"FREE markets" can't figure out jack. Economist
Post# of 148182
Economists are thoroughly educated in the conditions needed to have free markets.
- Many buyers and sellers. Liquidity where the same rules apply to everyone.
- Easy exit and entry into the market as a buyer or a seller (No economies of scale! or at least minimal.)
- Perfect price information on all comparable products (apples to apples, including transportation costs).
- In a money economy, a known and dependable medium of exchange.
- No costs associated with the lag-time between purchase and sale of products of unequal value, mediated by the use of money.
- Prosecution or penalties for bad actors (Liars and cheaters).
In a completely free, frictionless market, there are no profits - they are competed away! This is seen in simple economies, barter economies, where the costs of production are clear to all buyers and sellers. Equal value is exchange for equal value.
Free markets would mean that they were frictionless. The markets we know are ANYTHING BUT FREE! No one really knows the price (cost) of anything! Business major are indoctrinated, "Do not compete on price! Do anything to get the consumer to pay above the price of production. Do anything to obfuscate the costs of production!"
Use "Brand Loyalty", advertising, patents, copyrights, monopoly, scarcity, any restraint of trade is good. It drives up private profits.
Adam Smith called all attempts of add friction to market competition on prices of production "rent seeking". A better way of saying it might be "extortion payment seeking".
This is a time where the political power of the government needs to be brought to bear to provide for the "General Welfare". Markets, per se, are not the problem but bad actors and entitled interests are. As in times of war, political mandates must supersede private concerns and deal with existential threats.
So far, all those in the United States entrusted with the National Health have failed miserably. That's why we are "No. 1!" in Covid, in no small part because of a deference to freedom for private concerns and private agendas. Do you think the virus gives a dead rat's ass about any of our freedoms?
As I have said before, the virus is the Borg. Either you correctly take its measure or you are done in. It is like the Black Plague, not even the Spanish Flu. The Black Plague killed 60% of Europe's population. Our crowded planet makes things much worse. SARS2 is adaptive - give it half a chance to mutate and it will.
If you want freedom, concentrate on gaining freedom from the virus before it does its worst! Stop thinking about "free" markets providing separate flights for the "vaccinated" and the "unvaccinated". What a stretch!
I would much rather have the government "interfere" - with the promotion and manufacture of Leronlimab on an unprecedented scale and looking after "public" health, not selfish health.