Yesterday’s Seattle Times had a story on the front page about people outraged over tickets for Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana concerts. Apparently the tickets sell out fast for such concerts which leaves parents with the choice of breaking the bank buying tickets from scalpers (which have been able to charge $4,500 for a pair of tickets) or let their 12 year old, spoiled brat kids hear the word “No” for the first time in their lives when they find out that they couldn’t get tickets at face value because they didn’t wait in line all night.
Some people have filed formal complaints with various state Attorney General’s offices about not being able to buy tickets for a concert. When there are a finite number of tickets and more people who want them than available tickets, there are two actions that could result. Either the ticket sellers should charge more for the tickets which would reduce demand until there is an equilibrium, or scalpers buy tickets and resell them for market value, which is significantly more than face value.
Parents today seem to be horrified when they realize that they cannot easily cater to the wishes of their kids. The average price people are for tickets is almost TEN TIMES the face value of the cheap seats. When I wanted tickets for midnight shows to “Lord of the Rings” my parents thought it was a fun idea, but they weren’t going to buy them for me. Do I have the only parents in the world who refuse to bend over backwards to cater to the desires of their children? Those kind of parents are the reason I camp out all day to buy the latest game system or toy; some people will pay any price to get these items for their little monsters for Christmas because they’re afraid of the tantrum that will ensue if they fail to provide.
There’s a reason I bought a Furby years ago and a Tickle-Me-Elmo more recent than that. I could resell them for much more money closer to Christmas. I was able to list three Nintendo Wiis on eBay last year, and tried to do the same with Xbox 360s the year before that. As long as there are people willing to pay a premium for such items for their kids I’m willing to take a day out of my life to sit around and read while waiting for something to come out in order to fulfill the needs of these spoiled brats whose parents are too scared to say “No” and will pay me to for my stuff I don’t care that much about. Since Wiis seem to still be scarce in many parts of the country I will probably pick up a few more and try to resell them in the mall parking lot on Christmas Eve.
I didn’t get a chance to run yesterday, but made up for it by hiking up to the library and back with 20 pounds of books on my back. That comes out to about a mile in each direction with steep hills making up about half the trip. I still got in my 17 minute jog at 6.4 miles per hour today as well.
Monday, October 08, 2007
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2 comments:
And we wonder why we see so much more uncontrolled kids running around these days yet the medical profession calls it ADD or ADHD or whatever, giving these kids more reasons not to behave. We should call it PATK which means Parents Afraid of Their Kids. I was at a party last yr and saw a rudely wild 3 yr old kid being begged by her dad not to run around and shout.
I can guarantee you that my parents never begged me to do anything when I was little; they told me what I was to do and how I was to act. I’m sure there are people out there who legitimately have ADD or ADHD or some flavor of such that truly benefit from drugs like Ritalin (aka Crack-lite), but the vast majority of diagnosed cases are simply out of laziness. Better cures for such “conditions” would likely come from time-outs, spanking, restrictions, and other punishments meant to get your point across. Kids need to be taught to obey their parents, not the other way around.
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