This past Spring Break, there was a warning issued to college students leaving for Mexico. Basically It said... "Stay away from Mexico". There have been 100's of murders recently, and the armed forces of both the United States and the Mexico have been called in to take care of the situation. Some people looked at the dilemma and thought that things must be real bad across the border for something like that to happen. We feel like we should really go after those awful awful drug lords who are murdering and killing people. The truth is, while that aspect of the problem is most visible on the news, the real problem and fault lies in our own neighborhoods here in the the good 'ol US of A.
After graduating from college, I can't say that everything I learned stuck with me. One principle that was hammered home over several semesters, however, was that of Supply and Demand. There are a few complex concepts involved in it, but here are a couple of the basics.
1) A producer can only stay viable selling a product or service that someone is willing to buy.
2)If there is no buyer, there is no reason for the business to exist.
3)A business owner will only lose so much money before deciding to move on to something different.
4) The greater the demand, the higher the price people are willing to pay to get it.
5) The more profitable it is to a producer to make or do something, the more he or she is willing to invest or do to keep those profits coming in.
Those are some of the basics and hopefully they're very logical ideas.
You see, if for example, Honda tried to sell a car here in the U.S, and nobody bought it, they wouldn't offer it here. In fact that type of thing is very prevalent in the business community. As a business, you want to find a product you can sell. If the car isn't selling, you pull it.
How does all this apply to the title of this post? Bluntly speaking, things such as drugs and sex-slave human trafficking are businesses. The reason they stay in business? Because we are their demand.
If we didn't ask for the drugs, or were willing to pay for them, countries producing them would stop sending them our way. Women and children being raped and plundered in human trafficking? Yeah, the reason those women and innocent little kids are being trafficked is because people know that if they get them across the border, there is a market of Americans willing to pay for them.
And what of the soldiers and civilians that die, trying to fight the drug lords? Those are what economists refer to as "negative externalities" or unintended negative consequences. We send "our finest"... the proud the few.... the servicemen and women into battle to fight. What are they fighting? Mexicans who just love killing Americans? Nope, they're fighting our addictions. They're fighting the "good times" we have at parties. The difference between the hits of this drug or that which we take at parties, and the hits our soldiers take in the battle field? Our hits will leave our system after a couple minutes or hours. Their hits will end their lives.
Next time we look at the problems of the world and wonder why it's so terrible "out there," maybe instead we should take an account of how things are going right here. As we're buying our marijuana, cocaine, heroine, etc, that "really isn't hurting anybody but ourselves"... realize that the cost needs to include and reflect the cost and worth of your buddy who just got sent off to war. All those costs need to be taken into account. After all, It's a matter of Supply and Demand.
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Good write up. It is sad to think that we are sending American's to fight our own addictions.
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