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Principles of Finance: Unit 9, Pollution vs. Price 3 Views


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Description:

How do we charge for negative externalities? Poor companies in poor countries pollute - polluting lets them offer their product cheaper. What are the economics and ethics behind this conflict?

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English Language

Transcript

00:00

Principles of finance ah la shmoop pollution versus price Alright

00:06

well super dirty industries like the one that makes fertilizer

00:09

or the one that processes pigs for human consumption which

00:13

is the big game or the one that etches semi

00:16

conductors with arsenic all pollute massively But we humans like

00:22

our plants big and green and our corn cheap And

00:25

we love our pork And we like our computers for

00:28

everything from bank payments and amazon ing to downloading you

00:32

know art films They also all happen to be super

00:35

compay hedda tive industries So the difference of a dime

00:38

a bag of that crap derived fertilizer massively affects the

00:42

success or failure of that company in the real world

00:45

Many times it's literally the difference between being a beam

00:48

off huge and going bankrupt that diamond bag difference Big

00:52

deal So then what happens in a world where notionally

00:55

evolved first world western countries which don't have people on

01:00

mass living just on the edge of starvation regulate pollution

01:04

in these dirty industries What happens What happens when we

01:07

do that That is a western chemical manufacturer might have

01:10

to actually dispose of the toxins in an organized way

01:15

Bringing in trucks that hold five thousand gallons of sludge

01:18

or whatever you call that stuff one truck at a

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time to dump those toxins carefully in a manufactured giant

01:25

plastic swimming pool container buried somewhere in the middle of

01:29

the desert All that collecting and hauling in the building

01:32

of that million gallon swimming pool holding anything and then

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overseeing that it doesn't leak or you'll get stolen by

01:39

terrorists or whatever might happen with all that effort All

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that maintenance costs a fortune and that cost has to

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be passed on to the end customer So a truckload

01:48

of this costs a grand to make and five hundred

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bucks and cost to deal with the disposal of the

01:54

making of it So this total truckload costs fifteen hundred

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bucks What about the stuff made by the competitor in

02:00

the third world country Half of whose citizens are three

02:03

days work away from starving to death Well they're simply

02:06

not worried about the storage of the pollutants so they

02:09

dumped in the river with cheaper basically free And yeah

02:12

they just don't worry about the effects but they can

02:15

sell their bag Oh crap for your lawn competitive product

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For five hundred bucks a truckload less than the first

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world makers of the same thing So what happens while

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the world acts short term rationally that is the world

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vise the cheaper version of the same commodity It's expensive

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to not pollute that's a given being green cost green

02:36

So where do governments then draw the line Well in

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the case of fertilizer many western countries banned the import

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of things that are bad for the environment and the

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people around it and or were made in a bad

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environment disrespecting kind of way But the banning is well

02:51

light Like you know you probably see a whole lot

02:53

of fireworks throughout the year Fourth of july christmas weddings

02:57

nfl games Well guess where they're made And guess who

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makes him Yeah these guys in india they bathe in

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the poison basically all day making roman candles and sparklers

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and single shot shooters None of them need walking canes

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ever dentures or artificial hips Why while they all die

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by their forty fifth birthday or sooner so individual countries

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can simply raise the price of a given product such

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that bad polluters pay a big tax putting them equal

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To the environmentally sensitive manufacturers at least equal financially And

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how do we think about that The people polluting their

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own rivers and they're all close to starvation anyway so

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if we harm their business and they can't export to

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america well then they'll starve right So how do we

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think about that So um not an easy answer here

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What about things that harm everyone like over fishing the

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oceans or nuclear power grid leaks or carbon emissions that

03:51

will come out of turkey but float down to australia

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and the rest of the world Well how does the

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u s tell poor starving countries tio not burn the

03:59

very cheap coal and shiver through their winters Well we're

04:04

not exactly shivering through our winters Yeah cole driven power

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cost about five bucks a kilowatt to produce wind power

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costs like eighty The math just doesn't work nowhere to

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go Solar nuclear politician Hot air Well they all have

04:17

issues and none of us chief is the most polluting

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coal And oh by the way the u s is

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the saudi arabia of coal We have tons we burn

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tons We export tons we supply the arms to the

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biggest polluters and global arms and global warmers on the

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planet So what do we do about all this Tell

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all these minor guys they're out of work and just

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shut him down Or do we continue to pollute with

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cole what's our price Well if we go with solar

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nuclear wind while your monthly electric bills are going to

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go from fifty bucks to three hundred probably not something

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you really want to spend most of your annual savings

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on Well how high should we let prices get to

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then be able to migrate off of coal Lots of

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polar bears have to die off first Probably all right

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we'll do We save the planet or save our money

05:02

Can we just do nothing and hope Superman saves everything

05:04

for us What are we paying that guy for me 00:05:06.739 --> [endTime] No way

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