I don't like the word "demand"

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by kazenatsu, Jun 13, 2019.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    SUPPLY & DEMAND?

    Good post.

    The mechanism is called Supply&Demand. It has been around a long, long time before becoming a focus of competitive lawmaking. Which isn't perfect, but then what is when a subject is all about money-money-money?

    What is key nonetheless is your description above. Producers effectively look for the price that accommodates a market-approved profit-per-unit-sold. Which is "conditional".

    Meaning this:
    *Where that goes all wrong, wrong, wrong is when a market-economy is allowed to "aggregate". (Aka, "buyouts") By which the major part of supply is provided by only two or three or four companies that effectively control both unit volume and/or pricing. And they do so without provable inter-company connivance, because that would put its salaried executives in jail.
    *So, when markets are truly competitive, companies will employ "buyouts" in order to aggregate the total market into three or four entities that are supposedly "competitive".

    *What the executives do therefore is to find a pricing level in which the corporate market-shares are the least monopolistic - in order to avoid an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.
    *Meaning what? Meaning we have (in the US) forgot (polite word) that a market-economy is best for consumers when highly competitive. (The other key criteria being "quality-cost". Meaning that a product/service offered is of a certain quality at a reasonable price.)

    My Point: In terms of "market condition" some markets in the US are back to the historical point of the latter half of the 19th century when the first "anti-trust" laws were formulated. As anyone can reasonably understand: A law that is not made to be respected by external investigative agencies will inevitably have no pertinence whatsoever.
    And that has happened far too often in US markets over the past 30 years! (If interested, a good read: United States antitrust law.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2019
  2. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The FTC is key to maintaining price competition in key markets.

    If interested in what they actually do, see here: FTC Milestone: A New Age Dawns for the FTC’s Competition Work

    Interesting, but not nearly good-enough. Too little has been done to counteract the market's ability to consolidate into illicit profit-generating "oligopolies".


     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2019
  3. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    That is your business.
     

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