Pricing Indications of Political Power

Although opinion polls have been telling us for some time that Labour is in trouble, as amateur economists we eschew such wishy washy evidence. We like the democracy of prices. After all, talk is cheap. But when people have to put their money where their mouth is, we like it more. So the fact that Michael Cullen only got 36 people along to a $175 a seat breakfast for a pre-budget briefing yesterday may be a useful pricing indication. The value of the briefing has fallen - perhaps. The value of being seen to curry favour has fallen too perhaps. Of course, we need more data. It might be helpful to have someone record the attendance and price paid for a variety of political functions and create some sort of index. One of the newly unemployed might do it.