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What's an example of economic irrationality you've observed in the world? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A friend from Argentina once told me Argentina keeps its best wines for themselves and exports the mediocre stuff, even at the sake of profits.

Similarly, a friend from Turkey once said he couldn’t find good Turkish olives outside of Turkey because “Turks are terrible businessmen and keep the best olives to themselves.”

These are anecdotal and might be untrue but I liked the idea.

At an individual level, it’s irrational to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma yet experiments show people cooperate.

Contributing to open source projects may fall into this category.

Have you observed any obvious behavior that goes counter to profit maximization? Any cool examples?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't know if they still do it but when I was a kid in the 70's they would dump semi trailer tanks of milk in the ditch to maintain pricing and supply.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So typically stuff like that happens if supply outstrips demand, and selling the excess would drive prices so low as to cause the farmers to actually lose money overall. Dumping excess keeps prices balanced, so it at least makes sense from an economic standpoint.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

And you can't just tell the cows to take a week off. Lol