It really makes me stop and look at the basis for the whole thing. It's value. Value is something that many people don't really under stand. Many marketers will probably give you some speal about value being benefits divided by cost or some nonsense. I like to look at value as: What's it worth to you? For example. If you're in the middle of a desert, dying of exposure, no supplies, and you come across a shimmering pile of gold, Solid gold. Well, if you're not disappointed that it's not water, you're an idiot. In this situation, a wise man would gladly trade a mountain of solid gold for a drink of water. When I give this example, lots of people say "I wouldn't!" They are full of it.
Either they truly value posessing gold more than their own life, or they have never really been thirsty. And when you think about it for half a second valuing a posession requires you to value your life, because on this earth... "you can't take it with you" so if you were going to effectively value all your posessions you are not capable of valuing them more than your life. This puts a cap on the value of any posession. A sane person cannot value any posession more than their own life. If they do, they cease to be sane.
lets say you're there, with your big pile of gold, more than you could possibly carry out, heck, in this situation it's looking like you're not getting out at all gold or no! Then along comes this trader on camel back, and you offer him ten percent for a drink of water and a ride out with your gold. Most people I've actually presented this question to say, as the trader, sure they'd do it! These people are either extremely generous or not shrewd at all, or again, they've never been thirsty. A shrewd trader would point out that you're screwed without him. "market forces" are in his favor, your posession of the gold depends on his water and transportation. Indeed your LIFE depends on his water and transport. A smart trader would assess if he has the camel power to pack all the gold out, and offer you a trade of as much gold as he can carry out for a bag of water (assuming he has spare water). This is not a cruel trade. You walked in, you have no water, so, with water, you can walk your butt out, and he gets the gold. If you say NO to this situation, what happens?
Lots of people think they could convince my shrewd trader to come down on his price. They are very wrong. They haven't calculated the values at stake. If you say no, YOU DIE! At which point you won't be posessing anything. The trader, being shrewd as he is, would say "he chose death. I offered him water, and he wasn't willing to trade his gold for his life" And you are lucky my trader is shrewd and a good man. A bad man would just walk on by, and make a note of the location, come back later, and take the gold that is no longer yours, because you're dead and dead people own nothing.
This is the underlying principle of all transactions. As a farmer I've asked people if they would pay $1000 for a loaf of bread, everyone I've asked has said no. If I have the only loaf of bread you've seen in a year, and you have the cash, you'd pony it up in a heartbeat.
The point I'm making here is value is completely arbitrary. It is not "the price of this is going up" or, "the price of that is going down" prices don't rise or fall, the primary purchasers value it differently from moment to moment.
A brewer needs barley to brew. It's his livlihood. Since no one values their things more than their life, he will pay as much as he has to for barley, but not a cent more, because he is shrewd, and not generous... at least, not to barley growers. He helps orphans, so he is generous. Just... none of those orphans grow barley.
So when everyone has barley, he can basically find the guy who values his barley LEAST, or rather needs money more than barley to survive, and will trade with that guy, giving him the scant amount of money he is so desparate for.
But when only one man has barley, the tables are turned. The barley grower will look at all the brewers to find the one who values his barley much more than his money. The desparate one.
With desparation comes a value increase. It's human nature. You actually could choose to not value something when you are desparate... But you are desparate for a reason. you either need to change your value system, (that is if the barley grower decided he didn't need money that bad right now, so he's not going to sell his barley that cheap) or pony up the extra expense.
This is the basic reason that in 2002, I drove a winding road through idaho, and we wisely filled up before we left Montana. Half way down that 100 mile winding road through nowhere, there was a gas station. In 2002, gasoline here was nearly 5 dollars per gallon. Why? Because if your tank says "E" you are desparate... Or you're a sheister in a U-haul who wasn't going to fill it with gas anyway.
This also explains tourist traps. The people in the community will put up with higher prices because collectively the community is making money on the people who don't live there and are DESPARATE for stuff so they'll pay triple the price a sane person would for sandwich making.
Or they think they are having a unique or rare experience fishing here, or boating here, or having a camp fire in this man-made fire ring in the middle of this hand-planted forest here. At any rate they will pay the price for the essentials to their unique or rare experience. A 10 dollar fishing hook and 20 dollar worms. 50 bucks an hour boat rental, 10 dollar a bundle fire wood that is drier than kiln-dried lumber and will spontaneously combust and be consumed in less than 5 minutes.
Why is our "economy" going down? It could be nothing more than people, en masse, heard the economy was going down and they might lose their job. They also have a 10,000 dollar credit card debt that's accumulating at 20 percent interest. If they lose their job, Visa owns them. They become desparate. What will they do? They suddenly see all their current posessions as under threat, or a possibility of them being under threat in the future. And since the economy is bad, we can't put our money in a bank or stock market, a few of those just went under, you know! So he saves it in his sock drawer, under his mattress, in a coffee can buried in his back yard, and he pays visa for money he already spent so if he loses his job, no one can take what he already has. His covetousness for the things he doesn't have goes out the window because he knows he can't even keep what he does have at this point. As he buries and squirrels away his money and pays for the things he already has, this money falls off the economists grid. They see the money spent, maybe even the money saved in a bank. But not the money in your sock drawer. So they panic, money is disappearing! consumer confidence is down! EEEEEEK!
What no one ever asks are things like "should his confidence be down?" He's been over extended for five years! He's always been in danger of losing everything! His confidence should have dropped a long time ago, but loan extensions and new lines of credit kept him cocky! There's times when a consumer shouldn't be confident. Theres a time to be wise.
If you're wise, at least in my mind, you'd take a moment to notice that all this stuff you're getting suposedly to "enrich your life" is vanity and what you're really doing is trading hours of your life for stuff to enrich the life you just gave away!
I don't pay for television service. Because I value all the time it would take me to earn the extra money more than I value the entertainment. And eventually you enter a paradox like many people I know, who own so much hunting gear that they haven't paid for, they spend all season working to pay for it. Who have so many awesome cars that they spend into the midnight hours working to pay for them, and what are they doing while they are working? NOT hunting, NOT driving, they are not enjoying the things they purchased for enjoyment! Why would I want to buy a harley? I could buy a honda for WAY cheaper, and my butt can't tell the difference when it's perched on there. Rather, why wouldn't I buy an x-box? I can drink beer while I do that, and it's cheaper than both! Ultimately it is more ENRICHING because I gain more benefit because it costs less.
What is value? It's the price you'll pay. Why you pay it is totally arbitrary and up to you, but it is the price you will pay, even for an item you will spend the rest of your life paying for so you can never use it.
It kind of puts a new perspective on those cliches that we all like to lie about but our lives say different: "I value my family most" "I value Jesus most"
Do you trade your life for your family? Even if you are trading your life to pay for your families needs and desires, what does your family want and need most? probably you! Because you are their family, so while family is your excuse for working all the time you are paradoxically neglecting your family to work. I'd say you value your pride, the pride of your family having "nice things" or your pride of being a "selfless hard worker" more than you value your family. You selfish jerk.
If you value Jesus most, why does nothing you earn go to him. Are you going to pull the "Jesus wants me most" card? If so I challenge you that you aren't even giving him yourself. Heck, you won't even give him your spare time! you people sicken me. What's worse is that I'm one of you people.
In close the only things you can value more than your own life are the things you can maintain posession of once it's lost. Jesus fits this category... But if you value it more than your life, why do you not trade your life for it, but do trade your life for things that you can't sanely value more than your life?
People are crazy. That's the only answer I've found.
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