The U.S. economy is not exactly thriving at the moment, and unfortunately, some bad actors like the one in this story are making matters worse with their reckless behavior: This man bought a struggling mom’s groceries, distorting free market incentives and creating economic moral hazard.
What a dangerously irresponsible thing to do. This kind of chaos is literally the last thing our economy needs right now.
Earlier today, David Najarro, a financial consultant, was in line at his local Foodtown supermarket when he noticed that a mother of three young children had had multiple credit cards declined—and in that moment, Najarro decided to pay for the groceries himself, blatantly scorning the basic principles of economic competition that make up the very foundation of our country’s consumer system. Not only has Najarro interfered with the organic flow of supply-and-demand transactions between a buyer and seller, but he has also perverted this working single mother’s role as a free market participant with three mouths to feed on a minimum wage job into that of a consumer untethered from the actual value of her limited resources. With one wave of his AmEx, Najarro rendered this struggling woman’s $14,000 credit debt completely meaningless, warping any incentive she’d otherwise have to take her business to a supermarket with cheaper goods, or to seek a higher paying job that would let her afford Foodtown’s grocery prices. It’s not clear what Najarro thought he was doing here, but his careless actions have sent this woman and her surrounding economic community down a path of disorder whose disastrous endpoint we can scarcely imagine.
Without even thinking, Najarro has singlehandedly eliminated any reason this woman had to shield herself from the economic risk of over-drafting her bank account to purchase a bagful of groceries. Ask any economist in the world, and they’ll tell you this is the kind of market intervention that ultimately leads to a country’s collapse. Hey, Mr. Najarro: Next time you want to play God with the free market by paying the tab for a struggling mother, maybe consider the economic disorder you’re creating first.
