Tender

Tender

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Nothing's Free

I've always found it funny - the "Free" "Market". Like parking on the "Drive" "Way".

I believe we could rebuild the free market economy by consciously mitigating efforts at externalizing costs. A free market may not be an effective arbiter of priorities, but disaster comes when costs are not allocated appropriately to their points of incursion. Under-valuing resources is only the beginning. Obfuscating cost allocations has become an industry unto itself.


Where all the theory and spreadsheet wrangling, outsourcing and downsizing, shaving and tightening, speculating and trading hit reality is in the lives of people.

We’ve created a stage rush. Pushing costs out and around, pushing, pushing, and it’s The People who get crushed between the throng and the hard, hard wall of the stage. Enjoy the show.

Nothing is created or destroyed, only changed. We can transform the numbers a thousand ways, but at some point, the costs come from somewhere. Someone pays. When we mine resources in Ontario to ship to China for transformation and shipment back to Canada through Singapore, and it costs less than manufacturing in Ontario, someone is lying about what it really costs, and who's paying.

I didn't need an MBA to tell me that, but it confirmed my suspicions.

We've made the Free Market into a game of who can cheat best, and our governments have written the rules to match the play. It's a bastardization.

Next step: Valuate Earth. I want my 1/7 billionth.