Reply #24: You know very little about economics ... [View All]

[HamdenRice]

The only plumber in 100 miles is not earning based on value -- it would be based on scarcity, and in fact, market failure. If there were three plumbers, then the salaries of plumbers would be basically the value they contribute to society.

I recently hired a plumber. I had to pay him about $1000 to replace drains and some other things in a bathroom. The materials cost only about $15.

I paid him for (1) his skill, (2) the benefit of not having to learn how to do this stuff and do it myself, and (3) the increase in value to my bathroom in terms of convenience and function was much greater than the cost I paid him.

My surgeon was one of several in NYC who do that procedure. I did not pay him because he was the only guy in town who could do the procedure.

In another post responding to the guy who told the story about the company earning $600 million, you said it could charge that much only if it was producing something we absolutely needed like polio vaccine.

Hellooo?? Earth to Tyler. Are you not typing on DU now? Are you not using the internet? A phone line?

These are all things that are not absolutely necessary like polio vaccine. If people collectively want to pay, say, $600 million to Dell for computers, why would you stop them?

And if some manager comes in and say makes changes so the price of computers drops so hundreds of thousands of poorer people can get them and their kids can get access to the internet for school, and this manager also makes the company more profitable, why would he not have contributed more than $1 million in value to society?