Do you think $4 for a Big Mac is a fair price? Do you think $4 is a fair price knowing that it costs 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef?

As marketing causes our needs to increase, our incomes not necessarily increase with the same pace. The desires brought to life by marketers could feel like a disease, as they cripple our rational side, allowing our shopping impulses to prevail. Marketers market their products in such way that it is still affordable for us, even without the need to ask our boss for a pay raise. At the same time, this causes consumers to demand bottom-low prices. Of course, this does not come without consequences.

A common example to explain the consequences of bad marketing is the pricing of disposable products made in China. For such products, Western consumers demand prices that are so low, that one could think that they cannot be profitable for the manufacturer. However, these manufacturers have their own solution to maximize profits while maintaining bottom-low prices. They eliminate essential parts of the production process that cause high prices, like the observance of safety and environmental policies. Chinese manufacturers exploit the lack of national legislation to take high advantage on their Western competitors. However, cutting off certain parts of the process only shifts away the invoice while the real transaction takes place somewhere else, in its own separate way. Of course, this is not what is being communicated by marketeers.