The mayor of Mount Isa — an isolated town in Queensland, Australia — was vilified for making the following statement:
“May I suggest that if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa.”
He is simply recognizing that in the dating/marriage markets, looks are one of the commodities traded; there is substantial evidence suggesting that uglier women marry men with less human capital — men who earn less.
Asking ugly women to come to Mount Isa is just the mayor’s attempt to get them to where their scarcity might allow them to mitigate their “disadvantage” and benefit from the surplus of single men. Gains from trade make sense to this economist, although the mayor’s statement is somewhat crude.
Interestingly, the head of Mount Isa’s Chamber of Commerce noted that, “There’s a lot of anger circulating among the community. … There [are] a lot of women voicing their opinions.”
I wonder whether the women’s anger is a reaction to the mayor’s crudeness or a standard response by monopolists who are threatened with competition.
and 
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I’ve been seeing quite a lot of anger from women all over the world, which suggests it’s certainly not just about the competition.
I read this news couple of days ago and found it interesting. I think mayor was just trying to help his voters.
I like your guess about monopolist threatened by competition. I don’t think that’s the case though.
The odd part is that people always want politicians to be honest with them and talk in terms that they can understand. As soon as they do this they are blasted for pointing out the elephant in the room.
People need to reduce the cost of honesty so we can all stop lieing to each other.
Seeing as how the young and beautiful gravitate to big cities as soon as their funds allow, methinks it’s monopolists upset by competition.
http://www.youtube.com/clintosterholz
“I wonder whether the women’s anger is a reaction to the mayor’s crudeness or a standard response by monopolists who are threatened with competition. ”
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
“For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets.”
- As You Like It, by William Shakespeare
It’s certainly not a new idea!
http://www.shakespearegeek.com
I know there are a lot of women making a bunch of noise about this but I would be very interested to hear from the women for whom this sounds attractive. I am sure there are a number of women of average appearance who would welcome the opportunity to look for a mate and take the physical appearance competition element out of the process. The longevity of Alaska Men magazine speaks volumes about the idea, even if the delivery could have been better.
Might the women in question still have high standards, ruling out the blokes from Mount Isa?