 Last time on common sense soapbox Bob went to the future by accident and had to take a trip to the hospital only to discover that in this supposed Utopia health care still isn't free. What's the deal with that? Find out on this exciting new episode of common sense soapbox Bob to the future It's absolutely insane that you still have to pay for health care This is the future. I thought you people were supposed to be enlightened and advanced Look, I get that a lot of the books and movies from your time led you to believe that there wouldn't be money in the future But it's called science fiction for a reason Obviously we have way more awesome stuff than you had back then and none of the necessities like health care and food cost us much today But abundant and infinite aren't the same thing You can't just wish away scarcity. Oh man, you're telling me that even with all this You still have limited resources Well, yeah One thing that's never really changed is that people have pretty much infinite wants No matter how good we get at creating more robots cars houses food computers and whatever else we need with the resources We have people keep dreaming up new ideas and want to make things We haven't even thought of yet like taco flavored ring pops now We have those plus limited material resources isn't the only kind of scarcity We're also going to have limited knowledge Not me and limited skills. Nope Okay, fine, but even you have to admit you have limited time. Yeah Well, so do you so I still win the point is we still need to know if we're using our time and resources effectively So we need a way to measure value and pass that information on to other people That's what money and prices are for but we can talk about that later Do we have to scarcity also means we have to deal with trade-offs the materials that go into making that robot dog Can't also be used to make a spaceship at the same time a spaceship. You mean you finally Invented space Sure, Bob, but look, do you know what opportunity cost is? I know I know when I'm watching TV instead of learning how to hypnotize chickens That's an opportunity cost Sure Technically yes all the things that you could be doing instead of whatever you're doing right now is your opportunity cost It's up to you to decide what's worth more to you Maybe watching TV is more important than hypnotizing chickens until the chickens hypnotize you could they do that in your time There was no proof they couldn't well, so if I understand this right we need to pay that doctor Because his time knowledge and resources are all scarce Yep, but how exactly does money help him with that scarcity doesn't just go away because you paid somebody Of course not, but it helps him figure out what he should expend his limited resources on What if he spent all day treating scraped knees instead of flag nor syndrome Floor what oh, right? Oh, okay What if he tried setting up a hospital somewhere totally uninhabited like the moon? Oh, we colonized that I was thinking more like Portland if he set up a clinic in a place like that He wouldn't have anyone to treat and the fact that he wouldn't get paid would be a really good sign that he should move His clinic somewhere else or at least find some other way of creating value for people. I'm listening darling You must explain this in a way that the simple fellow can comprehend Young man, we want to do as much as we can with as few resources as possible And we want to make sure that what we're doing with those resources is actually valuable That's what prices are for the more people want to have something the more they're willing to pay for it Entire prices tell the people who own or make those goods and services that they should produce more of them and bring Them to the places and people who want them most Well GMO's have come really far what the chicken said we have a lot of stuff to go around sure But we still have to economize it somehow Economize that sounds suspiciously like budgeting. That's basically what it is But it helps everyone lead better lives. It's pretty liberating once you get the hang of it Well, I'm still confused and I don't like it. You're in luck. Someone here can explain it better than me. Hooray What will happen to Bob? Will this museum of holograms be boring? Is he ever going to escape lectures on economics? Find out on the next installment of commonsense soapbox Bob to the future