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Is Harry Potter Making You Poorer
Made popular 557 days ago in Politics
townhall.com — J.K. Rowling is the former welfare mother who wrote the Harry Potter books. She’s worth an estimated $1 billion. That makes her one of the richest self-made women in the world.

I don’t know what her U.S. income is, but I’m sure she is in the top 1 percent. Make that the top 1/10th of 1 percent.

So why should you care? If you’re not a fan, there is no reason why you should. Harry Potter books and Harry Potter movies certainly are not making you any worse off. If you are a fan, you have lots of reasons to care. Rowling has undoubtedly made your life richer. Every time you plunk down the cash needed to buy one more book or see one more movie, you are getting something that is probably much more valuable than what you paid for it. At least I rarely hear anyone complain. The way J.K. Rowling got really, really rich is by making millions of ordinary folks really, really entertained.

Most people get this. One person who doesn’t is Paul Krugman, editorial writer for The New York Times. We are experiencing an "extreme concentration of income," he writes, and this is "incompatible with real democracy." It’s "oligarchy, American style," he complains.

Did you know that every time you buy a ticket to see a Harry Potter movie you are contributing to extreme inequality of wealth? Did you know that you are undermining the foundations of our democracy? Did you know you are helping one more billionaire to get more than her fair share of our national income?

Ah, but wait. Before you succumb to mind numbing guilt and sink into fits depression, there is a cheerier side to all this. Back before Krugman was churning out folklore designed to make left wing lunacy look respectable, he actually wrote about real economics — which is why he won a Nobel Prize. Let’s tackle the real economics first. Then I’ll return to the folklore.

For more than 100 years there has been a fairly well established economic theory about personal incomes. In fact it’s so well established that it isn’t even controversial. In a market economy, people tend to get the value of what they produce, at the margin.

When J.K. Rowling writes a book, she is creating something new, something of value. She is creating something that would not have existed at all, but for her efforts. This new entity she creates isn’t taking anything away from anybody else. It adds to humanity’s stock of wealth. It doesn’t subtract anything.

The words "at the margin," are important here. Let’s say that theater tickets to the latest Harry Potter movie are $8 a piece, and Rowling gets some fraction of that amount. The marginal movie-goer is the one who won’t pay any more than $8. He is paying a price that is exactly equal to what seeing the movie is worth to him. But there are a lot of other people who would have paid $10 to see the movie. Some would have paid $20. These movie-goers are getting something worth a lot more to them than what they have to pay.

Bottom line: The only way Rowling can get rich is by producing products that people want to buy. And whenever Rowling receives a dollar, she has probably created a value worth many times that amount for most of her fans.

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Posted by wannano
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Is it wrong for people like Rowling to make huge amounts of money by creating something everyone really wants?
No, they earned it and besides, many others make money by producing the books and films
96%
Yes, they should do it for minimum wage
3.7%
Yes, they should pay most of it back in taxes.
0%
This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.
User Comments
james2044
Posted 557 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
The goverment only wants to take from the producers and give to the slugs. If you look at Europe, we can see what happens when the goverment does that. Democrats reward nonprodution and those people become Democrats. "Progressive" or "Liberal" is just a short wat to say "Lazy, usless bum."
gobat
Posted 557 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
If you're trying to make a point, it does not come across. People can make as much money as they want and no one gives a shit as long as they are taxed fairly. They should not be able to pass through their income through capital gains and pay 15% only, that's for one. You're either an ideologue or miss-informed person.
lightdude
Posted 555 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@gobat Why don't you go to school and learn something? Why don't you give all of YOUR money to the government? ..Or is it because you're on welfare and you would be giving the government the tax payer money you didn't deserve in the first place?
Welcome back batty!
lightdude
Posted 555 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
Harry Potter is making me poorer. The anointed won and the demonrat liberals are.
lightdude
Posted 555 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
correction to the above. Harry Potter "isn't" making me poorer.
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