Buying cheap stuff makes life worse.

When I was younger I used to buy the cheapest possible stuff.

Now that I'm older, I like to think I'm immune from cheapness, but really I'm not. I'll often buy cheap crap and that's a problem according to Ellen Ruppel Shell in her book Cheap: the high cost of discount culture.

She says that when stores sell cheaper stuff with lower prices, it means other stores have to lower their prices to compete. This means they make less profit (because margins are smaller) and to counteract the losses they cut salaries.

So when everyone starts buying cheap stuff, salaries go down. It becomes a cycle because now people have lower salaries and they can only AFFORD cheap stuff.

In a better world everyone would buy the most expensive stuff. Salaries would start to go up.

High prices and high salaries would mean we'd probably be able to afford approximately the same amount of stuff. It's just that now all our stuff would be excellent, high quality stuff instead of crappy cheap shit made by child slaves in China.