Comments on: Big-Foot Economics

By: John in Detroit

John in Detroit — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:58:00 +0000

I’ve heard accusations of predatory lending as well but never understood what makes it criminal about it unless fraud is occurring. It seems like another buzz word anti-market folks throw around. Is this similar to predatory pricing?

By: John Dewey

John Dewey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:01:00 +0000

If authors are not being compensated enough to continue writing, then they will stop writing. Book publishers will have to pay authors more in order to obtain the books they need to stay in business. Simple supply and demand will determine the equilibrium price for authors’ labor.

If the public truly desires the millions of book titles offerred to them each year by publishers, the market will provide incentives to writers to produce those titles. Authors will find new methods for distributing and being compensated for their ideas. Some are publishing via the internet. Others are self-publishing their books. At the same time, publishers have found ways to limit their costs of book offerrings.

Trust the market, bafusilier. It is far more effective at meeting consumers’ needs than would be any form of government price restrictions. That’s why market economies offer consumers so many more book titles than planned economies ever can.

By: John Dewey

John Dewey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:30:00 +0000

placebo: “predatory pricing is when a dominant company offers unreasonably low rates with the short term goal of stifling competition, and the long term goal of charging unreasonably high rates once the competition is stifled.”Can you supply evidence that this is what occurred where you operated? I do not think that citing different prices in two different markets is evidence that Waste Management raised prices in the market you operated in after vanquishing all competition. If prices in your market are now above the $500 per load you were charging – after adjusting for increases in costs for inputs such as fuel and labor – then new firms should be able to enter the market and compete.How do you determine what is an unreasonably high or inreasonably low rate?

By: John Dewey

John Dewey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:17:00 +0000

placebo: “They would offer to haul that $500 load for less than $300. They could do this because of their size and because they owned their own landfill.”

placebo: “”Economies of scale” were not a factor in my case.”

I do not understand these two statements, If Waste Management did not enjoy economies of acale, then why didn’t you own your own landfill? If Waste Management did not enjoy economies of scale, why did their larger size make any difference when you competed with them?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Small independent bookstores do not have a right to exist on the old business model. Innovate or die is the way of the free market. Now if a small independent bookstore wants to survive and thrive in the new reality where new hardcover bestsellers become commodity products, they need to figure out what would be profitable in their location. Maybe they need to offer a specialized collection of books and not carry the NY Times top 10 bestsellers, provide coffee and nice sofas, ambience, whatever.

Like I said, there is nothing in libertarianism that says any particular business is sacred and deserves to exist no matter what. So stop misrepresenting us.