hysaf
Hope you heal soon. The downside of bikes I guess …. if something happens, usually not the biker’s fault (though there are idiots on bikes too), it tends to be much worse than in a car, something too many car drivers fail to understand.
As for what something’s worth, I agree with the “market sets the price” rationale, but it’s more complicated than even that. It also depends on the circumstances of the buyer. If the item in question is, let’s say a widget, and the “fair” price is £1800, how much will a specific buyer pay? If it’s someone struggling to find tthe money but that really wants that widget, they may have £1750 and not a penny more. Along comes buyer B, say Elon Musk or some other billionaire. £2000 is chump change to them and if they think “Y’know, I fancy a widget that colour, I don’t have a red one, only blue, green, yellow and sky-blue pink”, they may, on a whim, fork over two grand and say “keep the change”. Then put their new widget with the others they have, and promptly forget all about it. The poor git that really, REALLY wanted it got done over by circumstances utterly beyond his control, or standard market forces.
Conversely, a widget might sell regularly for that £1800 but, as it happens, everybody that wants one has one, and there just isn’t a buyer. Probably, though not necessarily, dropping the price might work. But it might not.
Most things don’t have a specific arbitrary value, and it certainly isn’t fixed over time. I have a car quite a few people seem to want, to the point that at least a few times a year I get either a knock at the door, or a note shoved through the letterbox with a “ring me if youwant to sell” message on it. Thing is, I don’t especially want to sell. Oh, I guess if someone waved a big enough price under my nose I’d sell, but I’m sure not actively looking to sell, and especially not at “market price”. Double market price? I doubt it. Triple ‘market’ price? We’re getting there.
Thing is, I bought that car new, it has low mileage, excellent condition and as such, to me, is irreplaceable as I literally cannot buy one only ever driven by me on “the market”, at any price. To me, it’s not just the car, or condition. It was my pride and joy, and means more to me that the sum of money “market price” does. I’m not wealthy, but not hard up either. I buy (within reason, I’m not talking about private jets or Caribbean islands, etc) what I want, when I want it, and it doesn’t really impact my financial situation in a dramatic way. So if that car is worth, for arguments sake, £5k and someone offers me £10k, what difference will the money make? What will it let me do that I can’t do right now, if I want to? If I could use that £10k to do something or buy something that, without selling it I can’t do, it would change te situation, but it doesn’t do that. All it means is a bit more in my bank balance, by selling something I don’t want to sell.
So what is the car “worth”? To me, more than anyone has yet offered to pay for it, so here it remains. There might, somewhere and some-when, be a person with enough money to hit my “Oh okay, I’ll sell” price, that wants the car more than whatever sum it takes to buy it. What is £10k, £25k, £100k “worth” to a billionaire?
See what I mean? It’s not just the car, bike, widget or whatever that has a market value, but the value of money depends on how much you have, compared to how much you realistically need to live your life how you want to. Even money really has no value in itself, merely in what it will buy you, or enable you to do. It’s a sort of “opportunity cost”, if you like.
