There’s No Free Lunch, or Money

Lord knows most people are not as financially literate as they should be. But that doesn’t mean we have to see financial illiteracy even when it doesn’t exist.

In Britain, the price-comparison website moneysupermarket.com hired people to stand on the sidewalk offering to give anyone who asked a free £5 note, with no obligations or restrictions. Out of 1,800 people, only 28 accepted the offer. What does this mean?

According to a press release:

“This exercise reveals a fundamental inertia which is stopping people from making sensible financial decisions,” said Tim Moss, head of loans and debt at moneysupermarket.com. “This was a completely genuine, no strings attached offer. People simply had to approach the sandwich board wearer and ask for a fiver. If more than 98 percent of the people who passed by couldn’t be bothered to do that, it raises some interesting questions about what needs to be done to persuade people to make an effort to improve their financial positions.

Would anyone else like to join me in calling B.S. on moneysupermarket.com?

Take a look at this picture of the guy who’s offering the money. His hand-lettered sandwich board says “If you ask me for a £5 note you can have one.” Does that really look like a “completely genuine, no strings attached offer?”

Aside from the fact that the gentlemen looks a bit — well, un-banker-like — this is not at all the equivalent of setting a stack of £5 notes on a table and giving them away. At the very least, you’re going to have to talk to this guy. And a reasonable expectation is that the conversation may cost you something, whether in time, annoyance, or perhaps worse.

Did the people who avoided this guy really exhibit a “fundamental inertia” or were they just smart enough to know that there’s no such thing as a free lunch — or free money?

(Aside: our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, filling in for William Safire, let us know this weekend that Milton Friedman didn’t coin the “no free lunch” phrase.)

(Hat tip: Rich K.)