Kelly's Second Question

I want a Van Gogh. So I decided I’d try to trade up to one just like the red paper clip guy traded up from a paper clip to a house. But in order to make my plan a bit different and so potentially more interesting, I thought I would hold a lottery for the Van Gogh once I got it. If I gave all and only those people who traded with me the right to buy a lottery ticket for half the ticket’s real price, anyone who traded with me would get some benefit in addition to helping me achieve my goal. That, I thought, might be lots of fun.

But then, as I was in the middle of trading with Kelly, she asked very bluntly:

With the addition of the lottery, hasn’t your plan now become too much of a scheme? Won’t money taint it?

If I could express in words the sinking feeling I had when she asked me those questions, I would. Maybe Kelly was right. Maybe I had tainted my plan. Money does do that. And people don’t like getting caught up in a scheme. So maybe I should stick to trading up to a Van Gogh and leave out the lottery part.

Kelly then had a very good suggestion: why don’t you ask some of the other people who might trade with you what they think?

So that is what I will do. I will ask the next few people interested in trading which plan they prefer: trading up without a lottery or trading up with a lottery.

But just to set the stage, here are what I take to be the pros and cons of the two plans.

Trading Up Without Lottery

Pros

Isn’t tainted with money.

Cons

Isn’t all that different from the red paper clip guy’s plan.

People who trade with me won’t get any benefit other than having
participated in my pursuit of a Van Gogh

Trading Up With Lottery

Pros

People who trade with me could benefit monetarily and could, if they so choose, donate such money to some worthy cause.

Cons

Taints the process with money and so seems like a scheme.

Those are the options at the moment. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know.

And of course if anyone wants to trade for my awesome Kelly Koeppel original, let me know that as well.