How do you know whether lower prices signifies a good deal on a superior product or a bad deal on an inferior product?

“We rail against the exploitation of low-paid workers in Asia as we drive 20 minutes to the Big Box to save three bucks on tube socks and a dollar on underpants. We fume over the mistreatment of animals by agribusiness but freak out at an uptick in food prices. We lecture our kids on social responsibility and then buy them toys assembled by destitute child workers on some far flung foreign shore. Maintaining cognitive dissonance is one way to avoid a world of contradictions, and on an individual basis there’s much to be said for this. But somehow the Age of Cheap has raised cognitive dissonance to a societal norm.”

- excerpt from Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell