What on earth were you thinking? Let's ignore for the moment the somewhat debatable figures reported in Jason Kirby's article; how about the real costs of diverting the police, EMS and others to following the balloon (and the story)? Do we know if this diversion delayed or prevented timely responses to other "real" emergencies taking place simultaneously? Had this occurred and resulted in a fatality would Macleans' still be calling for leniency?

What Heene did was akin to pulling the fire alarm as a joke. Of course we all believed it and reacted accordingly – that was the whole point! The fact that we were collectively duped by the execution of the prank in no way minimizes the waste of time, money, resources and potential for harm that resulted.

A teenager might receive only a slap on the wrist for such behaviour, a grown man and father of 3 has absolutely no right to expect such leniency! It is inconceivable that he didn't know or could not foresee the consequences of his actions. He deliberately and intentionally tried to hide the fact that the entire spectacle was a hoax; showing consciousness of guilt. This is more than mere "public mischief" and Heene certainly should have known better. His actions were criminal and he should be dealt with accordingly.

That Macleans would even suggest that such irresponsible, thoughtless and self-serving behaviour should not be punished is reprehensible and inconceivable. Shame on you! I am appalled! Macleans' editorial staff ought to give their head's a shake. Your editorial was a boneheaded, idiotic response to this event.

Economics is not about money, but rather, utility. Economic models assume that individuals are rational-utility maximizers. Even if people aren't always rational, such models generate fairly good predictive values and are broadly true (with some noise).

Some people shirked work to watch balloon boy, true. However, some of those people likely would have shirked work anyways. Secondly, of those who would not have otherwise shirked, the entertainment benefit of watching balloon boy may have exceeded the value of goods they would have otherwise produced. In that case, the country was better off. Thirdly, most companies have sanctioning methods against shirking. This should ensure that the vast majority of those that did watch balloon boy were in the group for whom the benefits were high, relative to their output.

When you consider entertainment to be a valuable commodity – and surely it is – the likely impact of balloon boy was unambiguously positive.