I agree with what you said, mostly. I say mostly because the world is complicated, and economics is something that applies at the it's complicated end. I think

I agree with what you said, mostly. I say mostly because the world is complicated, and economics is something that applies at the it's complicated end. I think we do tend to go a little bit overboard about economic ideas. Local iPhones, Teslas, LCD screens and microprocessors is absolutely a path to poverty. Cultural and economic (I think these closely related) isolation is a path to poverty, of several kinds. Our isolationist instincts are often wrong, and closely bound with our xenophobic instincts. All else equal (including whatever you consider to be important), why buy local? Are faraway people not brothers and sisters? I am very comfortable making the case for openness. Yet... There is still lots of room for experimentation, and oddities, and places where the rules are bended. There's some food bank collective that hired an economist to invent a fake currency and auction market for them. It needs some part time central banking, but supposedly works well. The market & currency has all sorts of quirks like negative prices to help with their specific needs. Messing about with 5c on the dollar locally is totally fine. It's more than fine if it has a positive effect, and I wouldn't be surprised if that effect is something we'd see as "cultural."