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Pastimes : Austrian Economics, a lens on everyday reality -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wildstar who wrote (167)	3/1/2003 12:51:55 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 445

Wildstar, What made me ask you is that the scenario reminded me of an incident I was involved in. Back in my college days I was trying to sell all my furniture and had a yard sale. I was asking for $10 for a chair, which I thought was a bargain price. This customer, who was likely my last chance for a buyer, was interested in this chair but would not raise his bid above $5. I was angry and took offense that he would try to "swindle" me, and I refused his offer to exchange at $5. He left and in the end, I threw away the chair. The Austrian economist would say that the end state of satisfaction is what is important, and that the satisfaction of getting a subjectively just exchange for the chair was more important to me than the material benefit of any sum of money at all - $5, in this case. In other words, I would be more satisfied in throwing the chair away rather than receiving $5 in exchange for it. But, an outside observer who has no knowledge of Austrian economics would claim that we missed out on a mutually beneficial exchange. Even if this claim has nothing to do with Austrian economics, is there no use at all in studying this claim? I'm not sure what you want to study, as you have the correct approach in that the actual action reveals the true subjective valuations. I had an experience very similar to yours in refusing a $1000 offer from a new car dealer for a trade-in that I eventually ended up paying a few bucks to have towed away for scrap. Regards, Don