Economics: I, Pencil

[shanek]

I do not obey dogma.

But you do use pathetic excuses like "dogma" to dismiss things that contradict your world-view.

You are not addressing the point, shanek.

Why should other companies benefit from the research that NOVO has done, at their own risk and peril?

I'm not saying they should. I'm just rejecting your unproven and unsupported assertion that patents are the only way of doing so.

Huh?? How on Earth are you going to protect inventions, if not by patents??

Argument from incredulity. Didn't learn from the pencil. How closed-minded.

 

[CFLarsen]

But you do use pathetic excuses like "dogma" to dismiss things that contradict your world-view.

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not, however, entitled to your own facts.

I'm not saying they should. I'm just rejecting your unproven and unsupported assertion that patents are the only way of doing so.

Answer the question: Why should other companies benefit from the research that NOVO has done, at their own risk and peril?

Argument from incredulity. Didn't learn from the pencil. How closed-minded.

Answer the question: How are you going to protect inventions, if not by patents?

And, answer the question: Who owns the rights to the logo? You or me?

 

[shanek]

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not, however, entitled to your own facts.

Yes, that must be your excuse for dismissing them...

Answer the question:

I have, liar.

Answer the question:

I have, liar.

And, answer the question:

I have, liar.

 

[Kerberos]

Only if you haven't learned from the pencil.

I must have missed the part where somebody spent billions of dollars on developing new and more effective pencils, only to have the copetitors instantly copy the formula, without the huge sunk costs, and still made a profit.

 

[Earthborn]

How are you going to ask millions and millions of customers whether they would accept the change? You can't. The best you can do is market research and focus groups.

I'm talking about a situation where there is a supplier of materials and whose customer is a manufacturer that uses those materials to make something else. So the millions and millions of customers are irrelevant.

A supplier of materials can't suddenly sell different stuff to manufacturers without negotiating with them. The pencil manufacturer expects the ferrule to be made of a specific material and may need to adjust its machinery if the material is changed. The manufacturer expects a consistent product, so the supplier cannot change the product.

All of the processes are codified. Just look at how big the US Code is.

This does not prove that it is necessary. I also don't think it proves that all processes are codified, it just proves that a lot of them are.

There are tons of others. All of these laws had a purpose at one point, but no longer; yet, here they sit, still on the books.

If those laws are no longer enforced, it shows that the government has changed and adapted to a different time. Only the rules in law books haven't changed, but that's not all that the government is about.

Earthborn, it is the job of a lawyer to know these things.

I'm talking about government officials, not lawyers. So this is irrelevant.

There needs to be some people who know what all the regulations are, at least in a certain area.

I don't see why someone would need to know all the regulations and since you acknowledge that people only need to know them of 'at least in a certain area' you seem to agree with me. It means that people only need to know about the regulations that are relevant for a specific situation.

Just like a supplier just needs to know the specifications of the product their customers (manufacturers of more finished products) expect of them.

Ridiculous. You mentioned things that they're never been able to do, at least under Communism.

It is irrelevant that they have never been able to do those things. You made the claim that the Chinese get more and more freedom even though after getting a bit of economic freedom some 20 or so years ago, they didn't get any other freedoms.

That doesn't mean they haven't made strides in other areas.

They have made great strides economically. Not so much in political freedoms. The pencil's claim was people should free to make economic progress. The Chinese seem to how unfree people can still be very productive.

 

[CFLarsen]

I have, liar.

I have, liar.

I have, liar.

No, you have not.

If you don't want to debate, just say so. If you haven't got any answers, just say so. But stop calling people "liars", just because you are in trouble.

Know what? Let's make a list:

• Why should other companies benefit from the research that NOVO has done, at their own risk and peril?
• How are you going to protect inventions, if not by patents?
• Who owns the rights to the logo? You or me?

 

[Kerberos]

Um, no. All of these things confirm my point.

Nope. Natural monopolies, sunk cost, barriers to entry and deterence strategies are all part of economic theory, reality and, I should say, common sense.

I never said that. But that's not what we're talking about. Standard Oil, for example, only maintained their dominance by pricing oil as though there were competition. Whenever they tried to rise the price, competition started springing up. As a result, oil got so cheap that poor people for the first time could afford heating oil.

