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The poor and especially the middle class account for the vast majority of consumption and pollution in aggregate. Per capita the rich consume more, but not as
by api 8y ago
The poor and especially the middle class account for the vast majority of consumption and pollution in aggregate.
Per capita the rich consume more, but not as much more as you might think. The typical multi-millionaire or even billionaire does not personally consume 1000X or 1000000X more than your typical member of the middle class. Maybe 10X more at most. Beyond a certain point this is "paper wealth." Diminishing marginal utility of goods and services kicks in pretty hard once you reach the upper middle class to "lower rich" brackets. You just don't get much more value from consuming more because you've hit the value limits of technology and/or human subjective perception.
The rich also derive their wealth largely through poor and middle class consumption. They either run industries directly, invest in them, or profit off rents that could not be paid without other industrial activity to subsidize them.
- simion314 8y agoThe point was about the poor, middle class should be able to afford the recycling costs. From all the products that were listed the only ones I think could affect poor people would be the car tires, if the prices for this tires would increase, but plastic straws or sticks for baloons costing more won't affect the poor that much.
- rypskar 8y agoThey have already started to look for alternatives to plastic and rubber in car tires. http://www.continentaltire.com/news/continental-constructing-tires-dandelions http://www.continentaltire.com/news/continental-constructing...
- simion314 8y agoCool, I hope we will have good ,safe and cheap tires. If the law does not put a bit of pressure we never get this new technology. I was also thinking that it would be good if we got brakes like the racing cars have, those strong breaks could save some lives, I know there is a log of G force but it would be better then an almost instant stop in a wall.