The relativity of values causes us to use money irrationally. I go to the supermarket to buy a $15 pen, and the clerk smiles and says, “You can buy this pen for $7 if you walk 5 minutes from here.” Then, most people walk five minutes and buy a $15 pen for $7. But if you want to buy a $1,000 jacket and the clerk smiles and says, “You can get a $992 jacket in five minutes from here,” most people simply buy the $1,000 jacket. Reasonably, walking for 5 minutes equals the effort, and the profit of $8 is the same. However, people might go to a store that sells pens cheaper, but not for the jacket, because the discount rate is too low. In other words, the relativity of comparing values makes us act irrationally. The pen’s discount rate is 55%, and the jacket’s is only 0.8%. Yet, the total amount is the same for all $8, and the effort to gain that profit is identical. Attitudes and misconceptions about consumption influence how we build wealth. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
The banana tree is not actually a tree; it is a type of grass. The reason the stalks of this grass are mistaken for trees is that the stalks of bananas accumulate and become hard. Wild bananas contain seeds, but the bananas we eat today are one of the “Cavendish” varieties. People discovered and popularized a seedless mutation for commercial purposes. So, how do bananas grow without seeds? Once a banana has attached, it does not grow again from the same stalk, so the farmer cuts it away. Bananas propagate by transplanting roots that grow next to the severed stems. Therefore, edible bananas around the world share almost identical genetic DNA. Thus, if bananas become diseased, there is a high likelihood of complete annihilation. For life, diversity is an essential condition for survival, and the same applies to companies. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”