Hot dogs and salads

Imagine everyday you have two options for lunch: a hot dog or a salad. On the one hand, Mike's Hot Dog Stand. (In that hand) you have a calorie-dense frank wrapped in a warm, savory bun and topped with your favorite zestful condiments, and while you're pretty darn sure that you'd be better off health-wise eating just about anything other than this here hot dog, it's so cheap, easy, and tasty that it's plain hard for a mere mortal to resist.

On the other hand: Hippie Dave's Salad Stand. (In that other hand) you have a crispy, green salad. You know it's more healthful for you, but even after adding a goodly dollop of your favorite, healthful organic salad dressing, the salad still falls a bit short of filling you up completely, and furthermore, it costs twice as much as one of those oh-so-convenient hot dogs. We don't know exactly why this is, but we're not too shocked by the idea that it costs more to fill a bowl with a medley of fresh fruits and vegetables than it is to create a meets-minimum-standards sausage of emulsified meat slurry.

Such is life. So everyday for lunch you decide which to eat and try to balance the cost- and calorie-benefits of the hot dog to the healthfulness of the salad. Most days you opt for the hot dog because, well, it sucks to be hungry hours before dinner and it's good to save a buck.

But you're told not to worry. They say that soon your dilemma will be resolved, for (or so you're told) the price of hot dogs is bound to increase sooner or later. This is because the nasty, stinky feedlots producing the emulsified meat slurry that makes up those hot dogs are unsustainable and therefore there simply won't be as many hot dogs in the future as there are now. Economics being the simple thing it is, the supply of hot dogs will decrease and, amidst steady demand, lead to that promised price increase. How does this help? Simple! If the price of hot dogs were to double then there would be no price incentive to choose a hot dog over a salad, and if the price were to quadruple then there would be no price incentive to choose a hot dog over two salads! And even two salads are probably enough to keep you sated until dinner. Even better: Hippie Dave doesn't sell a lot of salads with things currently as they are, so with more competitive pricing we should expect a economy-of-scale benefit by way of decreased salad prices. Hurray progress!

“Wait a minute” you say as you think this over. “This means that my lunch is going to cost more in the future than it does now. This is no good!”

“Well, sure lunch will cost more. But these salads are sustainable and healthful. Both you and the environment will be better off, and surely paying a little more for lunch is a small price to ask of such an enlightened (and rather attractive) citizen of the world.”

“Ah, I see your point. Yes, I think I can ever so nobly pay a little more if it means making the world and my waistline better and smaller places, respectively.”

But what they are not telling you is something you might want to begin asking yourself: what does Hippie Dave himself eat?

Hippie Dave, despite his high-falutin' earth-friendly ways, knows in his heart of hearts, that it's a hard for a man to live by salad alone, even if he is a hippie. And so, every day, while no one is looking, Hippie Dave sneaks over to Mike's Hot Dog Stand and purchases for himself a mouth-watering, calorie-dense sausage of that juicy emulsified meat slurry that's sure to take the edge off of his lettuce-laden hunger.

And so, what they are failing to mention to you, is that when the price of hot dogs inevitably begins to increase, Hippie Dave must raise the price of his salads to make up for his increased cost of “doing business.” Sure, the price increase of a salad will be less than the price increase of a hot dog, but by how much less? Maybe not much less. How many hot dogs has Hippie Dave been sneakily buying? How dependent upon hot dogs is the creation of that salad?

Though it will be attractive to believe them when they say it, don't be fooled when someone says that a such-and-such price increase in a non-renewable resource will make attractive the act of making the world a better place. Be prepared to do your own research and find out where Hippie Dave buys his lunch. You may not like the answer, but I assert that it's better to find it out for yourself.