Philosophy Discussion Forums

The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2. It wasn't too long ago that a drink from that same machine cost three quarters. Inflation is a tricky subject as is supply and demand but 15 years ago, $20 million dollars would have set you up for life and at the right food store, $20 would have gotten you a sandwich, chips, and a drink and still have money leftover for a couple of candy bars. Now most candy stocks seem almost as pricey as theatre food and 20 million is near equivalent to pocket change in the "long run". And vagrancy is at an all time high. There are reasons why everything is so expensive nowaday and making something cheap will eventually cause problems but if you could make something in society not so expensive, what would it be? What would be the ups and downs to doing this? Is there a way to combat the consequences like we are combating the lack of residency worldwide? Share let us know why you would think this needs to be accessible to all of society.

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2. It wasn't too long ago that a drink from that same machine cost three quarters. Inflation is a tricky subject as is supply and demand but 15 years ago, $20 million dollars would have set you up for life and at the right food store, $20 would have gotten you a sandwich, chips, and a drink and still have money leftover for a couple of candy bars. Now most candy stocks seem almost as pricey as theatre food and 20 million is near equivalent to pocket change in the "long run". And vagrancy is at an all time high. There are reasons why everything is so expensive nowaday and making something cheap will eventually cause problems but if you could make something in society not so expensive, what would it be? What would be the ups and downs to doing this? Is there a way to combat the consequences like we are combating the lack of residency worldwide? Share let us know why you would think this needs to be accessible to all of society.

Several things. First the amount of wealth to be in the top 1% of wealth in the US is $11 million, so really $20 million will totally set an intelligent person up for life. Cost of living increases relative to wage earning increases is inflation, which has been at historic lows until this year, when it is at a historic high. Rates over 4% are considered high, which lasted from 1968 to 1991. Since then it touched 4% during the 2008 crash but was essentially zero by 2009 due to economic recovery policy. It hit 4% in April of this year and will hit 7% probably this month. The current rise is felt by many to be caused by the global supply chain crisis. The last time it was over 7% was 1981 (on its way down from the historic peak of almost 14% in 1980). This was likely due to the oil crisis of 1979.

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2. It wasn't too long ago that a drink from that same machine cost three quarters. Inflation is a tricky subject as is supply and demand but 15 years ago, $20 million dollars would have set you up for life and at the right food store, $20 would have gotten you a sandwich, chips, and a drink and still have money leftover for a couple of candy bars. Now most candy stocks seem almost as pricey as theatre food and 20 million is near equivalent to pocket change in the "long run". And vagrancy is at an all time high. There are reasons why everything is so expensive nowaday and making something cheap will eventually cause problems but if you could make something in society not so expensive, what would it be? What would be the ups and downs to doing this? Is there a way to combat the consequences like we are combating the lack of residency worldwide? Share let us know why you would think this needs to be accessible to all of society.

This looks like a critique of Capitalism, but approached from a slightly unusual angle. Maybe I have misunderstood?

As a practical matter, the question seems to be: what consumer goods should we subsidize? I would limit all subsidies to two categories: necessities (food, housing, health care, and transportation) and perhaps some wise investments in technology that we figure will return much more than we spent.

That seems to leave a lot of room, but we need to do some tougher testing before subsidizing anything than we have done in the past. For example, we subsidized farming, but then decided that sugar and tobacco were somehow food. Again, the category and particular goods being subsidized should be essential or something that strongly promises to be a wise investment of public money.

chewybrian wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 9:33 am As a practical matter, the question seems to be: what consumer goods should we subsidize? I would limit all subsidies to two categories: necessities (food, housing, health care, and transportation) and perhaps some wise investments in technology that we figure will return much more than we spent.

That seems to leave a lot of room, but we need to do some tougher testing before subsidizing anything than we have done in the past. For example, we subsidized farming, but then decided that sugar and tobacco were somehow food. Again, the category and particular goods being subsidized should be essential or something that strongly promises to be a wise investment of public money.

I agree with all that you’ve said here. I would also include education, or at least higher education.

Without an educated populace, much that we value is at risk. Success in a competitive market place would be blunted. Uninformed voters make irrational decisions. Professionals such as doctors and lawyers would be limited in their knowledge of issues of importance to them. Nowhere would adequate critical thinking take place.

Education needs to cost less so that more attention could be paid to quality. There must be an end to the glorification of the mediocre. No more dumbing down. The cost of focusing on the needs and abilities of each learner and paying enough attention to everyone must be reduced.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 8:29 am

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2. It wasn't too long ago that a drink from that same machine cost three quarters. Inflation is a tricky subject as is supply and demand but 15 years ago, $20 million dollars would have set you up for life and at the right food store, $20 would have gotten you a sandwich, chips, and a drink and still have money leftover for a couple of candy bars. Now most candy stocks seem almost as pricey as theatre food and 20 million is near equivalent to pocket change in the "long run". And vagrancy is at an all time high. There are reasons why everything is so expensive nowaday and making something cheap will eventually cause problems but if you could make something in society not so expensive, what would it be? What would be the ups and downs to doing this? Is there a way to combat the consequences like we are combating the lack of residency worldwide? Share let us know why you would think this needs to be accessible to all of society.

This looks like a critique of Capitalism, but approached from a slightly unusual angle. Maybe I have misunderstood?

Actually it is an observation with the implied solution of moving away from open markets

chewybrian wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 9:33 am As a practical matter, the question seems to be: what consumer goods should we subsidize?

And regulate. For example the crazy high profit on real estate speculation, so that decent shelter is out of reach of many working people, and the amount of tax corporations can write off on their crazy high profits.

I would limit all subsidies to two categories: necessities (food, housing, health care, and transportation) and perhaps some wise investments in technology that we figure will return much more than we spent.

That makes sense.

For example, we subsidized farming, but then decided that sugar and tobacco were somehow food.

Once you have big government subsidies to private enterprise, you have wholesale corruption. It can't be any other way, from school vouchers, to cornfields to prisons - government is easy to rip off. The same with contracting out supplies for government - weapons, army uniforms, office supplies, snow clearance, road repair, school lunches: a government contract is guaranteed income, no risk. The students, prisoners, soldiers, independent small farmers, drivers and office workers do not necessarily benefit, but the contractor does - big time.
One way to reduce cost is simply to meet public needs with public works. In the same way that government health insurance is more comprehensive, efficient and provides better service than a mess of private schemes, so is garbage collection and road maintenance cheaper and more reliable than contracting out.
I'm not talking about nationalizing private industries, but keeping public services in the public domain.

Alias wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 6:35 pm
And regulate. For example the crazy high profit on real estate speculation, so that decent shelter is out of reach of many working people, and the amount of tax corporations can write off on their crazy high profits.

If you're trying to account for the rising costs of housing, you need to look elsewhere than at real estate speculators. Speculators only make a profit when prices are already rising. The reason they are rising is ill-considered government policies, such as local land use restrictions (zoning laws, environmental laws, and "smart growth" policies which reduce the supply of buildable land and add enormous legal and permitting costs to every project), building codes which all but preclude building single-room occupancy apartment projects of the type common at the turn of the 20th century; labor regulations which increase the cost of labor, such as the US Davis-Bacon Act and similar state laws; tariffs on imported materials, such as lumber and steel. And, of course, flooding the country with phony money, such as the US government has been doing the last two years. Prices, for real estate and everything else, are a function of supply and demand. When you restrict supply and increase demand (by increasing the supply of money), rising prices inevitably follow.

Once you have big government subsidies to private enterprise, you have wholesale corruption. It can't be any other way, from school vouchers, to cornfields to prisons - government is easy to rip off.

All government subsidies, other than those for development of some product that only the government will buy, such as a fighter aircraft, are rip-offs --- of taxpayers.

One way to reduce cost is simply to meet public needs with public works.

That's fine --- provided you don't include meeting private needs as "public works."

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2.

You take a tonne of ore, crush it, heat it melt it. From it you extract 1 kg of alluminium which is rolled 100 times and bent into a can.
Water is pumped from a well, filtered, puified. to that is added an exotic blend of naural and artificial fruit flaviniods and sugar. The liquid is then injected with carbon dioxide. The can having been printed with designs which have been advertised internationally to achieve sufficient notoriety to attract a buyer.
The liquid is hermentically sealed into the cans, paked in carboard boxes and transported over 100s or 1000s of miles to reach its distrinution centre, re-transported and has to be placed by hand into the vending machine which requires electricity and regular maintainance and coin collection....
And you complain it is only $2??

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2021, 7:53 pm You take a tonne of ore, crush it, heat it melt it. From it you extract 1 kg of alluminium which is rolled 100 times and bent into a can.
Water is pumped from a well, filtered, puified. to that is added an exotic blend of naural and artificial fruit flaviniods and sugar. The liquid is then injected with carbon dioxide. The can having been printed with designs which have been advertised internationally to achieve sufficient notoriety to attract a buyer.
The liquid is hermentically sealed into the cans, paked in carboard boxes and transported over 100s or 1000s of miles to reach its distrinution centre, re-transported and has to be placed by hand into the vending machine which requires electricity and regular maintainance and coin collection....
And you complain it is only $2??

