Hypernomics

CHAPTER 5Demand

“And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand.”

C.S. Lewis

DEMAND FRONTIERS

You have many demands levied on you. Your parents, significant other, friends, teachers, job, it's always something; the list seems never‐ending. There are innumerable demands upon your time and energy. People are demanding. They always want something. A large portion of those things we find in markets. Markets are built on demand, and demand means money. Hypernomics takes a deep interest in the demands on your money and everyone else's. There are numerous ways to look at demand, and we will examine several of them. Perhaps the most primal of these is the demand frontier.

In the early history of the United States, the American frontier was a way to describe the outer wave of westward expansion that began with the first English colonial settlements in the early 1600s. Geographical boundaries do not generate as much discussion now as in the past, but they are still very much with us. Figure 5.1 reveals that you cannot drive east of Florida's outer banks. That's a frontier.

Humanity, of course, has its ways of dealing with geography. We use oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, and mountain ranges to define international borders; when that is not enough, we draw a line in the sand. Sometimes, one side of a territorial dispute might suggest where the line should go and then find harsh opposition. World War I found people fighting for new territories, some of which ...