Most of us think of prices in the context of shopping expeditions. In the marketplace, prices ration what we consume, guiding how we allocate resources among our many wants. They prompt us to set priorities within the limits of our budgets. Just as prices steer our purchasing patterns, they steer the decisions of the companies that make what we buy, enabling them to meet our demand with their supply. That's how markets organize a capitalist economy.
But prices are all over the place, not only attached to things we buy in a store. At every crossroads, prices nudge us to take one course of action or another. In a way, this is obvious: every decision amounts to a choice among options to which we assign different values. But identifying these prices allows us to understand more fully our decisions. They can be measured in money. But our most important currency is, in fact, opportunity. The cost of taking any action consists of the alternatives that were available to us at the time. The price of a five-dollar slice of pizza is all the other things we could have done with the five dollars. Economists call this the "opportunity cost." By evaluating opportunity costs, we organize our lives.
Here's a list of surprising prices I discovered while writing THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING ...
Adapted from The Price of Everything by Eduardo Porter by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2011 by Eduardo Porter. Visit www.EduardoPorter.com for more information and a free excerpt.
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Wages have been generally flat for about 10 years. Add to that income reversal. Most unemployed who find work do so at reduced wages, in some cases substantially.
Maybe those prices seem high because I'm making now what I made in 1977, that is as an adjunct college instructor (tuition is sky-high but the faculty see a fraction of the dollars). Institutions of higher learning where only the custodial staff makes less--maybe. But that's another story.
http://armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/gwot_spending_burn_rate/
1 - The relatively low cost of the printer. There is a reason why the more expensive printers have cheaper ink cartridges. If you do print a lot it's better to invest more up front than have the manufacturers earn it on the back end
2 - Modern printers and cartridges are incredibly high tech products in ways that most people wouldn't believe. They have to deliver microscopic amounts of ink and high speed with uncanny accuracy. In addition the ink has to be made to last for a long period of time.
It's razor blades that I got sick of buying especially once they started needlessly increasing the number of blades. Get a straight razor and blades for about $10 and just be careful.
THIS SYSTEM IS MOST WASTEFUL than all of the other existing systems in the history of the planet.
Frankly, most of Hollywood's output isn't even worth the time to watch it.
You expect to pay more for quality.
The cornerstone to building an obedient gullible populace is to get them waylaid by religion. Some recent poll here on HP showed that nearly 50% of Americans believe man was created by God about 10,000 years ago. *shudder*