On 9/15/2012 8:32 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
It's doubtful that there has ever been such a pristine market. The
basic exchange between free agents is in all real cases weighted by
those interests which control and manipulate the market. Look at how
Microsoft created their monopoly. It made crappy imitations of all of
their potential competitors software and gave it away for free to
drive them out of business - which they did. They knew that as long as
their deal with IBM to distribute Windows with PCs, all they had to do
was starve everyone else out.
Look at how CEOs sit on the each others board of directors and vote
each other gigantic salary increases despite poor performance and
blatant conflicts of interest.
At best, price always equals cost plus rent plus tax plus interest, so
even if there were free agents who somehow had fair access to the
market, their profit is still influenced by banks, government, and
property owners. As soon as a new market is born however, all real
opportunity to compete shakes out rapidly as business relations are
consolidated and become entrenched. Innovators tend to be ripped off,
bought, or shut out of the market.
The assumption of a free market is no less of a fantasy than the
assumption of a communist utopia. They are two sides of the same coin.
Craig
I completely agree, but never assume that the perfect is the
adversary of the possible. The "real world" involves only that which is
consistent with all that are involved, that includes the good the bad
and the ugly. Any market will have cheaters and knaves. That is factored
into the prices. It is the "discount" factor.
--
Onward!
Stephen
http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html
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