Float calculation always outputting 0 when multiplied with another float....

The following is whats not working, basically every time I multiply the local position y of the object by any value other than an integer value declared in the shown script, it results in 0 and hence the object itself is moved to the origin , I've tried using doubles and all sorts of weird solutions , although to no avail , the y position of the object is currently really small at about -0.0195 , and i,m not sure if its just because the value is so small that when put into a calculation it's just read as 0 or not. If you are wondering the vertExtent is the orthograp$$anonymous$$c size of the camera in my scene and is set to 8 , so theoretically the value from t$$anonymous$$s should be 1 * ... but still doesn't seem to work.

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class ScaleLazerNodes : MonoBehaviour {
 
     // Use t$$anonymous$$s for initialization
     void Start () {
         gameObject.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(0, gameObject.transform.localPosition.y * (Spawner.vertExtent) / 8, 0);
     }
     
     // Update is called once per frame
     void Update () {
     
     }
 }