You're describing gouging and gold rush pricing, which thankfully not a feature any major economic system relies on for everyday operation.
It's entirely reasonable to expect logistical costs to inflate the price of a good, so the price should reflect the market equilibrium value of the service of bringing water into the middle of the desert, not the good.
Your water in the desert costing 100 times what it costs where it rains is meant to represent its scarcity here vs over there.
Take cuban dollars vs normal dollar. In there the two tenders aren't proxy for value. Proxy for a political control so that the wealthy visitor pays 10 times, for the same bottle of water on the same shelf.
We are hoarding money to buy many bottles. The chinese are making and filling it while drilling wells that dont seem financally viable. They spoiled their entire bottle buying budget on that? What dumb communist central planners.
You're describing gouging and gold rush pricing, which thankfully not a feature any major economic system relies on for everyday operation.
It's entirely reasonable to expect logistical costs to inflate the price of a good, so the price should reflect the market equilibrium value of the service of bringing water into the middle of the desert, not the good.
That's only because, for some reason, people have conflated the words "value," "price," and "cost" until the terms are indistinguishable.
But politics isn't involved.
The point of tender is to represent value.
Your water in the desert costing 100 times what it costs where it rains is meant to represent its scarcity here vs over there.
Take cuban dollars vs normal dollar. In there the two tenders aren't proxy for value. Proxy for a political control so that the wealthy visitor pays 10 times, for the same bottle of water on the same shelf.
We are hoarding money to buy many bottles. The chinese are making and filling it while drilling wells that dont seem financally viable. They spoiled their entire bottle buying budget on that? What dumb communist central planners.