5 Truly Outrageous Conspiracies Promoted By Celebrities

Wow. I didn’t realize that Marion Cotillard is as dumb as a box of rocks

She’s mighty cute, though.

3 thoughts on “5 Truly Outrageous Conspiracies Promoted By Celebrities

  1. I’m not laughing too hard at item 2, the CIA creating Facebook and Google. I really had to think about that one…

    1. As an economist, this is what I think Facebook and Google are about. If you check out a supply and demand graph, you’ll note that where supply and demand cross at the agreed upon market price (the price is only set at the price where supply and demand cross with perfect competition, but that doesn’t alter my argument) there are people who are willing to pay more. For example, if supply and demand cross at $6, there are still people who are willing to pay $7 or $8 or $9…

      This ability and the market price to pay higher than the market price is known as ‘consumer surplus.’ A person who is willing and able to pay $9 for a good or service priced at $6 is said to have a $3 consumer surplus.

      Economists are quite good at figuring out the factors that estimate the maximum price people are willing to pay. I think so is the information that Facebook and Google capture from people and sell to companies and so are the algorithms those companies use to analyse the data on individuals.

      People seem creeped out that they’ll discuss something on Facebook or Twitter or over their smart phone and then soon after see an ad online that dealt with what they were discussing. I’ll bet anything that the price every person sees attached to that ad is slightly different.

      Another way to look at it, that would be easier for the businesses to get away with is to set a maximum price. So, for the $6 good in my example, the business would charge a base price of $10 (this wouldn’t capture all consumer surplus, but nearly all of it) and then offer discounts to people. Since the market price is $6, most people would be offered a $4 discount, but some people would be offered $3, $2, $1.

      In economics, this is called ‘capturing consumer surplus.’ Rent seeking, a form of regulatory capture is the most known example of businesses engaging in capturing consumer surplus, but what I’ve argued above is much more sophisticated.

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