Good point -- all get wrapped into price. Price is actually a really elegant way to handle a basket of constantly shifting factors that all impact decisions about how to handle all of the resources that exist in limited supply.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of negentropy -- the spontaneous self-arrangement of order that feeds on the constant waterfall of energy going past us as it heads steadily towards heat death -- "dissipative systems" I've heard them described as.

Sort of puts it into perspective for us since we always imagine ourselves to be "building" the economy when in fact it's really a parasitic structure.