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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • Pennomi@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyzEconomics
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    12 days ago

    Yep, graphing calculators are a forced necessity for school, therefore they can charge anything they want and people will still buy them. This kind of artificial demand causes extreme price inelasticity and is capitalism at its worst.

    Same deal with university books, you are forced to buy them so they cost hundreds of dollars, when they could easily be sold at a profit for a quarter of the cost.










  • Pennomi@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyzfossil fuels
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    3 months ago

    For sure, they optimize for profits, and that means being irresponsible with the world.

    Let’s take meat for example. It’s not like a ranch is going to raise and slaughter millions of cattle just for the lulz. If nobody is buying it, there’s no economic incentive and the problem goes away.

    Consumers are unwilling to change to more expensive, ethical products. It follows that corporations are unwilling to produce them. Until something like lab meat becomes cheaper and easier than natural meat, this will persist. This could be done through taxes on natural meat, (maybe a methane emissions tax).

    But consumers fundamentally hold all the power here. They could simply switch to eating less meat and the producers would automatically correct themselves. You just can’t convince people to do it.