympics, I don't care much for sprinters because they just grit their teeth and explode and it's all over in about 10 seconds. The winner usually wins by less that a couple of tenths of a second.  Where's the glory in that? It's just a DNA contest that probably could have been settled in a lab. I prefer distance runners or bike racers who have to show themselves and us what they are made of and what they have made of themselves through training.  They must decide how much pain they'll take to come in a little closer to the front of the pack and at what point they retreat into coasting. But it's really too late by race time. The will to win, as they say, means nothing without the will to train. I don't like to see winning without the training. But distance runners don't make much money anyway-compared to ball handlers.

I felt almost sorry for Sherman McCoy, the King of the Universe, in Tom Wolfe's, Bonfire of the Vanities, when his young daughter asked him what he did for a living-in front of his wife and father-in-law no less. After his vain and pitiful attempt to explain to her the importance of bond trading, his daughter announced that her friend's Dad built houses for people. How do you respond to that?

In a class on the history of economic thought, you can learn about a lot of foolish things the old-timers believed in. The Mercantilists were the targets of Adam Smith's, Wealth of Nations, but we can't laugh at them too much because they never went away. They are still with us, riding high, despite the best efforts of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and, my personal favorite, Frederick Bastiat. They may even be winning.

But somewhere back there before the mercantilists were the Physiocrats, who believed that only agriculture created real value and the rest of us are parasites living off the fruit or fat of the land. Chuckle, chuckle. But, you know, if you throw in some carpenters, plumbers, and electricians and other folks who know how to make stuff, I might join the farmers myself, although farming is hard on your manicure.

Many things that people think are valuable, I'm not so sure of.  Sometimes, I fake it, though, to avoid an argument. I recall one evening many years ago, people at a neighborhood party leaning with elbows on the railing, a drink in the other hand, talking about all the places they'd been-all their foreign travel.  I was silent, but tried to keep a straight face.

Not long after that, in a job interview, the head hunter asked me straight out about my foreign travel.  I knew right then I was a dead duck. Canada and Mexico weren't going to impress him.  

So, the next chance I got, I was on a 16-day Greek holiday, including the three-day Greek Isle cruise. What's so wonderful about an island with all-white buildings? This was in the 1980s, but the music in the Greek cafes was pure 1950s U.S. rock and roll. It was great, but, of course, it was before someone took the roll out of rock and roll.

A decade later, during the Asian crisis of the late 1990s, I was on Japan Airlines heading back from Soule to Tokyo. I plugged in my ear phones, and there was Elvis's 1968 Comeback Special. I knew the order of all the songs. There was real value in that.

By now, I've covered much of the globe-not because I enjoyed it so much, but so I could play the "where I've been" game leaning on a rail. I didn't want to go to a lot of places, but I wanted to have been there. But, mainly, what my travels have taught me is that the inside of hotel rooms are the same wherever you are, and the bottled water is just as expensive in poor countries as in rich countries. There's some kind of conceit in that which is not becoming.

Fancy restaurants aren't much different from fancy travel. Their hamburgers aren't any better than those square ones at Wendy's, and you don't have to tip in Wendy's.  Tipping really has the value thing upside down. The more you pay, the more you must tip. That is if you have any tip money left after 4 different baggage handlers manage to get their hands on your small bag while you make it from the taxi to the front desk. And that's after the cab driver gets his and asks you if you want a receipt-which, of course, is always blank, which, I figure, is the first step on the road and boat to Alcatraz. Where's the value in that?

Yes, I've tasted the good life.  I've seen the cowboys play in person-once.  I've seen the Mavericks and Stars play in person-once. I can follow the ball, but not the puck. There are three serious problems for me: traffic, parking, and the absence of John Madden telling me what's happening on the field. And don't get me started on car racing. I don't even think the officials have any idea who is in the lead. Maybe what's valuable to me is just a ride to the game, reserved parking, and a radio or TV announcer talking in my ear, telling me what I'm seeing.

Songwriter and song talker, Tom T. Hall, has a pretty good handle on real value. In one song it's "old dogs, children, and watermelon wine." In another, it's "faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money" in some such order. I'm not even going there.  I just want my money back.