Cost Benefits By Johnny Cash

In his song, Johnny Cash explores aspects of social responsibility, competitive advantage, consumer choice, inequality, and various forms of cost-benefit action. One can refer to economic concepts in the song starting from the point when the singer acknowledges that his mother wanted to prevent him from playing with dangerous assets like guns as well as emphasizes the role of making proper consumer choices. However, as a part of social responsibility, the singer made a bad consumer choice and used an asset, namely a gun, to commit murder in Reno. As a result, the cost for his actions was a jail time in Folsom prison.
While moving on a train to the place of his incarceration, the singer speaks of economic inequality and competitive advantage
of "rich folks eating from a fancy dining car".(lyrics) One can see that people singer dedicates his song not only to gain more competitive advantage them others but also possess a significant capital and assets allowing them to "drinking coffee and smoking big cigars,"(lyrics) products unavailable for an average consumer of that time. Furthermore, the singer acknowledges that he was aware of such inequality as well as refers to the fact that their competitive advantage makes it impossible for others to acquire capital and participate in social mobility. Additionally, speaking of the potential possession of a railroad train, the singer thinks that such asset would have provided a greater competitive advantage for him making it possible to "move on over a little farther down the line".(lyrics) Finally, the singer acknowledges that his actions cost him freedom and consumer choice he made had no desired benefit. However, it was not mentioned what an intended benefit of using the asset was, the central theme of the song revolved around the cost of an action. The overall impression from the lyrics indicates that the case is similar to cost-benefit analysis in which the singer emphasizes the fact that he made a bad consumer decision and used an asset in a manner that resulted in liability. Using the gun to kill a man came at a price of a prison sentence. Moreover, the singer explores the case of financial inequality, where people while having more capital also gain more capital advantage that makes it almost impossible to an average consumer to survive on the market. In fact, in the context of the song, one can refer to sunk cost as a decision where particular value has already been undergone, and it cannot be changed. The singer speculates what could have been in case he used the asset differently as well as in case he acquired other assets and shared the competitive advantage with the "big shots" that smoked big cigars. In the context of economics, I think that song explores how economic inequality is related to the social responsibility. Namely, people who gain a competitive advantage, as well as those possessing most of the capital, often do not include social responsibility in their decision-making. In contrast, those who own risky assets and make improper consumer choices, lose their competitive advantage, and as a result, suffer from both inequality and cost of their actions.