Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Price Of Everything: Solving The Mystery Of Why We Pay What We Do By Eduardo Porter

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

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

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Product Description

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 Tomé 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.

Product Details
  • Amazon Sales Rank: #11629 in Books
  • Published on: 2011-01-04
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 304 pages

Features

  • ISBN13: 9781591843627
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Business journalist and New York Times editorial writer Porter delivers a popular explication of how supply and demand affect prices. In vignettes about all manner of transactions, from coffee sales to marriage dowries to home values, he disputes notions that prices settle out as rational correlations of supply and demand. All sorts of emotional factors are involved, which enliven Porter's stories as he explores divergent behaviors of upper-, middle-, and lower-income consumers in what they will pay for something. If a purchase expresses the pursuit of happiness, Porter chases the idea that money yields joy, concluding it can, though temporarily. What about the price of power? Porter adduces the cost of votes in São Tomé v. the United States, as he does the worth of labor, love, and life itself, practically breaking them down into a schedule of prices. As a book in which nothing, not even religion, seems safe from the crass intrusion of pricing, Porter's work ought to ring up the audience for Steven Levitt's Freakonomics (2005). --Gilbert Taylor

Review
"At a time of seemingly proliferating risks, though, Porter's searching book is a welcome reminder of the necessity of prudent decision making."
-The New York Times Book Review

"Porter offers us a shiny new lens for understanding the relationships around us that we too often fail to see"
-Harvard Business Review

"Thoughtful, detailed, and fascinating..."
-BookPage

"While an elegant and enjoyable read, The Price of Everything is also timely: Porter makes a strong case in the wake of the recession that it's silly for economists and policy makers to assume people act according to rational assessments or even in their own best interest."
-The Associated Press

"...energetic tour of the daily cost-benefit analysis called life."
-Bloomberg News

"...both entertaining and enlightening."
-The Financial Times

"a lively guide through the morass of economic theory... Everything has its price, and here we have a lucid explanation of where that price comes from."
-Blogcritics

"I loved it. Why? Because it's the kind of book that gives you a lot of insight into how to understand pricing things. I found it quite interesting and it'll definitely help you."
-Chris Brogan

"...the accessibility of his prose carries us along. And nothing escapes his gaze."
-Sunday Times

"If ever proof were needed that money does indeed make the world go around, Eduardo Porter provides it in this examination of how and why we ascribe certain, often perplexing values to objects and people"
-Reader's Digest

"Porter's book is an enthralling look at the prices we put, consciously and unconsciously, on everything from a gallon of gas to a spare kidney. Everyone could learn something from this wise and clever book. I did."
- Tim Harford, Financial Times columnist; author of The Undercover Economist

"Everything in the world comes with a price, but what does a price mean and how is it set? This riveting narrative is the best book on these very human and very important questions. There is an interesting nugget on virtually every page."
- Tyler Cowen, coauthor of the Marginal Revolution blog

"A fascinating journey through what we see every day-but do not think about enough. Eduardo Porter makes you think hard about the corporate interests at work behind the veil of prices (and much more). Just because people are willing to pay does not mean that the price is right-in any sense of the word."
- Simon Johnson, coauthor of 13 Bankers; professor of entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management

"Porter discusses the role of economic value not only in determining the cost of a premium cup of coffee, but also how in much different individuals and society are willing to pay to reduce the likelihood of death from, say, disease or car accidents, and even the economic logic behind who marries whom and bargaining between the sexes in marriage. I highly recommend this book to everyone who would like an often amusing and yet highly insightful discussion of how choices are made, essentially over the whole range of human behavior."
- Gary Becker, economist and Nobel laureate

"Price, an 'unacknowledged legislator' of human behavior, has found its poet in Eduardo Porter. The Price of Everything is a wise, illuminating, and necessary book."
- Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

"Eduardo Porter unlocks the economic puzzles of daily life like a master safe cracker. The Price of Everything is clever, stylish and full of surprising insights. In other words, priceless."
- Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind and Grand Pursuit: A History of Economic Genius

About the Author
Eduardo Porter
writes about business, economics and many other matters as a member of The New York Times's editorial board. He has also worked as a journalist in Mexico City, Tokyo, London, São Paulo, and Los Angeles. He was editor of the Brazilian edition of América Economía and covered the Hispanic population in the United States for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
5This book is an incredible journey through business, anthropology and psychology
By Reg Nordman
I am burning through every resource on pricing I can find. The author is a New York Times journalist - and I do so love to read books by journalists. They can write clearly, succinctly and well! This book is an incredible journey through business, anthropology and psychology. Some snippets.

* Market transactions do not necessarily provide people with what they want; they provide people with what they think they want. Consumers often have the most tenuous grasp of why they pay what they do for a given object of their desire. (This guy must drive economists crazy!)
* Value started as a moral inquiry, a manifestation of divine justice (back when the Church ran the World)
* The real world is plagued with search costs. It is difficult for consumers to to find out what a given product costs in all the shops in town- let alone everything available on the Internet. One of the best know market techniques is to make it difficult for customers to understand where they can get best value for their money
* People value more things they bought than what they receive as gifts
* Imposing a fine on tardy parents picking up their kids at daycare worsened tardiness. The fine made it affordable.
* Even if an investor were to correctly call a bubble, it would be expensive to bet against it With enough investor enthusiasm, the bubble will stay inflated longer than the contrarian could remain solvent.
* Keynes believed that most investors really do not know what they are doing. Sort of betting on the average response to average events. Keynes made a lot of money in the market.
* Expect increased right wing politics as the economy worsens

The author covers off the price of slaves, women, children, global warming, religious affiliation, horse meat and more. It is an eclectic and marvelous journey. Great book for a trip.

34 of 44 people found the following review helpful.
5An eye-opener that will make you think!
By Dan
This book is an amazing eye-opener that will make you think. Not only think but expose you to some realities about PRICE that could shift your perspective in powerful ways.

Before reading this book I thought of PRICE in more of a retail sort of way. The cost of an iPad, new shoes or a pair of pants.

While that's certainly one form of PRICE, Eduardo Porter has reminded me that it's actually so much more.

What about The Price of Happiness? The Price of Life? The Price of Work? The Price of Faith? The Price of Free? Or even The Price of the Future? (all chapter titles from the book).

PRICE is about choice, priorities, and the value or worth that we set. That value drives our decisions and shapes our lives in more ways than we might initially think. After all, everything has a PRICE doesn't it? From consumer goods to our time, every choice in where we'll invest our resources has to do with PRICE.

But PRICE isn't fixed. You and I might see PRICE in a totally different ways because the PRICE we're willing to pay is shaped by a variety of things. While I might be willing to pay $10 for a collectible card, you might think it's only worth $1. And while I might be willing to invest 4 hours of my week on Social Media, you might think that same use of time is worthless.

Everything we do, every choice we make boils down to PRICE.

I highly recommend this book. It's well worth the PRICE. :)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
5Gives a lot to think about
By D. Fletcher
Despite the readable and enjoyable prose style, the book took me a long time to get through. The problem was that every few pages I'd find myself pausing to think over what I'd just read. It is almost provokingly thought provoking. Entertaining, informative, challenging: the author covers an immense amount of ground without being superficial or predictable. Even when going over subjects that are familiar, for one reason or another, he makes the treatment interesting by applying a steady analysis to the topic. Instead of participating in inflammatory debates on controversial matters--immigration, marriage, speeding--he lets facts, well presented, illustrate the always fascinating operations of market valuations. He deftly shows how those valuations tell us about ourselves and the world.

The result is that you keep thinking about the book long after it is read. Whether he seemed to support or contradict my own point of view, he invariably presented a reasoned argument which was worth going through.

"The Price of Everything" is enormously rewarding and well worth rereading. I recommend the book unreservedly.

 

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