So now that we are one quarter away from a double dip...

[Winehole23]

People always seek profits. That is why they will innovate. It is why they always have innovated.

It is one reason, maybe the most compelling. Others include fame, the pride of mastery, service to community and zeal for learning. But yeah.

Skillz to pay the billz.

[LnGrrrR]

If companies want to get the highest value for their grain, rice, and such then there will be a threshold of up to how much they can make with out taking a loss. Collusion doesnt work in a free market, in your scenario supermarkets will boycott the suppliers who engage in sorts and will demand supplies from other regions. Walmart infact does this, if their suppliers can't lower their prices, they get other suppliers.

In a free market, it's the consumers who have the final say.

How can supermarkets boycott the suppliers, if all the major suppliers are setting one price?

There's a reason they're called "staple" items... because people need them. And if all the major suppliers lock down the supply, where will the supermarket turn to? Local farmers? They can't supply enough to feed everyone.

My point is, if all the food suppliers collude to price certain items high, what fallback does the consumer have? Is it your contention that another supplier will magically appear, with crops grown instantly?

[ElNono]

no.
That's someone's intellectual right. Just like a book is someones intellectual right, art or song.

It is govts job to defend us from the stealing of our property in a free society.

The invention is the property. The patent or copyright is a temporary (or used to be, these days it's debatable) government-granted monopoly. As far as economics go, for all intents and purposes it's a monopoly.

[Ignignokt]

The invention is the property. The patent or copyright is a temporary (or used to be, these days it's debatable) government-granted monopoly. As far as economics go, for all intents and purposes it's a monopoly.

Is literature, lyrics, etc a monopoly?

[Ignignokt]

Does KfC have to share their es blend with Churchs?? Is that what you consider a free market??

[ElNono]

People always seek profits. That is why they will innovate. It is why they always have innovated.

Could be. The question is wether people would invest as much as they invest in R&D if there would be no such protections. The whole 'yeah, it's great because you can piggyback from somebody else invention' automatically means that the inventor might not even break even from it if a compe or gets to market first (and for some specific markets, unless you're already there, it's pretty difficult to do).

[ElNono]

Is literature, lyrics, etc a monopoly?

No, it's intellectual property. However, the copyright on said literature and lyrics is what's the government granted monopoly. Which is what prevents me from making copies of the book and selling it.

You can always also write and place your literature in the public domain, without the monopoly protection. That's still also intellectual property, but you simply waive the copyright protection.

[ElNono]

Does KfC have to share their es blend with Churchs?? Is that what you consider a free market??

Well, what do you consider a free market? I thought in your free market world the government couldn't intervene in the market. If it's granting de-facto monopolies, then it's definitely intervening.

[Ignignokt]

Well, what do you consider a free market? I thought in your free market world the government couldn't intervene in the market. If it's granting de-facto monopolies, then it's definitely intervening.

How so and by what standard?

The govt is not invtervening in this case, what the govt is doing is protecting property rights of the individual the rightly are his, no one has the right to your mind, and a govt that incarcerates people who perpetrate fraud or who steal intellectual property are not altering the market to the advantage of another but are protecting the integrity of it and the laws of voluntary transaction which should be the only principle that should be enforced.

Why would a farmer keep growing crops if the govt allowed looters to take his fruit? What incentive would there be for a market if you remove the right to voluntary transaction or allow the disintegraton of it. Does not anti trust laws in this way actually enforce what they are trying to prevent, if a govt prevents a company desire to lower it's prices because it is able to do so without sacrificing anything and satisfy the consumer, then the govt is violating this principle which is the right of the company to its consumers.

And you wonder why the cost of goods is rising in this country..

[Winehole23]

if a govt prevents a company desire to raise it's prices because it is able to do so without sacrificing anything and satisfy the consumer, then the govt is violating this principle which is the right of the company to [screw] its [customers.]

In the spirit of enforcing what one is trying to prevent: I fixed it for you, g.

[ElNono]

How so and by what standard?

By granting exclusivity rights to patent/copyright holders for a period time. The standard would be Patent/Copyright Law, I guess.

The govt is not invtervening in this case, what the govt is doing is protecting property rights of the individual the rightly are his, no one has the right to your mind, and a govt that incarcerates people who perpetrate fraud or who steal intellectual property are not altering the market to the advantage of another but are protecting the integrity of it and the laws of voluntary transaction which should be the only principle that should be enforced.

Except that's not how it works at all. What patent law does is exclude other people from temporarily using your invention (de-facto temporary monopoly) in exchange for making your invention public.

- You're not forced to patent your invention and make your invention public.
- You can still distribute your invention without making it public through specific licenses.

So property rights have little to do with it. Your property rights are enforceable even without a patent, provided you can prove the other person stole/copied your property.

