>As broken down above, most of the money from that lobster ultimately goes somewhere else. You can't have it both ways. The only affect that the market has on

>As broken down above, most of the money from that lobster ultimately goes somewhere else. You can't have it both ways. The only affect that the market has on the local market for lobsters in Bangladesh, is via the price in Bangladesh, i.e. the price the fishermen pay. So to the extent that they are affecting the market in Bangladesh, they must be paying higher prices, and therefore the parent comment applies. >But unless you're an economist, you have to posit that the enjoyment from a lobster dinner is the same whether you're a Bengali villager or a yuppie in San Francisco. In a sense they're giving up $60 of enjoyment to get a couple of dollars of cash. The economists are in fact correct. You cannot measure enjoyment in dollars, because $60 will buy a lot more additional enjoyment for a Bengali villager than a San Francisco yuppie. So the villager would be willing to give up the enjoyment of a lobster dinner for much less than $60, which is precisely what they are doing.