Smart people and profit motive have made world a better place

By David McElroy · November 16, 2016

I ordered a camera lens Monday night on Amazon.com. It was a pretty standard order. It’s not an expensive item. I didn’t pay a nickel extra for shipping. It’s pretty routine.

But this order reminds me how much our lives have improved — and how much we take those improvements for granted.

I got a shipment notification for the lens Wednesday morning. I had no idea where it was coming from. I didn’t care. But when I clicked a button in my email to track the FedEx package, a light bulb went off for me.

On the tracking page, I noticed the package was picked up by FedEx in Seongnam-si, South Korea — which is a satellite city near Seoul — at the end of the Wednesday business day there. Somehow, it will be delivered to me in Birmingham on Thursday.

An untold number of people are involved in getting my routine order fulfilled from the other side of the world all the way to me — and I never had to give a second thought to how any of it happens.

It’s a modern form of magic we call logistics.

How did it happen that this system exists — a system that gives me exactly what I want when I want it without any effort from me?

Did FedEx founder Fred Smith have me in mind when he dreamed up the idea for overnight delivery around the country? Of course not.

Did the various pioneers of the tech industry care about a transportation company’s need to communicate instantly around the world? No way.

Did the people who dreamed up the planes and trucks used to bring my package think about me? Nope.

These smart people were motivated by their own needs and desires. Some wanted the excitement of invention, but most wanted the personal profit that comes to those who meet the needs of others in a free market.

Fred Smith’s crazy idea for a package delivery company was a back-up plan after the U.S. Federal Reserve system declined to contract with him to haul checks and other banking documents around the country. It was a crazy idea. Few people gave him any chance of being successful. In desperation, he once gambled in Las Vegas to find immediate cash to keep going. He even had to keep his planes in the air at one point to stop them from being seized in Memphis by creditors.

But he and thousands of other eventual employees found a way to make it work. Early investors in the company took huge risks and then later investors took increasingly smaller risks. Eventually, we started taking overnight delivery for granted.

And now, we take quick delivery from anywhere in the world for granted — from FedEx and its various competitors.

None of these people went into business to make sure I got a lens from Korea quickly this week. They didn’t know I existed. They didn’t know I would ever want a lens right now.

They all wanted to make their own lives better through profit.

Some people today believe profit is a dirty word — they call it “greed” — but the profit motive is what has given us the advances that have made our lives so much better.

(It’s true that the technical foundations of the Internet were laid through research paid for by the U.S. government. I believe the same innovations would have happened without government involvement, but I don’t want to get sidetracked on that point.)

When you see planes in the air and big trucks on the road and thunderous diesel engines on train tracks, remember that all of this has been fueled by the desire of wealthy people to make a profit and smart people with ideas to get rich.

The combination of ideas and capital have brought us amazing things. They’ve brought us millions of jobs. They’ve brought us a luxurious lifestyle. They’ve brought us an insanely great selection of goods and services from around the world. All because “greedy” people wanted to make a buck — and change the world.

I’ll be happy to get my lens quickly all the way from Korea, but it would never have happened without brilliant and wealthy people guided by the desire to make a profit.

Economic freedom makes everybody better off. Profit drives the engine of prosperity.

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When I first told you about the project that would become DavidMcElroy.TV, I thought it would launch by mid-May. Since today is the last day of May — and I’m still not close to launching a finished product — here’s a brief update. The graphic above is the latest rough mockup of the format, but it’s still subject to change. Even the logo isn’t yet set in stone. Motion graphics are really difficult when you’re starting from scratch. Sunday night, my camera stopped recording, so it has to be sent off for repair. I have an older camera that I’ll keep using for testing, but I can’t launch without the better one. The audio system developed a low buzz this weekend that has me puzzled. I’ll be taking all the equipment over to the home of a local audio engineer who’s volunteered to help me figure out what I’ve done wrong. On top of all that, my on-camera performance seems to get worse with each test I do. There are days when I think I’m crazy to be attempting this. And in truth, I probably am insane to do it, but being crazy has never stopped me before. I’m at least a month away from launch and it could be a few months. Thanks for being patient — and thanks for all the support and enthusiasm for the project that you’ve sent my way.

I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

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