Economics: I, Pencil

[shanek]

We have seen monopoly mess in the early 1900's. That happend.

Examples?

And enough of this debunked nonsense.

Even though I have, actually, debunked it on numerous occasions?

Not everything bad is because of the government.

Strawman. Never said it was.

Free flying capitolism will lead to these promblems.

Evidence?

You always seem to think that govt regulation pops up just cause the govt has nothing better to do.

Another strawman.

So, you have nothing, then?

 

[shanek]

Do you think it might have something to do with your inability to convince people with sound arguments?

Yes, many people here are unconvinced by sound arguments. Of course, you apparently think the nonsensical sentence "Nice spin but no cigar" is a sound argument...

 

[CFLarsen]

Yes, many people here are unconvinced by sound arguments.

Can you point to those who have been convinced of your arguments? Here on this board, or your constituents.

 

[shanek]

Can you point to those who have been convinced of your arguments? Here on this board, or your constituents.

I can point to over 3,600 who voted for me...

 

[CFLarsen]

I can point to over 3,600 who voted for me...

That's nice. In what election? Out of how many votes cast? Did you get elected? For what?

I seriously doubt that you behave in real life the way you do here, so what about this board? Who, on this board, has been convinced of your arguments?

 

[Tmy]

So, you have nothing, then?

Well Im not gonna read the 10 pages of this thread but I can imagine its the typical content.

"People were all literate supergenious, until the gub'ment started the Dept of Education."

"People were all 7foot tall and lived till 100yrs, until the gub'ment started the FDA."

"Back in the day everyone had health insurance and whistled while they worked. Until the gub'ment came in and ruined everything."

You sir, are anti-goverment! YOUR AN ANTI-GOVERMENTITE!!

 

[shanek]

That's nice. In what election? Out of how many votes cast? Did you get elected? For what?

The most recent one, for County Commissioner. It was 5.3% of the vote in a race for three seats. It was about half as much as the Democrat candidate got.

[moving of goalposts deleted]

 

[shanek]

Well Im not gonna read the 10 pages of this thread but I can imagine its the typical content.

"People were all literate supergenious, until the gub'ment started the Dept of Education."

"People were all 7foot tall and lived till 100yrs, until the gub'ment started the FDA."

"Back in the day everyone had health insurance and whistled while they worked. Until the gub'ment came in and ruined everything."

You sir, are anti-goverment! YOUR AN ANTI-GOVERMENTITE!!

Hmmm...strawman, strawman, and strawman. I'm noticing a trend here...

 

[Tmy]

Hmmm...strawman, strawman, and strawman. I'm noticing a trend here...

Yeah me too.............you use the term "strawman" alot.

Oklets try to get on some sort of track. You say "Monopolies can only exist with government support." Now I cant think of any monopolies, since they are kinda illegal. But Microsoft is often used as the modern day bad guy. What about their cursed Internet Explorer. Id love to remove it from my PC but to do so would casuse a devestating chain reation with almost every program.

Ifthe govt wasnt keeping tabs, woudl Microsoft run every internet portal out of town?? They already try now! Who wouldnt if you were in their shoes?

 

[CFLarsen]

The most recent one, for County Commissioner. It was 5.3% of the vote in a race for three seats. It was about half as much as the Democrat candidate got.

Hardly a high-profile assignment.

[moving of goalposts deleted]

It is most certainly not moving the goalposts. I asked you who you have managed to convince on this board. Now please answer that question.

 

[shanek]

Yeah me too.............you use the term "strawman" alot.

Only when people employ them.

Now I cant think of any monopolies, since they are kinda illegal. But Microsoft is often used as the modern day bad guy.

But they're not a monopoly.

What about their cursed Internet Explorer. Id love to remove it from my PC but to do so would casuse a devestating chain reation with almost every program.

I have two computers that can browse the internet just fine and do not have Internet Explorer installed on them anywhere. Or Windows, for that matter. This one is a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine and I happen to be in the Windows side right now, but IE isn't actually loaded. (You can go into XP's Services control panel and set all of its services to Manual so they'll only start up when they're needed.)

Ifthe govt wasnt keeping tabs, woudl Microsoft run every internet portal out of town?? They already try now! Who wouldnt if you were in their shoes?

Yeah, but notice there are distinct limits to their success. Remember when they tried to force Bob on us?

 

[shanek]

Hardly a high-profile assignment.

Doesn't matter. It more than satisfied the criteria for your request.

It is most certainly not moving the goalposts.

It most certainly is, oh perfidious one. You reduced the scope of your question after I had answered it to exclude the people cited. That's moving the goalposts.

