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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:35
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hmmm-- it looks like there was some shady dealings here if people lost their pre-reserved rooms but as for not giving rooms at an advertised price , that happens every day.
A reporter did a TV piece on it here in Calgary and found that on a normal day you could routinely find a difference of 50% in hotel room prices (for the same room) depending on how you booked it. i did the same look recently and found you COULD pay DOUBLE if you did not watch what you were doing.
Airlines do the same thing.. They sell a lot of tickets at reduced prices but save a number of seats for the last-minute traveller who will pay through the nose.
My bottom line is I place no blame on a hotel if they don't have a room available at their lowest rate for drop-in travellers . .. Thats life. But they should and must honor reservations
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:35
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I think price gouging is Capitalism in its purest form... extortion. I don't necessarily mind a market system as long as it's TV's, computers, video games, groceries, or other goods... but I mind it where demand is artificially high, as the case with health care. Supply and demand is somewhat of a natural protection for consumers. If a good is too high priced, demand for it will fall and the price will have to come down... but the demand for health care is beyond the realm of protection for consumers. Everybody wants to live, everyone wants to recover from injuries... and in cases where a service or good is a need, perhaps a free market system isn't best to regulate prices. Basically, things should be done in the most efficient manner. And like it or not, profit is inefficient. By nature, it's money into the pocket of the business... unless that money is put back into the business, it's wasted in the pockets of some fat-cat.
My goal is to have an economic system that takes the best parts of capitalism and sets up protections against price gouging and other abuses. But Communism is just dumb. That won't ever work unless the very nature of human beings changes.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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Kidicious,
But the mainstream theory is that govt regulation causes monopolies. Ricardo assumed perfect copetition in all his theories.
Which "mainstream theory" is that? AFAIK, even the neoclassicists admitted that government regulations were necessary. The appearance of monopolies, oligopolies and cartels destroyed the regulatory ability of a market.
Kuciwalker,
The market doesn't become "dysfunctional".
It does when it losses the regulatory ability through supply and demand. If supply could be restricted by one or a few players, the market becomes useless.
Evolution always increases the fitness of an organism; the market always increases the fairness (not using Kid's definition here, you understand what I mean by "fair") of the prices.
No, not when the supplies can be restricted. A monopoly (etc.) always maximise marginal profit.
OPEC is a multinational organization, not merely some industrial conglomerate. The State (or States) meddling in the market throws all guarantees out the window.
That is an example of a cartel. It really doesn't matter if the player is a state, a local company or a TNC. It's the relative strength that counts.
As t -> infinity, the chance of the monopoly being overthrown -> 1. Except it goes much faster, because the monopoly's inefficiency means that once a competitor is secure (which merely requires a substantial capital investment), the monopoly is dead.
Hm. A monopoly is only inefficient in terms of not maximising the allocation of resources. It does not mean said monopoly isn't efficient in production or driving out competitors. In fact, one of the consequences of a monopoly forming in an industry is the threshold of entry is increased enormously. Therefore, your argument is dubious at best.
Price gouging is laissez-faire capitalism after some severe problem that occured outside the system. It's not "capitalism in its purest form", it's an extreme case.
Not at all. The formation of monopolies is a natural consequence of capitalism due to economy of scale.
I don't mind coercing people into providing their goods at normal cost during natural disasters.
Commie! Capitalist hater!
Berz,
The first time two or more people came together and made a deal, that was the creation of a free market and they didn't have unlimited supplies.
Yes. That's what happens when a new market opens up. As time goes by, though, new players would enter a market if it is profitable, so eventually a perfectly competitive market is reached. Clearly, that is not a good situation for companies, thus, they would attempt to convert it to a monopolistic competitive market, at the very least.
No one ever said freedom was perfect but it sure is a helluva lot better than employing a state to run around threatening us with violence for not charging a "fair" price... Look at how many laws we have now and we started down that path with the "life should be fair" delusion.
The problem with this view is you forgot that a company is entirely a social constract. Only through special permission granted by a society could a company be established. As part of the deal, a company agrees to be abide by any laws and regulations such a society may want to apply as conditions for such a permission.
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Kuciwalker,
The market doesn't become "dysfunctional".
It does when it losses the regulatory ability through supply and demand. If supply could be restricted by one or a few players, the market becomes useless. |
As I said, it doesn't become dysfunctional. You clearly don't understand it at all. The market is always functioning; there may be temporary effects we call negative, but concluding that the market is therefore "dysfunctional" is like saying that evolution is "dysfunctional" because humans are causing mass extinctions and pollution.
quote:
OPEC is a multinational organization, not merely some industrial conglomerate. The State (or States) meddling in the market throws all guarantees out the window.
That is an example of a cartel. It really doesn't matter if the player is a state, a local company or a TNC. It's the relative strength that counts. |
It does matter. It's not a free market by any means.
quote:
As t -> infinity, the chance of the monopoly being overthrown -> 1. Except it goes much faster, because the monopoly's inefficiency means that once a competitor is secure (which merely requires a substantial capital investment), the monopoly is dead.
Hm. A monopoly is only inefficient in terms of not maximising the allocation of resources. |
Monopolies tend to be inefficient because they can afford to be (inneficient both from the PoV of the consumer and in the sense of maximizing profit - in the latter part, it's the complacency that allows the buildup of an innefficient bureaucracy without jepardizing the monopoly).
quote:
It does not mean said monopoly isn't efficient in production or driving out competitors. In fact, one of the consequences of a monopoly forming in an industry is the threshold of entry is increased enormously. Therefore, your argument is dubious at best. |
You didn't disagree with me at all. The threshold of entry is increased enormously; however, it's like an enzyme that causes a reaction to slow down; some molecules will have enough energy to go through the reaction, just a reduced number. Similarly, sometimes evolution ends up decreasing the rate of evolution for a time, by making it more difficult for a successful competitor to evolve. Eventually, however, enough capital will amass in one place to overthrow the monopoly.
quote:
Price gouging is laissez-faire capitalism after some severe problem that occured outside the system. It's not "capitalism in its purest form", it's an extreme case.
Not at all. The formation of monopolies is a natural consequence of capitalism due to economy of scale. |
I'm talking about price gouging in the sense of charging a lot more for necessities during a hurricane or natural disaster, not just monopolies in general.
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18-08-2004 13:15
See?! We're not all greedy, heartless bastards! Some of us are greedy, loveable bastards. 
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