It struck me this morning that my garden, with its six bird feeders, is an economic system. It operates with its own inexorable market forces and under certain verities, if now downright economic laws. The Steller’s Jays and Western Scrub-jays dominate the garden and affect all parts of the system. Thus I’m describing what is known heretofore as “jayconomics.”
In jayconomics there are several valuable commodities or possessions. Certain positions of power are more important than others. There’s a relationship between supply and demand, which varies depending on the value of the commodity. And there’s a distinct pecking order in economic beings, the various birds. They range from large corporations, like each jay, to tiny organisms on the periphery of the system. These are like the poor nations of world, having to borrow what they can from the centers of wealth. “Picking up the scraps” in the technical economic jargon of our time. Unless I choose to intervene, I’m simply a force of nature, providing the materials on which the system runs. Think of me as mother nature. Well, OK, think of me as the government who chooses not to interfere, for better or worse. So here I am running a free market system, American-style. That means I take resources from the whole planet and focus them on my little corner of the world, enabling my birds, or corporate entities and dependent states, to survive or even flourish.
One thing is certain: demand is not dependent on supply, nor vice verse. I can forget to put out a certain resource, and the demand becomes frenzy. I can provide endless resource of one kind or another and the demand stays at a certain level depending on the birds’ hunger, greed and the weather. As with the heating oil market, demand for my resources increases in cold weather. It seems to me that demand grows with the potential for supply. How can that be? Well, just like Exxon or Microsoft, the jays can cache cash, or in this case seeds and peanuts. One Steller’s Jay, hereafter known as Stella the Jay, has learned to demand more peanuts. Thus she has gotten into the direct subsidy business, sorta like an American corn farmer. Even when times are good, and the sunflowers seeds are plentiful, regular birdseed falls from the feeders like tax dollars from Congress, even then Stella wants her peanuts. When she gets one, or two, she takes them off to cache them.
There is no end to how much cash or cache this Stella would accumulate. Perhaps all the peanuts Georgia can produce, forget the rest of the peanut-eaters in the world. This is the time-honored capitalist or jayconomic principle: get everything you can. The peanut principle I observe is: there is no such thing as enough. Stella is living proof of this principle. When she and a less brave Steller came down onto the garage roof for the peanuts I thought top manipoulate the system. I can look out the kitchen window to the roof below. Intending to do a little Federal Reserve action, I put out two peanuts at once. I was assuming Stella would grab the larger one and leave the second for the less capitalized corporation, ‘er less brazen jay. Hah, a serious jayconomics lesson was in store for this bungling government: Stella took the large one as predicted, then hopped over to the smaller one. She then placed the bigger peanut next to one foot, gobbled down the thinner one, placing it deep in her throat, then grabbed the large one in her beak again and flew off to cache BOTH of them. Double profit with nearly the same effort. A jayconomic bonanza for Stella. Important jayconomic verity: greed will lead to innovation if the innovation is to the benefit of said jay. Think of the pharma industry. They will invent new drugs if they can sell a lot of them and make a profit. Side effects? Well, that’s just the risk you take in jayconomics.
Speaking of risk. I have a friend who is a risk expert and I await his counsel on how to guage and rationalize the risk-taking of the various entities in my little realm of jayconomics. Clearly the Scrub-jays can dominiate and drive off the smaller Steller’s. But the Steller’s have gained an advantage through innovation of the peanute sudsidy, by taking the roof-risk and garnering the peanuts there. Some birds will feed only on the ground, not risking the more obvious risks of being on an elevated feeder. Juncos, Mourning Doves and the Spotted Towhee feed only on the resources wasted or dropped from the feeders by the other birds. If there are hawks about they are far more likely to pluck prey from an elevated feeder than risk swooping down to the ground in our garden which is ringed by fence and trees. A Junco on the ground is only a hop or two from brush and safety at all time. Hedge, not hedge funds, is the junco’s jayconomic model.
I expect to learn much more from my study of jayconomics. As long as I don’t get sick, go broke or die, the system will continue to operate. In jayconomic terms, or simply American reality, I am likely to do all three in that order at some future date. That’s just the way jayconomics, ‘er American markets operate.
Jayconomic basics:
Current resources: sunflower seeds, thistle seeds, occasional peanut subsidies, wild bird mix, nectar feeder, two bird baths. Soon to come: corn subsidies.
Photo credit: Calvin Lou. It may no0t be Stella, but it’s one of her cousins for sure.
