On 7/9/07, Amit Varma wrote:
>
> the sudan, nigeria, dr congo, kenya, tanzania, zambia... any of these
> countries would fit that picture.....
Thanks, don't know enough about those countries to comment further. But any
cartel that exists can only do so either with government collusion or in the
absence of a proper rule of law. Those are governmental failures, not market
failures.
i think its easy to look at this in a black and white and conclude
that its all the fault at one end and not the other.... when you
mention the market i assume you mean the global market, and not
something local / internal (which is not that easily influenced by
external economic forces... ).
the stossel guy comes from the point of view that the markets in the
west are free markets -that is a fundamental assumption that i find
false. i dont get how a protected market which operates on
subsidies... and one that buys raw materials at artificially low
prices from overseas markets and dumps their garbage in the same
overseas markets can be called a free market....who is it free for ?
and i dont see why a market where a powerful consumer / purchaser of
goods strong arms a much weaker producer of the raw material ...
cannot be called a market failure... (this is how the metals, oil,
cash crop market in africa operates...)
