Madness in March!

Now that mid-March has arrived and the basketball brackets are set, it's finally time to move-on past football (until the draft on April 26th) and enjoy the spectacle that is March Madness! So in honor of the Big Ten Champion Badger Basketball team, I've re-worked my blog to root on Bucky! (It'll be changing again immediately after the tourney, so stay tuned...)

In the process of banging my head against the wall and splitting hairs, trying to figure out how to fill out my bracket of predictions for the tournament, (be sure to fill out your brackets ASAP!) I came across some interesting economic developments in regard to the tourney. FoxNews.com is reporting an estimate, made by the outplacement consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that American companies could lose upwards of $4 billion... yes, you read that right, billion. The first thing that came to mind when I read that was simply,...

God Bless America.

Seriously, where else in the world do we have the luxury of neglecting our work to fill out brackets, organize office pools, collect dues, track scores, watch streaming live video of games online, root for upsets and trash-talk your co-workers, all to the tune of several billion dollars?! And do you think the websites and media conglomorates that are peddling this 3 week recession are ashamed of the economic burden that they impose upon unknowning firms across the country??

Heck no.

Both ESPN and cbssports.com have so-called "boss buttons" that you can click to instantly change your screen from the tournament bracket or video, to faux-spreadsheets and reports, thus doping your employer into thinking that you're working, when really, he's paying you to prognosticate the Final Four!

As an economics major, one might wonder how I feel about this. You see, economics isn't expressly about having the most wealth, assets, or even the highest GDP, it's all about human utility. Whatever raises your utility (level of happiness and satisfaction in life) is what we economists really want... (which by-the-way often tends to be based around one's level of wealth or a nation's GDP). So, if the benefits of March Madness (in terms of our own personal utility) outweigh the costs of lost time and wages (I feel that they do), then by all means, let the Madness begin!

Permit me thus to conclude with one simple nugget of insight into this world of Sweet 16s, Elite Eights and Final Fours, Never pick the 16-seeds.

And oh yeah... God Bless America.