Last of the Vice-Cops

Ticket scalping is in the news due to the discovery that tickets taken by police from scalpers in last year’s World Series were used by family and friends of the police before being turned over as evidence.  This is of interest to me on this blog because I can’t think of another crime that should be removed from the books faster than scalping.  A ticket is a commodity in the purest form.  It has a value to the people who sell it, who are in most cases trying to sell a large number of them which influences the initial pricing decision.  It has a value to the person who first buys it.  Like many commodities, it has different value to different people.  An opera afficianado values tickets to the opera more than someone who has never been to the opera.  If someone else values that commodity – the ticket – more than the person who buys it first, there is no reason it should by forbidden to be resold, like a used car or garage sale furniture.  There are many silly crimes, many of which made sense at some time in the past.  But there is no other crime like scalping which so clearly violates the basic laws of economics.  And for the record, I have no intention of scalping my tickets to the NCAA tourny Sunday, and fear of police has nothing to do with it.