The concept of "cost" rarely takes into account the actual, er, cost of creating and producing a 'product'. In fact, perhaps the biggest step we could take to combat global warming and climate change is to change our intuitive understanding of "cost" so that our first thought is about cost-to-the-environment, not cost-in-$$$.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 9:26 am

WanderingGaze22 wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 3:08 am The other day, I was out in public and I came across a vending machine for soda. Just for fun I selected a drink and the price was $2.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2021, 7:53 pm You take a tonne of ore, crush it, heat it melt it. From it you extract 1 kg of alluminium which is rolled 100 times and bent into a can.
Water is pumped from a well, filtered, puified. to that is added an exotic blend of naural and artificial fruit flaviniods and sugar. The liquid is then injected with carbon dioxide. The can having been printed with designs which have been advertised internationally to achieve sufficient notoriety to attract a buyer.
The liquid is hermentically sealed into the cans, paked in carboard boxes and transported over 100s or 1000s of miles to reach its distrinution centre, re-transported and has to be placed by hand into the vending machine which requires electricity and regular maintainance and coin collection....
And you complain it is only $2??

The concept of "cost" rarely takes into account the actual, er, cost of creating and producing a 'product'. In fact, perhaps the biggest step we could take to combat global warming and climate change is to change our intuitive understanding of "cost" so that our first thought is about cost-to-the-environment, not cost-in-$$$.

Indeed it did occur to me as I thought about what it takes to put a can of coke in a vending machine that extreme about of energy it also takes. The real cost (to the earth) is alll that destruction, warming and carbon.
I suppose if you care about the earth's environment then you should save your money and take a drink if water from a tap.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 9:26 am
The concept of "cost" rarely takes into account the actual, er, cost of creating and producing a 'product'. In fact, perhaps the biggest step we could take to combat global warming and climate change is to change our intuitive understanding of "cost" so that our first thought is about cost-to-the-environment, not cost-in-$$$.

The "environment," not being an economic actor, does not sustain any costs. It undergoes changes, but it, not being a sentient creature either, is indifferent to those changes. The only calculable costs are those the changes impose on sentient creatures.

GE Morton wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 12:26 pm
The "environment," not being an economic actor, does not sustain any costs. It undergoes changes, but it, not being a sentient creature either, is indifferent to those changes. The only calculable costs are those the changes impose on sentient creatures.

That's true, but as we've discussed before the problem is that environmental degradation causes billions of individuals to each sustain very minor costs. The result is that it is not in any one individual's economic interest to do something about it. The only way reasonable economic action can be taken is (I know you deplore the word) "collectively".

Here's an example: an environmentally conscious person might decide to stop driving his car. This imposes hardships on him, and the benefits are infinitesimal, since everyone else continues to drive and pollute the air. Collective action is the only approach that will actually improve the environmental situation (things like imposing high taxes on gasoline, or passing laws limiting the use of gas-fueled vehicles, or eliminating roads and highways). But the libertartian might (you tell me) complain that laws demanding such things are coersive and akin to slavery.

Ecurb wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 1:01 pm

GE Morton wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 12:26 pm
The "environment," not being an economic actor, does not sustain any costs. It undergoes changes, but it, not being a sentient creature either, is indifferent to those changes. The only calculable costs are those the changes impose on sentient creatures.

That's true, but as we've discussed before the problem is that environmental degradation causes billions of individuals to each sustain very minor costs. The result is that it is not in any one individual's economic interest to do something about it. The only way reasonable economic action can be taken is (I know you deplore the word) "collectively".

If it is not in any one individual's interest to do anything about the degradation, then it is not in the interests of any collective of those same individuals either. Collectives have no interests not reducible to the interests of the individuals who constitute it.

Here's an example: an environmentally conscious person might decide to stop driving his car. This imposes hardships on him, and the benefits are infinitesimal, since everyone else continues to drive and pollute the air. Collective action is the only approach that will actually improve the environmental situation (things like imposing high taxes on gasoline, or passing laws limiting the use of gas-fueled vehicles, or eliminating roads and highways). But the libertartian might (you tell me) complain that laws demanding such things are coersive and akin to slavery.

Not so (with regard to your last claim). The atmosphere is a natural common, and thus everyone has an equal interest and voice in how it should be managed. Majority rules, and minorities cannot cry "foul!" They may argue, plausibly, that certain proposed measures will be ineffective or even counterproductive, or that their costs outweigh their benefits, but when the decision is made they'll have to live with it.

GE Morton wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 12:26 pm

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 9:26 am
The concept of "cost" rarely takes into account the actual, er, cost of creating and producing a 'product'. In fact, perhaps the biggest step we could take to combat global warming and climate change is to change our intuitive understanding of "cost" so that our first thought is about cost-to-the-environment, not cost-in-$$$.

The "environment," not being an economic actor, does not sustain any costs. It undergoes changes, but it, not being a sentient creature either, is indifferent to those changes. The only calculable costs are those the changes impose on sentient creatures.

Semantic obfuscation.