Oh my god this is so funny and ironic, every time you upvote yourself, the value of your upvote gets less and less, you should be careful, I hope you know how this relates to Socialism
Just so you know, most of the nations in the world mine their Iron locally, It costs a lot to ship Iron in massive quantities, for example, from Africa to the US, and from Africa to China, etc. Europe, Asia and America have a lot of resources and their workers and equipment are WAYYY more efficient than any African miner with his pickaxe.
"more efficient than any African miner with his pickaxe."
but they aren't cheaper.
Think of it as a LED lamp against a normal lamp, the LED costs more but saves more energy, in the end, the cost of the normal lamp and the electricity bill will become higher than the electricity bill and cost of the LED lamp.
but if the electricity costs less for the regular lamp it doesn't matter.
Of course it would matter, the LED lamp would always have less power consumption, thus it will always remain superior over the regular lamp
What you are basically saying is "If we reduce the salary of the miners in Africa and the advanced mining equipment by 10%, then the efficiency would change!" No! It wouldn't! right now all you need is basic mathematical knowledge to understand that the ratio would still be the same
"Of course it would matter, the LED lamp would always have less power consumption, thus it will always remain superior over the regular lamp"
yes your're right, it would. But it costs less capital. That means it is the choice for the rich, who don't have to pay the price for the higher consumption.
"What you are basically saying is "If we reduce the salary of the miners in Africa and the advanced mining equipment by 10%, then the efficiency would change!" No! It wouldn't! right now all you need is basic mathematical knowledge to understand that the ratio would still be the same"
also what the fuck? I was saying mining in Africa is cheaper because even though it takes more people, their labor is cheaper because they are starving and easier to oppress.
"yes your're right, it would. But it costs less capital. That means it is the choice for the rich, who don't have to pay the price for the higher consumption."
What is your point?
Think of it like that:
Red is cheaper, blue is more expensive, the amount blue can mine is much bigger than what red can do, so in the long term (When X>5), it's worth more to buy blue, rather than red
just look at the working conditions in China
http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/109
also you were going on about how capitalism lifted the chinese workers out of poverty or something weren't you?
we aren't anywhere close to that point yet though, and we won't be by the time we are able to mine asteroids.
so it doesn't matter. Also the biggest expensive is often labor, which is 1/100th the price in Africa.