$5,000 In An Hour

Apparently Nobel winner Gary Becker is charging for his time now. For $5,000 you can get you one hour with one of the best economists. All you get for this money is a video chat and not even an actual meeting. Although, I think $5,000 is somewhat high time will tell if people are really willing to pay this kind of price. Other people like economists Steven Levitt and Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron are also joining (charging $3,000 and $400 an hour respectively). Jeffrey Miron also ended his blog this week which poses some interesting timing. The company Expert Insight takes a 30% commission so the people get to keep 70% which still isn’t bad. I wonder what people get for this kind of money. Can someone really get a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars of value in one hour? Celebrities, authors, sports stars often charge money for speaking fees. These fees can be anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to over $10,000. Economist Milton Friedman use to charge $30,000 but he would actually show up! In 2008, the top lawyers were charging over $1,200 per hour. One could argue lawyers are more valuable since they could save a company millions or billions in liability and damage. I am skeptical of whether or not people will actually use this service but as a free market guy I am all for new ideas.