In a libertarian fantasy world with no barriers to entry, sunk cost, deterence strategies etc. this might be true, but reality is not like that. I don't know about standard oil, but can you explain how competition is magically going to appear the moment a company raises it's price above the competitive equibrillium, in the face of huge barriers to entry, in the form of large sunk costs and declining marginal cost, entry deterence in the form of a likely price war to drive them out of the market again if the do enter, and the knowledge that if they succed the large profits that caused them to enter the market will disappear? No? I didn't think so.

Learn from the pencil, people.

Hasty generalization fallacy.

 

[Daylight]

Hi Shanek

Couple more questions

#1 If you have a large company with deep pockets, what would keep them from using a predatory business practice by threatening a lawsuit against competition that doesn’t have the resources to defend themselves? Let’s assume, that the large company would lose in a full trial and every appeal, but has the legal assets to tie the suit up for years.

#2 Say country C wanted to attack the free market country U by crashing country U’s economy. In every Country U market, Country C always underbids and eventually takes over each market. Country U’s free market companies go out of business because they can’t compete and the resulting high unemployment causes major stress to the economy. Collapse, maybe? How could a free market fend off this type of tactic? Let’s assume Country C brings in all resources and personnel from outside country U and doesn’t use any resources or personnel in country U.

 

[CFLarsen]

#1 If you have a large company with deep pockets, what would keep them from using a predatory business practice by threatening a lawsuit against competition that doesn’t have the resources to defend themselves? Let’s assume, that the large company would lose in a full trial and every appeal, but has the legal assets to tie the suit up for years.

According to Libertarianism, tough titties. Sink or swim, baby. You're on your own. Your home is your fortress. You matter, nobody else does. You, you, you. If you can't make it, roll over and die.

#2 Say country C wanted to attack the free market country U by crashing country U’s economy. In every Country U market, Country C always underbids and eventually takes over each market. Country U’s free market companies go out of business because they can’t compete and the resulting high unemployment causes major stress to the economy. Collapse, maybe? How could a free market fend off this type of tactic? Let’s assume Country C brings in all resources and personnel from outside country U and doesn’t use any resources or personnel in country U.

According to Libertarianism, tough titties. Sink or swim, baby. You're on your own. Your home is your fortress. You matter, nobody else does. You, you, you. If you can't make it, roll over and die.

To make it more palatable, let's slap a label on it with the text "freedom". The suckers will gobble it down, while you and I rake in the goodies.

Well, I will, you can go scr*w yourself. According to Libertarianism, that is...

 

[karl]

Patents and copyrights, no. Trademarks are now done by the government, but could be handled by independent private bodies.

Under such a system, what would motivate the production of new books, movies or computer programs?

 

[Kerberos]

#2 Say country C wanted to attack the free market country U by crashing country U’s economy. In every Country U market, Country C always underbids and eventually takes over each market. Country U’s free market companies go out of business because they can’t compete and the resulting high unemployment causes major stress to the economy. Collapse, maybe? How could a free market fend off this type of tactic? Let’s assume Country C brings in all resources and personnel from outside country U and doesn’t use any resources or personnel in country U.

What you descripe isn't really posible, or at least it's so hard that there asre thausends of easier ways to attack a country, economically or otherwise. You see country C don't have to just underbid country U on specific contracts, C has to be willing to sell such large quantities that you lower the price on the entire market and unless U almost is sole supllier of the good in question you're going to hurt a lot of other countries as well who might then retaliate against C with much more cost/effective mesueres. If C just underbids U on a specific contract C could, in most cases just try to sell their produkt to some body else where you'd have to underbid them again, so they'd try to sell it to somebody else and you'd have to underbid them again. U could continue to attempt to sell the same vare, but C would have to actually produce more and more of it and sell it below cost.

Also it wouldn't work nearly as well as you invision, since even if C managed to do this it would drive U's currency down, thus forcing C to underbid U at an even lower price and therefore sell at an even greater cost. Doing it on a smaller scale isn't quite impossible if C is much more powerfull than U, fx the US, European and Japaneese farm subsidies does something like that to African farmers but if it was the wests purpose to hurt African farmers we could do it much more efficiently by other means and it would have little effect on somebody who is anywhere near as strong as yourself. Lastly i don't see how a country with free markets would be more valnuable to this than say a communist country.

 

[shanek]

I must have missed the part where somebody spent billions of dollars on developing new and more effective pencils, only to have the copetitors instantly copy the formula, without the huge sunk costs, and still made a profit.

You did, however, miss the part that proves that the kind of question you asked is an invalid argument from incredulity. I don't need to have a specific answer to your question, and neither does anyone else, any more than anyone needs to know how to make a pencil.