 

[CFLarsen]

Doesn't matter. It more than satisfied the criteria for your request.

You're not telling the whole truth, are you? How many votes did the Republicans get?

It most certainly is, oh perfidious one.

Hmmm....most revealing comment. So I am faithless and disloyal, because I point out that you are wrong? You don't care about evidence, all you care about is people being faithful and loyal to you? That corresponds well with your totalitarian egotistical political view.

You reduced the scope of your question after I had answered it to exclude the people cited. That's moving the goalposts.

Now you are being outright dishonest. Read back again. The issue was your frustration with not being able to get your ideas through on this board. When I posed the question to you, I mentioned both this board and your constituents.

Answer the question, please: Who, on this board, has been convinced of your arguments?

 

[Kerberos]

As I said, those are startup costs, not sunk costs.

And as I said sunk costs at start up are still sunk costs.

Strawman. Apparently the only way you can avoid admitting you're wrong.

This gives us an interesting look at the diffenrece between between our debating styles, when somebody acusse me of using a straw man I don't desperatly refuse to adress the point, I either admit I've misread them or quote them saying what I said the said. You've never said there weren't any such things as a competitive equilibrium? What's this then?

there's no such thing as a "competitive equilibrium."

You should of course feel free to admit you were wrong any time, after you've done that you might adress this:

Thanks for killing the big nasty straw man, I feel much safer now. Having perfomed this heroic deed, would you mind answering my question instead of quoting me out of context?

Having looked forward in the thread I see that you apparently claim that anybody who argues against you, thinks that your inability to provide plausible solutions to problems we raise with libertarianism, proves that no solutions exist. The pencil does indeed slay this mighty straw man.

And while you're at it you can adress this too:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=common sense
"common sense
n.

Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgment."

Not all skepticism must be based on specialized knowledge. Or perhaps it is sound judgement that you opose - that would explain sooooo much.

Competitive equilibrium is a new equilibrium point based on the shift in the supply curve, as I said from the very beginning. You admitted this when you said, "A competitive equilibrium is the market equilibrium in a competitive market," but then shifted when it didn't make your point and said, "Having fun with you straw man? Market equilibrium isn't the same as a competitive equilibrium."

It did make my point, the competitive equilibrium is the point not where the supply and the demand curves met but where the marginal cost and the marginal benefit curves met, this applies only in perfectly competitive markets with no externalities.

You're using the parts of the page that refer to microeconomic effects in a discussion about macroeconomics and you say I don't understand "economy" (sic)?

I do indeed say you understand nothing of economics, my economy books, who I trust a great deal more than you, place market equilibrium within mikroeconomics. Or perhaps it's simply that your political bias forbids you to consider any opinion that contradicts you dogma, which a fair part of economic theory does. Regardless however this is just desperate spinning, The page is a explanation of the term Competitive market equilibrium and it quite clearly says I'm right and you're wrong in the very first paragraph.

"Competitive, or Walrasian, market equilibrium is the traditional concept of economic equilibrium, appropriate for the analysis of commodity markets with flexible prices and many traders"

And the second: "A Walrasian or competitive equilibrium consists of a a vector of prices and an allocation such that given the prices, each trader by maximizing his objective function"

And the third: "this rather narrow concept of economic equilibrium is inappropriate in many situations, such as oligopolostic market structures, public goods and externalities, collusion, or markets with price rigidities"

And the fourth:"complete information on prices and on the characteristic of the commodities is necessary to retain the efficiency features of free price formation in competitive markets. If there is asymmetric information on the quality of the commodities, prices only insufficiently signal the relative opportunity costs of economic decisions, and, as a result, allocative decisions will no longer lead to efficient market outcomes."

and in the fifth and final paragraph should remove all doubt to what it means for even the most slow witted:"if markets are 'thin', traders have market power, and the competitive paradigm does no longer apply."

All from you own page and all clearly supporting me. Why don't you quote the makroeconomic parts that supports you? It wouldn't be because there aren't any and you're just spinning desperatly would it?

Have you read the Macroeconomics thread?

parts of it.

 

[Kerberos]

Ah. Apparently we're back in third grade. Wonderfully mature, guys...

More like kindergarden, the sad fact is that the parody was virtually identical to what you might in fact have posted. You do make a habbit of hysterically accusing people of lying whenever they make an honest mistake or more frequently just dares to disagree with your dogma. You of course have no problem taking liberties with the truth yourself whenever it fits your agenda.

