Weekend Economists Silent Night Christmas Eve 2014

[Warpy]

12. Actually, I always thought "Potterville" looked a lot more interesting

than the real town with its one bar serving tame drinks to stonefaced, grey working men and telling them to go home after the second. It's the kind of town any sensible teenager fled as soon as s/he possibly could, look at Violet, the only sensible one in the movie. Even George wanted out, only he got trapped by duty and then marriage.

Still, that was Capra's bias, that people treated honestly would turn out to be homebodies and utter bores, paragons of middle class churchgoing morality who never strayed, never realizing that the whole reason for Las Vegas to exist and prosper was that it provided prepackaged sin for such people, conveniently out of town.

But yes, Mr. Potter exists, only the scale of theft has increased a billionfold. It's useful to point out that he never gets his comeuppance from Capra, never gets charged with the theft, because even Capra considered his type irredeemable.