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Free-market ideologues studiously undertheorize the transaction costs of high-grift environments. They act like lemon markets are a rare special phenomenon under asymmetric info/principal-agent-problem conditions and cannot be a general characteristic of the entire economy.
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The amount of wealth it takes to simply be above the grifty layers of the economy is quite high now. But if you make it there, you'll probably adopt some pious beliefs about how the poors should just live humbly and honestly and forgo the things that are grift-ridden.
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Societal inequality is one of those things that looks like it should have no consequences when you look at first order effects. "The economy is fair rewards for talent and efforts. Nobly accept a lifestyle that you can honorably afford. If you don't, you're the problem."
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Except it isn't even close to that, and people react to the perception of unfairness by trying to get by grift what they cannot get by the narrow possibilities of honesty.
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And there is also the stress. It's not necessarily a result of being at the bottom, but in the layers (mostly towards the bottom) where grifting is the cost of doing business. I suspect grifting when you're not temperamentally suited to it is more stressful than actual poverty.
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Middle class isn't too grifty itself, but is often forced to navigate pervasive grift to sustain its lifestyle. Buying cars, dental services, home contracting... everything is exhausting grift-detection/mitigation. And that's assuming you can at least filter for competence.
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PNW seemed less grifty than SW. Midwest is middling-grifty. DC was also middling. I think for grift to become a big force in the economy, there has to be a disproportionately bigger local wealthy class and smaller middle class.
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Replying to @vgr
Where are the low grift regions?
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Like, take something like dentistry or hair-styling in LA. There's a lot of rich people here for who are willing to pay big premiums to get exactly the service they want. Everybody wants that business. The cost of being a producer gets indexed to serving the premium market.
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But then, those who can't get enough of the premium business are forced to serve the larger but less profitable middle, and resent it. So they turn to grift. By contrast, regions without a large ultrarich market get structured to serve the middle class.
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