On 08/28/2016 05:52 PM, jim bell wrote: > > > From: Mirimir <miri...@riseup.net> > On 08/28/2016 04:38 PM, jim bell wrote: >> From: "trep...@sigaint.org" <trep...@sigaint.org> >>>> I think you misinterpreted me, I am not defending planned economy, The >>>> cooperation that I was referring to is between market agents to form >>>> cartels and extract the most value from their product. The mathematical >>>> fact comes from game theory. There is a strong incentive for market agents >>>> to collude and control the price. Once one small group of cartels controls >>>> the market, it is impossible to other agents to enter. >>> I think that what you don't realize is that it is very difficult to keep >>> everyone outof a market...unless this restriction is actually assisted by >>> some government. Imentioned the Epi-Pen problem, where the price was >>> increased by about a factorof 5 recently. How could they get away with >>> that? EASY, because the FDA had refused to approve a competing >>> product.Also, the case of Daraprim, in which the price of that drug was >>> raised by about a factor of 56. >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli >>> That drug, I think, was actually off-patent, which to an ordinary person >>> implies that just anyone can come in and make that product, competing with >>> the >>> sole manufacturer. As the late John Belushi would have said, "BUT >>> NOOOOOOO!"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q4JfaHjAng >>> Turns out that the FDA prohibited other companies from manufacturing >>> andselling Daraprim, despite the expiration of the patent. >>> See how this works? Restricting markets is EASY when you have government >>> on your side. Restricting markets is very difficult when you don't. >>> Restrictions such as this are virtually invisible to the ordinary consumer. >>> All theysee is the price of the product going up. They don't know why. > >> Well, without regulation, you have assholes adulterating sugar with lead >> acetate, just because it happens to cost less. That used to be fairly >> common, back in the day. > Specific example? When?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29568505 http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2005Mar/Thefightagainstfoodadulteration.asp http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/adulteration.html >> Or assholes spiking their "vodka" with > methanol. > Generally, that happens when "legal" alcohol is taxed, which implies a > diluteform of regulation. Caused by Government! The tax on "legal" > alcohol isFAR greater than the actual cost of production. This provides a > windowto make a lot of money by bypassing the taxation. Truly legal > (untaxed) alcohol wouldn't be economical to be made, competing with > massiveproduction. >> Or assholes spiking their "heroin" with fentanyl, or whatever > opiate agonist they can get cheapest" > Heroin is illegal, right? Fentanyl is illegal too, right? See the > pattern?It takes the existence of regulation to allow much of this > problem.Virtually all of the danger of Fentanyl is that people don't know > what quality/concentration is in the sample they just bought illegally. Make > itlegal, and the cost is very low, and quality could be easily assured. Maybe high prices are part of it. But someone needs to test stuff. Without required testing, people get poisoned. > .> Or assholes spiking their dried > milk with melamine, to boost apparent protein content. Etc etc etc. > Not very common. And you can't argue that China had a lack of > regulation.What China DID have was massive corruption, which you can get > whenregulation is not uniformly consistent. China does not have effective regulation of food. Too much corruption. >> I suppose that AP could handle that. But many customers will get fucked >> up before bids get high enough to take out sellers. Or we could have >> private enforcement handle regulation. Regulation as a service ;) > It will happen! Jim Bell So how exactly is private regulation better? How is limited government to protect public interest that different from private enforcement? You could have competing governments ;)