Why would a farmer keep growing crops if the govt allowed looters to take his fruit? What incentive would there be for a market if you remove the right to voluntary transaction or allow the disintegraton of it. Does not anti trust laws in this way actually enforce what they are trying to prevent, if a govt prevents a company desire to lower it's prices because it is able to do so without sacrificing anything and satisfy the consumer, then the govt is violating this principle which is the right of the company to its consumers.

What if it's doing it for dumping reasons to corral a market and drive off compe ion? How does the consumer benefit from that in the long run?

[LnGrrrR]

I'm still waiting to see how Ig would deal with a group of food providers all raising their prices at once. His "find more farmers" solution doesn't work with the proposed hypothetical.

[JoeChalupa]

[Ignignokt]

I'm still waiting to see how Ig would deal with a group of food providers all raising their prices at once. His "find more farmers" solution doesn't work with the proposed hypothetical.

It wouldn't work out to make a profit for these reasons:

1. Vendors like Walmart, HEB, and Target would boycott those farmers that colluded to raise prices and would look for international sources or other regional players.

Infact, to demonstrate how ignorant you are of market dynamics, Walmart already does this, they boycott producers who want to sell their products above market price.


2. To raise prices you have to cut down supply. The first people who would be pissed about this would be the shippers aka the truckers whose livelihoods depend on it, they will intervene by trying to weed away one of the parties in collusion who will benefit by getting cheaper rates than his compe or.

3. The price hikes wont be maintained for long because demand will fall, and the colluders would be losing out. This happened to the Southern Improvement Conmpany when Rockefeller and RR companies colluded for higher prices. Their customers and vendors of their products boycotted them and they got ed.

If you can't grasp this concept, you wont grasp the law of supply and demand in a free market.

[Ignignokt]

Keith bogans in for hack a shaq :59 4th qt

[LnGrrrR]

It wouldn't work out to make a profit for these reasons:

1. Vendors like Walmart, HEB, and Target would boycott those farmers that colluded to raise prices and would look for international sources or other regional players.

Infact, to demonstrate how ignorant you are of market dynamics, Walmart already does this, they boycott producers who want to sell their products above market price.

You're thinking on a national scale. I'm thinking more local. What if the local supermarkets in a surrounding area all raised the prices on staple items?

2. To raise prices you have to cut down supply. The first people who would be pissed about this would be the shippers aka the truckers whose livelihoods depend on it, they will intervene by trying to weed away one of the parties in collusion who will benefit by getting cheaper rates than his compe or.

Agreed that this would probably happen. However, if that happens, then there is no hypothetical obviously. So for the purposes of this hypothetical, we have to assume that all the companies stick to the proposed price hike.

3. The price hikes wont be maintained for long because demand will fall, and the colluders would be losing out. This happened to the Southern Improvement Conmpany when Rockefeller and RR companies colluded for higher prices. Their customers and vendors of their products boycotted them and they got ed.

How can demand for staple items fall? That's kinda the point of a staple item. It's not like people can go without food, after all.

If you can't grasp this concept, you wont grasp the law of supply and demand in a free market.

I agree with you on most aspects, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate to see if all monopolies are kosher, or if there are some that you agree might be harmful.

[Ignignokt]

You're thinking on a national scale. I'm thinking more local. What if the local supermarkets in a surrounding area all raised the prices on staple items?

Um theory fails, there's hardly any local market that is self sustainable, prices from those markets are affected by regional ones.

Agreed that this would probably happen. However, if that happens, then there is no hypothetical obviously. So for the purposes of this hypothetical, we have to assume that all the companies stick to the proposed price hike.

This hypothetical does not exists in the real world, there are way to many dynamics. Greed can easily split this coalition.



How can demand for staple items fall? That's kinda the point of a staple item. It's not like people can go without food, after all. If you cut supply, you eliminate jobs in every sector, the farming, supplying, and vendor sector who will need less labor. You will have more unemployment and less purchasing power.

Lets look at one staple, people will stop purchasing products like cake, cookies, and will only buy what is needed to sustain themselves like bread and cereal. right there, certain suppliers would also be affected like bakeries, and desert companies. They will boycott those local farmers, and forced to go out of buisiness. This will lead to a dramatic fall in the demand of purchasing grain which will make those colluders operate on loss.

I agree with you on most aspects, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate to see if all monopolies are kosher, or if there are some that you agree might be harmful.

[LnGrrrR]

Ok Ig, fair enough. I don't have the historical nor economical background to counter what you're saying, so I'll take it at face value for now.

[ElNono]

Walmart or Target weren't selling LCD TVs from Samsung, LG and Sharp from 1996 to 2006?

News to me...