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Re: Are the .1% are shooting themselves in the foot by hording?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:35 am
by Gnostic Bishop
Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:05 pm How do I choose between Asian / European / South American / African / etc. products? And in what way does this kind of choice increase trade?
??

You choose by making a choice.

It increases trade because the product you buy will be replaced on the store shelf by another one and the cash now in African hands, for instance, will be used to buy a product from your country. Balance of trade is what that is called.

Regards
DL

Re: Are the .1% are shooting themselves in the foot by hording?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:39 pm
by Peter Kirby
I’m sure I already use products with parts from 6 continents.

I never tried to break it down and think about which parts come from which continents.

Are you saying that people should be investigating where their products are sourced and preferentially choosing products from Africa over those from Asia or elsewhere, even in cases when those from Asia or elsewhere deliver more value for the price?

Re: Are the .1% are shooting themselves in the foot by hording?

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 10:42 am
by Gnostic Bishop
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:39 pm I’m sure I already use products with parts from 6 continents.

I never tried to break it down and think about which parts come from which continents.

Are you saying that people should be investigating where their products are sourced and preferentially choosing products from Africa over those from Asia or elsewhere, even in cases when those from Asia or elsewhere deliver more value for the price?
Where we buy and value are not always the same.

We could likely get more value from nations who use slavery but would we really want to?

That was somewhat the case a while back when we cut off countries that used child labor.

We have always given lip service to trade being connected to human right's and have practiced that when pushed by consumer groups who caught us with our hand in the wrong cookie jar.

Being anti-Islam because of their poor moral ideology, the last place I wish to trade with are Muslim majority nations as I see them as following a slave holding ideology.

Even if I end in paying more for some product that they could supply cheaper, I would support the country that does not advocate a slave holding ideology.

Regards
DL

Re: Are the .1% are shooting themselves in the foot by hording?

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 1:30 am
by Peter Kirby
Well, to focus the discussion a little:

We can choose not to buy when we believe the supplier is behaving unethically. (You could even say that ethical production of goods and services forms one aspect of the quality of that good or service.)

I suppose you could even say that there is a "feel-good" aspect of buying inferior product, at a higher price, from a vendor that would otherwise be relatively impoverished compared to the superior competition. You can bundle up this aspect as the "charitable" part of the purchase.

Now another kind of shopper might not choose to bundle their "charitable" budget with their ordinary spending. Why? That should really be obvious. You can get gross inefficiencies that way. Sure, for some kind of commodity item, such as corn, you might be merely incurring a higher price for the same good. But there are a lot of cases where it's not merely an inferior choice on price. Try getting a CPU designed and manufactured in Ethiopia, or try getting all the latest medicine developed and designed in Libya. The best they have to offer might not even be a reasonable alternative.

At the same time, doing "charitable" shopping is its own kind of undirected, shotgun charity. You're basically just spraying extra dollars on some people. This is certainly not ineffective, but it's hard to argue it's the most effective approach.

It's also hard to scale. Imagine trying to do this as Bill Gates. You only need so many manufactured goods, personally.

So, yeah, their charity is miles more effective than what you're advocating.

Seems like these stupid billionaires might actually know what they're doing.

Re: Are the .1% are shooting themselves in the foot by hording?

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 1:34 pm
by Gnostic Bishop
P K

Nicely focused.

Some of the rich might very well know what they are doing.

I have no argument against the rest that you put either.

I read you saying that charity as a part of the trade is more effective than charity on it's own. I agree with you.

That straight charity likely ends in corrupted hands instead of the workers hands.

That is what happens with food aid etc.

Regards
DL