Speaking of maturity it's generally not considered the hight of maturity to jump on insignificant English mistakes, such as my confusing economy with economics. I, of course, have a rather good excuse for for not speaking perfect English, what's your excuse for behaving like a spoiled 10 year old?

 

[Kerberos]

Your correction is quite true and well taken - it will not quite be cost minimisation.

Your final para. summation is perhaps correct. Market outcomes are relatively robust to the realistic relaxation of the assumptions used to derive perfectly competitive outcomes. Your posts (up to this last one) tend to overstate the importance of this theoretical curio within economic theory.

If I've overstated it, it's been a mistake since I was simply concerned with the existence of these phenomena, not their significance. I would however say that you're guilty of understating their significance, when you dismiss them as theoretical curia.

 

[CFLarsen]

such as my confusing economy with economics.

It's the same word in Danish, "Økonomi". It's understandable that you were confused.

 

[shanek]

This gives us an interesting look at the diffenrece between between our debating styles, when somebody acusse me of using a straw man I don't desperatly refuse to adress the point, I either admit I've misread them or quote them saying what I said the said. You've never said there weren't any such things as a competitive equilibrium? What's this then?

You have to look at things in context. Hence my clarification paragraph. Did you not notice the quote thingies?

It did make my point, the competitive equilibrium is the point not where the supply and the demand curves met

Uh, hello? That's the definition of market equilibrium—of all types!

but where the marginal cost and the marginal benefit curves met,

That's simply a different placement of the supply (marginal cost) and demand (benefit) curves. And I have been saying that from the very beginning!

I do indeed say you understand nothing of economics, my economy books, who I trust a great deal more than you, place market equilibrium within mikroeconomics.

There are two ways of viewing market equilibrium: macro- and micro-. We are discussing macro-, so you discussing micro- is inapproprate. With micro-, you look at individual firms and consumers. You use macro- when you're discussing things market-wide. Competition, at least in the context we're discussing it, is a market-wide effect.

"Competitive, or Walrasian, market equilibrium is the traditional concept of economic equilibrium, appropriate for the analysis of commodity markets with flexible prices and many traders"

How is this in any way inconsistent with what I've said?

Ditto with the others. I await your explanation.

 

[shanek]

Speaking of maturity it's generally not considered the hight of maturity to jump on insignificant English mistakes, such as my confusing economy with economics.

I didn't do that and you know it! I called you on applying microeconomic concepts to macroeconomic explanations! The only mention I even made of it is when I quoted you directly and put (sic) next to it, which is what you're supposed to do in such situations!

And you accuse me of behaving like a 10-year-old? A 10-year-old shows more responsibility and forthrightness than you're doing here.

 

[Kerberos]

No, I don't, and I have specifically told you otherwise on several occasions. Once again, you resort to strawman arguments to try and gain a cheap victory.

OK almost perfectly , or better than any alternativest hen. At least I don't remember you've ever admited any significant problems with libertarianism or any area where state intervention might do good (with the exception of those areas dictated by libertarian dogam of course).

But you do use them to justify government invervention in the economy, when the evidence doesn't show that it is necessary or justified.

Yes I do use them to justify some degree of state intevention, but your onlu reason for dismissing this is your dogma, not evidence.

Okay, let's look at Standard Oil again: every time they tried to raise prices, competition started springing up again. So to maintain their oligopoly, they kept prices low. They had to compete with companies that didn't exist yet. The result is, this "monopoly" run by a "robber baron" resulted in the poor being able to afford heating oil for the very first time.

Assuming that what you say is true, and you haven't provided any evidence other than your word for that, it still doesn't prove your point. You have provided no evidence that the price they tried to raise was the competitive equilibrium price, or that the poor beeing able to afford heating oil was caused by Standard Oil's actions or lack of actions rather than other factors.

Oh, so now there's something wrong with cooperation?

In some cases.

Let me give you an example: after the FCC prohibited Dish Network and DirecTV from merging because they would create a monopoly (even though it would only give them 17% of the market; they later approved the AT&T-Comcast merger which gave the new company over 30%, so judge for yourself how well that works), and after the FCC stopped them from trading satellite frequencies so they could both service their customers with fewer satellite locations, they decided to work together to make their systems compatible so they could use each other's frequencies and not, for example, have to transmit HBO twice. The FCC called this "collusion" and stopped them. Any of these acts would have been a clear benefit to consumers; it wasn't stopped to benefit them, it was stopped to benefit the cable broadcasters, who represent a huge lobby in Washington, who didn't want the increased competition that would result from this. So these laws actually prevent competition.

Thanks for once again demonstrating the Hasty Generalization fallacy, but we got it the first time you used it. Nice example of selection bias too.