NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/environm/10322

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-30 | 3.1 KB

Xref: sparky sci.environment:10322 sci.energy:3810
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!unmvax!mimbres.cs.unm.edu!nmt.edu!houle
From: [e-mail] (Paul Houle)
Subject: Re: What is Market Efficiency.  was Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: New Mexico Tech
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:28:15 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>
>     Yes, that could be a canonical example.  However, we were discussing
>     cigarettes (like it matters).

    Well,  let's talk about cigarettes (instead of energy :-).  One of the
postulates of the market economy is that all of the participants are rational,
and act with their own economic self-interest in mind.  Yet,  cigarettes
contain nicotene,  which is a highly addictive (possible the most highly
addictaive) psychoactive drug.  Many people who smoke for a few months find
that their brain chemistry or something has been altered such that they
find it impossible to stop.  If the product is a psychoactive substance
that renders it's user irrational,  can we use the principle of the market
to explain this.  (And to some extent,  this argument can be expanded to
cover alcohol,  pot,  cocaine,  and even more pedestrian psychoactives
such as sugar and caffine (Which make a great team:  eat alot of sugar
for breakfast and you need coffee to stay awake,  eat more sugar at
lunch and need more coffee in the afternoon...  Sooner or later I found
that I needed a cup of tea at night (with a teaspoon of sugar :-) just
to be able to fall asleep!))

    Also,  the cigarette user inflicts a number of costs on himself,
some of which are immediately obvious,  such as the actual price of
a pack of cigarettes,  and some a little more distant,  like yellow
teeth,  and some that are far away,  such as lung cancer.  The cigarette
industry deliberately targets teenagers and other people who really
aren't in optimal condition to be able to make a decision that will
have far ranging effects on the rest of their lives.  A kid who decides
to smoke at age 15 quite possibly will keep smoking the same brand
for the rest of his life.  Beyond this,  cigarettes and their production
have large external costs.  Second-hand smoke is the most obvious,  but
tobacco is a particularly debilitating crop for the land,  and many
acres of land in latin america that could be used for growing local
food (ObEnergy: maybe even energy) crops,  that instead gets used to
produce tobacco,  coffee,  cocaine,  sugar and other crops that are
consumed to excess (defined by the level at which they cause personal
harm) in the US.

    The really sick thing about many of these things is that they
can be explained by the actions of "rational" actors who act
inflexibly towards self-destructive ends in a market system.


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