[gillygirl]

Originally Posted by SailinAway

Interesting post, John. It may be too soon to say that the supply line is "permanently" changed by the demand, but I think that could be a good thing. You gave a good example of shingle colors. The number of available colors made me a bit crazy. I didn't want to have to choose from among 50 colors, 25 companies, and 10 types of shingles. A choice between black or gray architectural shingles would have been fine.

One of the biggest problems of our economy is that huge resources are invested in an excess of choices: thousands of things that people don't really need, available in a hundred times more options than we need. Because the profit motive trumps all other goals, in the end, many essential needs go unmet.

1st example: housing. We don't need larger houses with more comfort and convenience items in them. We need larger quantities of small, affordable houses with basic amenities.

2nd example: We don't need 5,000 types of food, most of it junk. We need perhaps 50 types of food, all healthy, affordable, and available.

Same for clothing, vehicles, and virtually every other consumer good you can think of. There is an overproliferation of goods and too much time, money, labor, and natural resources invested in them rather than in more fundamental needs that would give people greater well-being. I wonder what would happen if the ports prioritized ships delivering essential goods and turned away the ones delivering unnecessary junk.

And the variety of options brings up a point. How does all that variety drive up the price for those looking for a standard option, if at all? Seriously, if you aren’t satisfied with a realistic number of options, are you driving up prices for the majority to satisfy your specific desire? I don’t know that answer and looking to the SMEs (subject matter experts) to answer the question. I think we are overly indulged with regards to options. Does anything operate better if it’s a specific color?


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