Need more green ones (good guys)....who will be next?

[archerycrazy]

I have received several legislator updates, great job guys. We need some help from the Average Joes in the Tucson area. If you are down there, take ownership of the two House members and one senator in your district. Make sure they know you live in their district and refer to the concepts of HB 2072 rather than the actual bill number.

 

I remember back when I was in college at ASU and I took an economics class with a professor (Happel I believe). One of the concepts he drilled into us was the concept of identifying the actual cost for various things, one of the examples he always used was tickets to sporting events. The value of a ticket to an event may be far more or far less than the face value depending on many variables. Much of the value is time dependent, most tickets are worth the most earlier as people have more time to plan for the event. Market scarcity can cause tickets to go up in price but the prices go down as people have less and less time to plan for the event.

 

Many ticket scalpers hire homeless people to stand in line at the box office because there are usually limits to the number of tickets that can be purchased in a single transaction. As far as the scalper is concerned, standing in line is a bad use of his time. The homeless people earn a couple bucks for standing in line and the scalpers acquire many tickets at face value. Wealthy people with limited time gladly pay scalpers much higher than face value for the tickets because they have limited time and no desire to stand in line. For every homeless person or scalper, there are always plenty of average people standing in line to acquire tickets for their own personal use because they believe the event justifies the TIME and the MONEY spent to obtain the tickets.

 

Understanding the monetary value of a ticket isnt always easy. Is the value of the ticket the face value or the value the scalper received when he sold it to the end user (which begs the questions, value to who?)? Does a ticket sold by a scalper have the same economic impact as a ticket sold over the counter (do scalpers pay taxes?). At what point does a ticket go from very valuable to less valuable (15 minutes before the events begins...who knows?). The one thing that is certain is that someone had to stand in line and put in the time to obtain the tickets needed to exercise the privilige to attend the event. That time has a monetary value associated with it. The importance of that position in line is so important that many companies or box offices pass out a number to document where a person stands in the line. The value isnt just in the ticket, each spot in the line also has a value associated with it. The TIME in line is part of the cost of obtaining the ticket.

 

As we look at bills like HB 2072, the most outrageous and unacceptable part of the story is the fact that the TIME cost is not fully understood by the general public. The time cost of some big game tags can be measured in decades...a huge cost. What is the cost to a guy that pays to apply for an elk tag for 15 years and dies before he is lucky enough to draw the tag? What is the opportunity cost to a person that has chosen to apply for a trophy hunt for a decades while giving up opportunities to hunt easier hunts over that time? How much is the lost opportunity for a couple of grandkids who would like to hunt with their grandfather but never will because the hunt their grandfather has been applying for decades for a hunt with only a handful of tags and now the hunt takes a couple more years to draw as grandpas health deteriorates?

 

I am of the opinion that Arizona hunters have already paid a big deposit on ALL of our public game tags in terms of TIME and MONEY (public draw application fees). The deposit on the tags the AZSFW is seeking has already been paid for in TIME, these tags are already reserved for public draw hunters and should not be available for auction at any price...they might as well have a red "SOLD" sign on them. If you put a value on the TIME that all Average Joe hunters have already paid, the true value of these cream of the crop tags would be astronomical and well outside the range of what even wealthy tag buyers would be willing to pay in an auction. When the AZSFW pitches these tags to legislators they focus on the face value of the tags relative to what the auction price will be. The face value of the tags does not include the TIME cost (which is always way above face value), and the auction price is grossly inflated since it doesnt reflect the true net value once transaction costs are factored in. The other often misunderstood component is the value of the lost control to AZGFD and the risk in allowing a private organizations to manage the gross receipts for the sale of public assets. Whether you think the risk is high or low, there is a monetary value associated with that risk and the cost of that risk must be written off against the proceeds of any auction.

 

As we educate legislators about why auction tags for expos are bad, we need to explain to them that the people behind HB 2072 are ultimately wanting to distribute these tags at below market values (Actual value = Money + Time). Even the highest priced tag at the auction will sell for less than what it should if it needed to cover the TIME cost associated with it. Arizona shouldnt have to pay for a big outfitter party and offer training wheel auction tags (365 day tags - the only tags some outfitters can fill) to make money rain down for outdoor businesses in other states. We also dont need to provide tags owned by Average Joe hunters to organizations that view Average Joes with contempt.

 

As Robbie Woodhouse said, if an organization wants an expo they can pay for it themselves. Leave the public tags that Arizona Hunters have already paid for over many years alone. This is going to make a great news story regardless of the outcome, all the ingredients are there. Abuse of the public trust, national protagonists/antagonists, organizations making public statements against the interests of the middle class, businesses supporting these organizations, local and national politics in an election year.....lots of ingredients in this stew. If I were a politician, critter group or business I wouldn't touch this with a 20 foot pole.

 

Ryan

[archerycrazy]

OMG Ryan,

What an awesome post. I will tell you now that I am going copy and paste it to everyoue that I know including my legislators.

 

With that being said, I am going to start a new thread because I beleive that we need to shift our communication focus from HB 2072. You will understand when you see it. It;s in copry right now and ready to paste.

 

George

[SpeedGoat]

I have received several legislator updates, great job guys. We need some help from the Average Joes in the Tucson area. If you are down there, take ownership of the two House members and one senator in your district. Make sure they know you live in their district and refer to the concepts of HB 2072 rather than the actual bill number.

 

I remember back when I was in college at ASU and I took an economics class with a professor (Happel I believe). One of the concepts he drilled into us was the concept of identifying the actual cost for various things, one of the examples he always used was tickets to sporting events. The value of a ticket to an event may be far more or far less than the face value depending on many variables. Much of the value is time dependent, most tickets are worth the most earlier as people have more time to plan for the event. Market scarcity can cause tickets to go up in price but the prices go down as people have less and less time to plan for the event.

 

Many ticket scalpers hire homeless people to stand in line at the box office because there are usually limits to the number of tickets that can be purchased in a single transaction. As far as the scalper is concerned, standing in line is a bad use of his time. The homeless people earn a couple bucks for standing in line and the scalpers acquire many tickets at face value. Wealthy people with limited time gladly pay scalpers much higher than face value for the tickets because they have limited time and no desire to stand in line. For every homeless person or scalper, there are always plenty of average people standing in line to acquire tickets for their own personal use because they believe the event justifies the TIME and the MONEY spent to obtain the tickets.

 

Understanding the monetary value of a ticket isnt always easy. Is the value of the ticket the face value or the value the scalper received when he sold it to the end user (which begs the questions, value to who?)? Does a ticket sold by a scalper have the same economic impact as a ticket sold over the counter (do scalpers pay taxes?). At what point does a ticket go from very valuable to less valuable (15 minutes before the events begins...who knows?). The one thing that is certain is that someone had to stand in line and put in the time to obtain the tickets needed to exercise the privilige to attend the event. That time has a monetary value associated with it. The importance of that position in line is so important that many companies or box offices pass out a number to document where a person stands in the line. The value isnt just in the ticket, each spot in the line also has a value associated with it. The TIME in line is part of the cost of obtaining the ticket.

 

As we look at bills like HB 2072, the most outrageous and unacceptable part of the story is the fact that the TIME cost is not fully understood by the general public. The time cost of some big game tags can be measured in decades...a huge cost. What is the cost to a guy that pays to apply for an elk tag for 15 years and dies before he is lucky enough to draw the tag? What is the opportunity cost to a person that has chosen to apply for a trophy hunt for a decades while giving up opportunities to hunt easier hunts over that time? How much is the lost opportunity for a couple of grandkids who would like to hunt with their grandfather but never will because the hunt their grandfather has been applying for decades for a hunt with only a handful of tags and now the hunt takes a couple more years to draw as grandpas health deteriorates?

 

I am of the opinion that Arizona hunters have already paid a big deposit on ALL of our public game tags in terms of TIME and MONEY (public draw application fees). The deposit on the tags the AZSFW is seeking has already been paid for in TIME, these tags are already reserved for public draw hunters and should not be available for auction at any price...they might as well have a red "SOLD" sign on them. If you put a value on the TIME that all Average Joe hunters have already paid, the true value of these cream of the crop tags would be astronomical and well outside the range of what even wealthy tag buyers would be willing to pay in an auction. When the AZSFW pitches these tags to legislators they focus on the face value of the tags relative to what the auction price will be. The face value of the tags does not include the TIME cost (which is always way above face value), and the auction price is grossly inflated since it doesnt reflect the true net value once transaction costs are factored in. The other often misunderstood component is the value of the lost control to AZGFD and the risk in allowing a private organizations to manage the gross receipts for the sale of public assets. Whether you think the risk is high or low, there is a monetary value associated with that risk and the cost of that risk must be written off against the proceeds of any auction.

 

As we educate legislators about why auction tags for expos are bad, we need to explain to them that the people behind HB 2072 are ultimately wanting to distribute these tags at below market values (Actual value = Money + Time). Even the highest priced tag at the auction will sell for less than what it should if it needed to cover the TIME cost associated with it. Arizona shouldnt have to pay for a big outfitter party and offer training wheel auction tags (365 day tags - the only tags some outfitters can fill) to make money rain down for outdoor businesses in other states. We also dont need to provide tags owned by Average Joe hunters to organizations that view Average Joes with contempt.

 

As Robbie Woodhouse said, if an organization wants an expo they can pay for it themselves. Leave the public tags that Arizona Hunters have already paid for over many years alone. This is going to make a great news story regardless of the outcome, all the ingredients are there. Abuse of the public trust, national protagonists/antagonists, organizations making public statements against the interests of the middle class, businesses supporting these organizations, local and national politics in an election year.....lots of ingredients in this stew. If I were a politician, critter group or business I wouldn't touch this with a 20 foot pole.

 

Ryan

 

 

 

I can't believe I am typing this but. . . Go Sundevil!