 

[shanek]

I'm talking about a situation where there is a supplier of materials and whose customer is a manufacturer that uses those materials to make something else.

Then a) you're talking about a very limited number of transactions in a free market, transactions which actually do [i[not[/i] produce a finished product (the ferrule is not the pencil); and b) you're only looking, as I said, at one direct iteration of the process.

You're also pretending as if there is only one supplier and only one manufacturer, which is laughable. Don't forget about competition. If a competitor comes up with a better way to make materials for a ferrule, the manufacturer might switch suppliers all on his own.

I'm talking about government officials, not lawyers.

Yes, you seem to be very good at weeding out all the things that rebut your point..."Yes, but if you ignore all the things that make me wrong, you'll see that I'm right!"

The point is, there are people who need to know all of the ins and outs of government regulation. That is not the case with the free market.

It is irrelevant that they have never been able to do those things. You made the claim that the Chinese get more and more freedom

And that is true. They make more and more steps towards a free market as time goes on.

even though after getting a bit of economic freedom some 20 or so years ago, they didn't get any other freedoms.

That's untrue. China has been slowly freeing up their markets over that period of time.

You're also making an invalid assumption that China's population is as productive as they can be, a fact that is very much not in evidence.

 

[shanek]

Know what? Let's make a list:

• Why should other companies benefit from the research that NOVO has done, at their own risk and peril?
• How are you going to protect inventions, if not by patents?
• Who owns the rights to the logo? You or me?

Claus, you LIAR, I have ALREADY answered your questions. Keep ranting on like an immature jerk, though, so you can continue to lose credibiluty with the rest of the posters here, at least the ones who don't share your bigotry against libertarianism.

 

[shanek]

Nope. Natural monopolies,

No such thing.

sunk cost,

WTF does this have to do with anything?

barriers to entry

What barriers to entry can there be that aren't either the nature of the business or government imposed?

and, I should say, common sense.

Common sense is neither common nor sense, and nothing any skeptic should appeal to. Common sense once told us the sun went around the Earth. Only the desperate appeal to it.

I don't know about standard oil, but can you explain how competition is magically going to appear the moment a company raises it's price above the competitive equibrillium,

First of all, there's no such thing as a "competitive equilibrium."

in the face of huge barriers to entry, in the form of large sunk costs and declining marginal cost, entry deterence in the form of a likely price war to drive them out of the market again if the do enter,

Ah, so wait a minute—the other company will lower its prices to prevent new competition? Congratulations, you just made my point for me!

Hasty generalization fallacy.

No, it isn't. The pencil proves you wrong.

 

[CFLarsen]

Claus, you LIAR, I have ALREADY answered your questions. Keep ranting on like an immature jerk, though, so you can continue to lose credibiluty with the rest of the posters here, at least the ones who don't share your bigotry against libertarianism.

You have done no such thing. You have evaded them.

Can anyone please explain what shanek's response to how companies protect themselves against copy-products is? I can't see it anywhere.

Anyone? Please?

 

[shanek]

#1 If you have a large company with deep pockets, what would keep them from using a predatory business practice by threatening a lawsuit against competition that doesn’t have the resources to defend themselves? Let’s assume, that the large company would lose in a full trial and every appeal, but has the legal assets to tie the suit up for years.

I fully agree that there needs to be some form of loser pays system put into place to help prevent this from happening. This is a problem with our tort system, not the free market.

#2 Say country C wanted to attack the free market country U by crashing country U’s economy. In every Country U market, Country C always underbids and eventually takes over each market.

They can only do this with government control of their markets. With free markets and free trade, this is impossible.

 

[shanek]

Under such a system, what would motivate the production of new books, movies or computer programs?

As with everything else, profit. I don't know the exact mechanism the market would employ, but then, I don't know how to make a pencil, either...and neither does anyone else.

This is what's frustrating me about this thread...the pencil proves that questions—nay, demands—like the ones you just gave are invalid. They are arguments from incredulity.

 

[Earthborn]

Can anyone please explain what shanek's response to how companies protect themselves against copy-products is?

He did answer it and it seems very simple superficially: "keeping a trade secret".

You even called this solution 'naive', so you can't claim that you haven't seen it. You are right though that it is naive.

 

[CFLarsen]

He did answer it and it seems very simple superficially: "keeping a trade secret".

You even called this solution 'naive', so you can't claim that you haven't seen it. You are right though that it is naive.

No, that can't be the answer, because shanek was talking about non-patented products. I was asking him about patented products.

The question remains unanswered.