Radio And The ‘Invisible Hand’ of The Marketplace

   Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is a metaphor he used to describe how individuals pursuing their own self-interest in competitive markets can unintentionally produce socially beneficial outcomes—such as efficient allocation of resources and increased wealth. Smith  uses the phrase in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and more famously in The Wealth of Nations in1776.

   Radio’s ability to connect to a phone line to air has evolved since its inception in World War Two. Barry Gray is widely credited for creating the talk show format. Initially a disc jockey, Gray was working for New York City radio station WOR in 1945 when bandleader Woody Herman called in while Gray was talking about him. Gray broadcast the call and the spontaneous live interview was such a hit with both his listeners and station managers that the talk radio format resulted. Gray subsequently began doing listener call-ins as well.

   Since the 1950’s, programs all across the country began to arise that offered people the ability to buy and sell their own goods over the radio, starting first in rural markets. One of the longest running of them started in 1950 on WLIL in Tennessee and runs daily from 9 to 1030 AM. I have heard programs like it in my travels across the country from Sycamore Illinois to Baltimore, which has a Sunday Morning trading program. Today, most markets have one form or another of those shows, either on a daily basis in smaller markets, or in some cases covering large market areas. I heard one in Bentonville Arkansas station that took calls from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas while I was listening.

   These programs enhance people’s ability to live their lives more easily, by offering a format for buying, selling, and trading goods in the free market. Those programs also use the influence of radio to form all important communities of interest that are part of the glue that keeps a free republic together, as the great Tucson Broadcaster John C. Scott said, “over this back yard fence.”

    On Sunday, May 17 I start my 28^th year of broadcasting The Swap Shop on AM 1030 KVOI. In 28 years, the program has only missed two weeks of broadcast. It has become what the great Dave Sitton of ESPN and Fox used to call ”appointment Radio” for a lot of folks in the Tucson Market. I have listeners in Maine that call in for non-rusted auto parts, and a loyal listener in Traverse City Michigan, and a submarine hunter in the Navy in Norfolk.

   I call Swap Shop “The unregulated free market, governed only by common courtesy and common sense, where you are free to buy, sell or trade anything lawful and moral.” All of these shows do a LOT more for people besides the enabling of the free  market… My favorites have been a lady who called in when her parakeet got out, and a fellow who called 45 minutes later from his garage sale where the parakeet flew in. They just both happened to be listeners. Another favorite was an older lady whose husky had gotten out during a thunderstorm. She called in tears. The animal control officer who had the dog in her truck heard it and called her, returning her dog.

    My point is that as broadcasters, we are all stewards of that “unseen hand” of the free market, either by enabling the free trade in goods between private parties, or enabling our advertisers to become known and trusted by their communities. If you run a Swap Shop type program, or know of one in other markets, I’d like to hear from you. Let’s develop an informal network of us around the country.

Respectfully,
Charles Heller
Swap Shop Radio
Liberty Watch Radio
AM 1030 KVOI Tucson
charles@libertywatchradio.com

How many verses to The Star Spangled Banner?

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it 'ere, when free men shall stand
'Tween their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this our motto be: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

   5th Verse, by Charles Heller: