Counterintuitive Facts (29): Even If You're an All Around Genius, You Still Need Someone Who's 'Useless'

I. Suppose you're Michael Jordan. You're the world's best at basketball. Coincidentally, your lawn needs mowing. And your lawn mowing skills are also twice as fast as a professional gardener. You're the double champion of basketball (absolute advantage) and lawn mowing (absolute advantage). Question: Should you mow your own lawn?

II. Intuition tells you: since I mow faster and don't pay, I should mow it myself. Economics tells you: Absolutely not. Because your opportunity cost is too high.

III. You mow the lawn for an hour. Although faster than the gardener, you must stop playing basketball for an hour. That hour of basketball could earn $100,000. While the gardener, though mowing slower, if they stopped mowing to do something else, could maybe earn $10.