It's good to laugh at ourselves sometimes. When you think of free market this week, most people might guess that I mean the historic 777 point drop in the stock market yesterday. Perhaps the failed $700B bailout legislation? Nope. Rather, last week I listed my first item for sale on eBay. A coworker told me to trust the market and list things at a low price. Don't worry about a reserve she said. So that's what I did, and before long people were throwing quarters and dimes at my item. I was selling an unopened box of 1989 Fleer baseball cards. It's a good test case, since frankly I have several. Well, before it was over the bid went up to $4.14 a few days ago, and thus another first - I sold my first item on eBay. I've learned a few things about shipping costs in the last week - things that I never really wanted to know.
But this post is not about that; it's about the free market. So, here is the ode. In 1987 the box cost around $20. From what I could tell, boxes might now be worth $15 if you're lucky. Mine brought a total of $12. 64. The post office got $8.64, and I came home with $4.00. And I think I should get some credit here for helping the post office. Our mail carrier is a really, really nice lady, so I don't feel so bad. But actually, I didn't come home with the money...my eBay skills are still developing...actually my wife got the money because it went to her PayPal account instead of mine. So at the end of this day, I didn't bring home any cash, but I sure learned a lot!
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