[lindseymysse]

I've been reading Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance by Jane Gleeson-White, and the last few chapters are an exploration of double entry accounting's inability to factor in environmental degradation and social costs. In the end, price and money are poor measures of important things in this world.

Raj Patel estimates that the true cost of a Big Mac is $200: https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/The-Value-of-Nothing-by...

[nradov]

That's just nonsense and completely misses the point of accounting. If businesses are imposing unacceptable externalities on society then those need to be priced in using taxes.

[BizarroLand]

"But," thought the savvy businessman, "if I don't get caught then what does it hurt, right? It is smart to not pay the government what they don't actively take from you..." and so he dumped the waste runoff from his plant into the local river and wasn't caught for 30 years, at which point he was fined 1/10 of 1% of the profits he would not have made without his economic larceny.

[lindseymysse]

The point of the book is that they aren't. Also, there is no real monetary value for environmental degradation. I'd recommend the book, it's very illuminating about the issue.