Money for Nothing
Wanting to make money from essentially matching supply and demand is a hallmark of the unethical person. These types of jobs do little else but match supply and demand.
- Stock Brokers
- Real Estate Agents
- Recruiters
- Automotive Dealerships
Education
The logic many of them use to justify their existence is that they educate their clients. However, what type of education can a client expect to get from someone who’s only objective is to sell them something that they have access to?
Free Markets
The issue is that even with the arrival of computers, intermediaries strive to do business “the old fashioned way.” A the same time they speak about the importance of free markets. Here are some ways intermediaries interfere with markets:
- For years you could not trade stocks (which you should not be doing in any case see the post why http://counterecon.com/2009/05/04/the-case-against-stock-compendium/) online, but had to go through brokers.
- Real estate agents have fought transparency in their market through controlling the Multiple Listing Service and pretending its a public database. See this link for more details http://counterecon.com/2008/01/11/real-estate-information-control-and-the-multiple-listing-service/)
- Recruiters insist on keeping a database of resumes and in communicating resumes in document format rather than simply pointing their clients to LinkedIn which keeps updated databases online.
- Automotive dealerships have used lawyers to make buying cars over the internet illegal. They want you to come in so they can go to work on you in a controlled environment. See this link for more details (http://spplan.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/automotive-dealers-mostly-useles/)
Conclusion
People who are attracted to intermediary roles are looking for easy money and are essentially dishonest. If real economics were applied then we would actually use technology to reduce the need for intermediaries and create more efficient economy. The rule is simple, the money that is given to intermediaries above and beyond their contribution is both taken from the individuals who actually work, and decreases the efficiency and increases the costs of buyers and sellers coming to mutually agreeable transactions. If people are curious how to improve any economy, the answer is simple – reduce the costs of intermediaries through the creation of public on-line databases. Place the important information in the public domain, so that no one owns it.
