Transfer Costs and You

Transfer costs are a given in business, economics, and life.  Well, the idea is a given, the meaning and what and how, and definitely  why, well those are whole other subjects.

The first definition  from the end all be all source, Wikipedia, states for the concept I'm trying to convey that ' Transfer pricing is the setting of the price for goods and services sold between controlled (or related) legal entities within an enterprise.'

Transfer pricing is the concept, transfer cost is more of what I'm trying to refer to, defined as the 'Total opportunity cost of moving an item from one place to another, including transport costs, loading and unloading costs, and administrative costs.'

So, why are 'moving' costs all around us?

I'm  not trying to point out moving costs as in the cost of moving but the actual  moving of costs.

I.E. moving costs from one party to the next.

Making some other poor sap pay for what may or may not, or should or should not be paid for by the actual paying party.

This occurs all the time within companies and corporations.  One department  defers costs to the other, and really it depends on what manager is willing, or not strong or brave enough to fight off that willingness, to pay for another departments necessities, or even errors.  Now interdepartmenally these costs are fought and passed around but as a company as a whole, the cost remains.  And in fact, the fighting and time wasted transferring the costs may have worsened the initial cost so the company as a whole takes a larger cost, just so one department 'wins' and 'transfers(!)' the cost.

Transfer costs, and additional costs associated with the transferring of costs, occur naturally in large companies due to size and complexity of costs, and the, lets not forget or be ignorant of, the incentives in place to reduce cost.  So, one department  managers thought process and logic of why a cost is not theirs is challenged by another department's managers views that a cost is that initial  departments. 

I'm not here to avoid those costs, because  frankly a corporation is already well ahead of myself as an individual, and all of us individuals, especially us100k plusers, even the average student with their measly 30k debts.

But, I am here to attempt to identify the ignorance in transfer pricing and transfer costs in our everyday life and most certainly  personal economies.

As students in secondary education, the cost, unlike primary education, has been transferred from the  state (in most cases, whereas, generous states like Georgia do not apply) to the individual.  As secondary  education is not currently a right, but a choice for embettetment, at least the guise of it, the cost should lay on the individual.  But the student loan industry, institutions included, has allowed the cost of education to be inflated so much that the cost of the industry and infrastructure of that industry has been transferred to the individual.

This transfer cost also includes the salaries of over inflated individuals, not the student loan paying individual(while at one point they may have been, ever increasing the life cycle or natural circle of life we as consumers have introduced into the modern civilized society), but the individuals at the top of these institutions, this time not referring to just the schools.  The CEO's and high level managers with inflated salaries as compared to the rest of the company, of whom are most likely debt-ridden student loan payers(another contribution to the cycle).  Even the teachers of these institutions, with their inflated knowledge, receive a top tier wage.

The separation of the top of society even in our modern day continues and pushes in both directions.  The rich get richer, and the debt ladled get more of what feeds them.

I wonder if these are all feelings, and not cold hard facts, if this is all bitching and not necessary talk, if I'm dead wrong and society's better than my random accusations.

But from a glance at the lay of the land, it appears to be even worse than my ramblings.

And the transfer costs continue to stack up while we ignorantly continue to pay.

Health care comes to mind.

So, one day my, and I assume, out  of anger and quick assessment, your 100k plus will be 200k plus, or 400k plus, or 1m
plus.

Transfer costs.

And education, not ramblication.