[mrtksn]

Of course value is created, the problem is that the value is not created for the people who endure the issues and the pricing is apparently wrong. It is similar to building a SPAM factory somewhere people live on pork, paying higher prices for the pigs and buy all the pigs but not enough for the people who sold you the pigs to use the proceeds to increase the number of pigs or replace them with some other source and as a result you just created a famine.

Maybe they should have been smarter but you operate with more information, you can pay brokers to convince the villagers to sell all their pigs and now the villagers starve, they will find someone who promises to make things right and they will burn your SPAM factory.

[cma]

Not exactly the spam example, but Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the potato famine. The good farmland went to cattle and things like that for export.

[SR2Z]

Wasn't the famine a potato-specific blight?

[davkan]

Yes but the death toll was in large part because of Britain forcing the Irish to export everything that wasn’t a potato among a myriad of other oppressive practices.

[jimmydddd]

And while I was taught repeatedly in school that all the Irish folks came to the US due to the potato famine, I don't ever recall anyone mentioning the forced exporation of other food to India, etc. Didn't learn it until I was like 50 years old. lol.

[_3u10]

So we should allocate electricity to less productive uses to benefit people the most?

People should just keep driving inefficient cars rather than having gas prices increase so they can evaluate whether getting a more efficient car makes sense for them.

[esseph]

> People should just keep driving inefficient cars rather than having gas prices increase so they can evaluate whether getting a more efficient car makes sense for them.

You're assuming many can even buy a car right now, let alone a new one.

[_3u10]

I don't live in a "first world" country, where I live people have cars, some even chinese ones.

I would assume in the first world people can have cars and air conditioning, maybe not having AC, a car, or a home is a first world problem now. If an average person in a middle income country can drive a car, surely its possible for most of humanity.