h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>So your position is that if you, personally, are not supplied with everything you desire, in whatever amount you desire, whenever you desire it, then Market Economics itself has failed?

>>Or is it broader than that - if EVERYONE is not fully satiated of all desires at all time, market economics has failed?

>>Really?


Well of course I was only using my plain chocolate Bounty craving as an exemplar. But it's reasonable, surely, to say 'the system isn't working *for me*'? After all - I want a plain chocolate Bounty yet I have no plain chocolate Bounty.

No - I don't expect everyone to be fully or even averagely satiated. Although in practical terms, that would work fine by me: I would have a plain chocolate Bounty. But broadening it out once again from mere confectionery accountancy to Economics...could we say that an economic system has worked if the mean income is reasonable, even of the mean is derived from a handful of very rich people and lots and lots of poor? probably not. So what's the right answer? 25% poor to 75% comfortable and above? Are we happy with a normal distribution in which, say, 5% suffer lives of abject misery while 5% own superyachts and the rest are somewhere in between? This is a philosophical/political question not an accountancy one.

The elementary mistake I think your're making is that there is a goal directed answer. Actually, there are alternatives depending on one's perspective.

Can we try another one?

Imagine there is a disease that is rife around the world but particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Accountants within a pharmaceutical company realise that the best cost model to optimise the profitability of the cure is to set a price which is affordable in Europe and North America (where it thus becomes common) but unaffordable in sub-Saharan Africa (where it would be scarce).

I totally, totally get that according to the Mars Inc model, the market economy would be working exactly as the pharmaceutical company planned it.

Re: creme eggs. Supply is controlled partly on the basis of scarcity, partly on "tradition", and partly on production realities.

Scarcity: creme eggs have a special allure for some people, and part of that allure is the very rarity of them for most of the year. They were available year-round in the 80s - and sales DROPPED. Go figure.

"Traditionally" they're released after Christmas, and sold until Easter. Stocks remain in shops after that, but in general they're not distributed outside that limited window.

Production realities are this: the machine which produces them runs 24/7, all year long, to produce the quarter BILLION eggs the UK will eat between Xmas and Easter. It's a big, complex machine, and building a second would be a non-trivial task.

I am impressed, however, that (AFAIK) for the first time this year there's been a seasonal variant, the Screme Egg, with a green yolk, for Halloween. Whatever genius dreamed that one up deserved the rest of that day off, for sure.



If *I* were running a pharma company, my business model would be more like sell a drug for plenty in then US and UK, and give it away free or at cost in the third world... and make a BIG noise about it. Big pharma gets a bad rap for being evil, and giving their drugs away to the poor and getting the rich to subsidise it would be an easy way to combat that.

Well it was a hypothetical and not an attempt to bad mouth Big Pharma. But do you see my point? What is 'Right' depends on what outcome you're after.

And even without straying into Economics you've presented what could be an alternative, viable accountancy model. To some extent it's what they do - they negotiate prices with 1st World governments on the basis of selling cheaper to the 3rd World.

Now: where's my plain chocolate Bounty?

Beetroot for Somalia?

Mutiny on the Topic?

Mars you make these awful jokes? I hope you're proud of yourselves, Snickering away at your computers. Well, I'm not joining that Club.

Apropos of...not a lot...

I was pleased to discover some years ago that 'Mint Club' is an anagram of 'numb clit'.

Cue Marianne Faithfull jokes...

I see a marathon pun run coming on, just 'twixt you and me. It's going to be no picnic, but the very disapproval I get from the crowds will encourage me... with the boos to spur me along, I'll take it to a whole nuther level.

Welcome to h2g2, economics analysis to pun runs in less than 20 posts. Ay theng yo. I'm here all week, try the veal.

ish tangent ish

One of the nastiest things you can call a black person is a Bounty bar..I think that applies to dark and milk equally though.

I think it's coconut that's the really offensive thing: black on the outside, white on the inside. Pretty sure there was a local government officer sack for it last year down Bristol way.

Both terms are used.

Bounty bar is considered the worse because of the variation of chocolate colour involved.

Bounty, also. Yes - it's pretty well known. In the US - Oreos.

Funny, and Oriental colleague in the US cheerfully admitted to being a "Twinky", at which I exhibited blank incomprehension. He explained it's a sort of sponge pastry confection with cream in the middle (yuk), but specifically it's yellow on the outside and white on the inside. And he was telling me this was applicable to him. Then again, he was also interested to hear that "Oriental" is not a loaded word in the UK, merely being a useful generic term of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans etc., whereas in the US the preferred term is "Asian" and "Oriental" is apparently offensive. Colonial history being what it is, "Asian" to someone in the UK means someone with round eyes and brown skin, rather than epicanthic folds and paler skin. Funny thing, language.

'Twinky' is also a gay toyboy.

That's a twink Ed.

In a mixed group of Americans and Brits, Asian can be a bit of a nuisance particularly when talking about food. To us Asian food is curries and naan bread, to them it's noodles and dumplings.

An Oriental friend described herself as a banana, rather than a twinky.

Indded, HI - but from twinky. Armistead Maupin uses both, and he's a noted authority on teh gayz.

(iirc he recounts twinks/twinkies hanging out at the parties of Hollywood actor **** ******.)