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    The Price Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do
    The Price Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do
    The Price Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Price Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do

    Written by Eduardo Porter

    Narrated by Walter Dixon

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country. And citizens of the industrialized West pay hundreds of dollars a year in taxes or cash for someone to cart away trash that would be a valuable commodity in poorer parts of the world.

    The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice that we make, whether we're deciding to have a baby, drive a car, or buy a book. We often fail to appreciate just how critical prices are as motivating forces shaping our lives. But their power becomes clear when distorted prices steer our decisions the wrong way.

    Eduardo Porter uncovers the true story behind the prices we pay and reveals what those prices are actually telling us. He takes us on a global economic adventure, from comparing the relative prices of a vote in corrupt São Tome and in the ostensibly aboveboard United States to assessing the cost of happiness in Bhutan to deducing the dollar value we assign to human life. His unique approach helps explain

    * Why polygamous societies actually place a higher value on women than monogamous ones

    * Why someone may find more value in a $14 million license plate than in the standard-issue $95 one

    * Why some government agencies believe one year of life for a senior citizen is four times more valuable than that of a younger person.

    Porter weaves together the constant-and often unconscious-cost and value assessments we all make every day. While exploring the fascinating story behind the price of everything from marriage and death to mattresses and horsemeat, Porter draws unexpected connections that bridge a wide range of disciplines and cultures. The result is a cogent and insightful narrative about how the world really works.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAscent Audio
    Release dateJan 4, 2011
    ISBN9781596596412
    The Price Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do

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    Reviews for The Price Everything

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    • 4/5
      The Price of Everything is an entertaining "pop economics" book full of attention-grabbing facts and theories in the style of Freakonomics.Under the umbrella of looking at prices, and whether they accurately reflect what things are worth, it covers a lot of ground. The chapter headings are: The Price of Things; The Price of Life; The Price of Happiness; The Price of Women; The Price of Work; The Price of Free; The Price of Culture; The Price of Faith; The Price of the Future; When Prices Fail. There were surprising bits that made me want to read them out aloud to someone, bits that changed my view of the world, and bits that made me think and mentally argue with the author.I probably would have got more out of it if I hadn't already read a lot of popular economics books - some of the stuff in here was already familiar to me. And because it zipped along, covering so many different topics, it felt rather "bitty" to me, a jumble of superficial and important insights mixed together. Perhaps I should have paused at points to think about things before moving on, to avoid suffering mental indigestion. I would have appreciated a "further reading" section.I would like to make a point regarding the chapter "The Price of the Future", which discusses the costs of environmental problems such as climate change. Economists assume that "money today is worth more than money in the future" because money today can be invested to yield a larger amount of money in the future. Or to put it another way "If income per person were to grow by 1 percent a year over the next two centuries, less than half the pace of growth of the last century, people in the year 2200 would be 6.3 times as rich as they are today. Why should the poorer people of the present scrimp and save in order to protect the environment for their richer descendents, who could afford more environmental investments than we can?"I've never seen this argument challenged in any economics book, but there seem to be two things wrong with it. The first is that I see no good reason to assume that the world economy will grow in the future, rather than shrink. In the past, sometimes economies have grown, sometimes they have shrunk (for example, the period preceding the collapse of the Roman Empire and the onset of the Dark Ages). We are living in a culture with no precedent in history in terms of the possibilities and dangers we might face, so I don't believe we can make any firm predictions about future economic growth. The second thing wrong with this argument, is that it is used to justify failing to invest in things that would help us out in the future, such as investments in alternative energy sources - on the grounds that economic growth will mean that people in the future will be much better able to afford to do these kind of things - so let's invest in these things in the future when we're richer! But (and I feel like typing this in caps) THERE WON'T BE ANY FUTURE ECONOMIC GROWTH WITHOUT INVESTMENT IN THE PRESENT DAY! It's a variant of the same "logic" used to justify pyramid schemes, isn't it?I'm not singling out the author of this book. But it annoys me that I've never once seen these phony assumptions challenged.
    • 3/5
      An interesting book with a lot of fresh ideas about the values we unconsciously assign to everyday things. Porter unflinchingly examines the way we price everything from happiness to women and the unintended consequences of these decisions.
    • 3/5
      The subtitle is: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do. This is nonfiction and consists of chapters such as “The Price of...” Things, Life, Happiness, Women, Work, Free, Culture, Faith, and Future. Have to admit that it was interesting as I read it (most of it), but unfortunately, it’s already fading. I won’t remember it. The conclusion (most fresh in my mind) does refer to the 2008 financial crisis quite a bit, and hopes that people will have learned a few things. I do wonder what the author would write now, after things have shut down due to COVID, and are just now starting to reopen for the economy.
    • 4/5
      The book was thought provoking, and overall worth a read. However, all too often I got the sense that he was providing post hoc rationales. He would provide a reason why the prices in one place would go up with variable X, but then he'd point out that in another place, the effect is not seen and explain it by their differing cultures.The explanation may be correct, but it is hardly conclusive. There may not be a connection between the price and X.
    • 4/5
      Porter uses the word "price" in a broad sense and makes the convincing case that price is a [the?] motivating factor in everything we do. His discussion of economics is accessible, straightforward and occasionally provocative. An informative and interesting investigation of consumerism and human behavior.