Again, your poor reading comprehension has failed you. Firms cannot get larger indefinitely without suffering losses at some point, and this is an empirical fact. We saw this when Alcoa lost some 20% market share within a year or two.
I suppose it's a compliment that I read. Alcoa hardly counts an a prime example of a trend for large firms to suffer losses at some point... I don't consider this empirical at all.
Besides, what matters isn't the size of a firm, but whether or not that firm is able to satisfy customer needs. If a business becomes too large to effectively satisfy its customers, it will be undercut by competitors and by new entrepreneurs. If that business is able to satisfy consumers, then its market share will grow.
Now it's changing of the game. The Austrian understanding of marginal utility is not dependent on cardinal utility, rather it is more like an intrinsic ordinal utility. The concept of customer satisfaction has no measurable quantity that will satisfy your claim that customers ultimately can topple larger entities. I realize now where you are getting your information, and I realize you are actually an idiot. This is more word games, and more stupid verbal logic theory that has no bearing on the modern economy. You're an idiot.
If a firm's market share grows to 90% or beyond it can only do so if consumers prefer their products much more to their competitor's products. This is obviously a good thing and there really is nothing to critique here.
Again, more cardinal utility nonsense, a real Austrian ought to jump in now and crucify your idiotic ass. But they have no idea what you are talking about... namely, they hate me enough to side with you now... but keep talking.
No. Depending on the business the inherent costs of operation vary. Certain businesses can become very, very large before they reach the "tipping point." The fact of the matter is that most businesses never become "too large."
No? You have provided no proof other than your nonsensical, almost Lewisque approach to this conversation. Full circle. You need to provide actual proof that any company has a tipping point, ESPECIALLY if you are going to imply that sellers are the cause... Ironically, I mentioned the micro-chip manufacturers to illustrated enormous cost to entry.
The flaw in your reasoning is that the size of the business matters, not the service it provides to its customers. If a business "outgrows" itself or if it begins to dictate unfair prices, it will be undercut by competitors and entrepreneurs who are out seeking an easy profit.
If there is a flaw anywhere here, it is the idea that you are using reason. A business can become so large that it ultimately will become the authority. This has happened throughout history. Do you know how many times I've had to sit through lecture after lecture of these retard talking points? I understand your stupid system. It hasn't been tested, and it's highly speculative. You can't answer even the most remote question sufficiently, and you continue to say the same shit over and over.
Yes, and again, this is a good thing. The larger a company can become and the more efficient it can become, the cheaper its products become. How is this a bad thing?
It's not. Just look at how the biggest monopoly in the planet's history, the Government of the U.S. came to power. It is a corporation. Nothing about this corporation is efficient. If you disagree that the government is run like a business, (without competition), then you only need to observe that your It's a good thing" is flawed.
What we're debating is whether or not that firm would be in a position to unfairly corner the market. The answer is no, because it cannot become indefinitely larger without eventually suffering losses, and because of that, there will always be nearby competitors willing to compete for consumers' business.
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... or one could look at the oil industry where you need to lobby Congress in order to get leases and have to pay huge costs for regulation...
Agreed.
Yes, but if a microprocessor firm truly corners the market and begins dictating unfair prices, what will happen? You're assuming that the market is static, when in fact it is very dynamic.
I haven't assumed anything. If Intel or AMD end up buying each other... what is the next course of action for the consumer? A price does not have to be ultimately unfair... it can be slightly greater than the perceived cost of entry into the market... thanks for playing.
Rich entrepreneurs, with the help of rich venture capitalists, will see a profit to make. They will enter the market to compete with the large dinosaurs demanding unfair prices. Venture capital firms are often willing to see prolonged losses as long as a good business model is in place that will be able to make it through in the long run. That's the reason why we have the internet in the first place. We wouldn't have had Yahoo or Google or the commercialization of the internet had it not been for the losses many venture capitalists took for quite a long time.
I don't disagree with this.
You haven't demonstrated jack shit once. Please post one example of playing with verbal logic.
Every time you post something as an assumption. Every time you say "empirical fact" yet show nothing... You are talking to a crowd of sheep who will not hold you accountable for this travesty of a conversation. You have offered nothing of value in here, except a central premise that Ron Paul Supporters are idiots (something I don't necessarily disagree with). Ironically, they are eating out of your asshole. So much for thinking for themselves.
Where have I ever said anything that doesn't apply to the real economy?
Again, you're a master at unsourced and unbacked statements.
Wow. Ironic. This sentence is exactly what I said to you several pages back.
Soros isn't even an economist. He might be a fucking genius at making money, but that doesn't give him much credibility. Keynes was a genius at making money, but his policies have lead to some of the worst and most prolonged busts in the history of world economies.
Now that you have wandered outside your copy and paste world, you have exposed your adolescent dribble of a mind.
If I said that there is no current pure Keynesian economy in existence, and therefore why attempts at a Keynesian economy fail, it would be the total sum of all of your arguments. I won't go there, because I have more respect for intellectual discourse.
As for his theory of reflexivity, I don't even know what it has to do with anything we're debating. He's simply making an observation that the economy is never at equilibrium, which nobody claims it is, and then gives an absurd hypothesis when he states its an inherent flaw of the market. Anyone with a decent knowledge of the market knows that is bullshit, because the collective rational expectations of millions of investors and entrepreneurs can only be wrong if wrong market signals prevail, which can only be caused by government - i.e. unstable inflation.
It has everything to do with what we are debating.
You're statement that a monopoly cannot exist in a free market is false. It is a positive statement, and it deserves proper evidence. You have given none.
First of all, this view on monopolies is not unique to Austrian economists. Many neoclassical, monetarist, and supply-side economists agree.
Secondly, you have failed to provide one example of a business gaining a monopoly or a monopoly-like power over the market.
The United States of America is a monopoly. It gained power for itself, mostly through the abuse of force and monetary system. Everything about it follows in line with what you think cannot happen. Ultimately, this is the end result of a failure to understand principles in social psychology, and the evolution of groups. If there is a tabula rasa, if there is a clean slate where a market can form without any regulation... IT WILL BECOME THE REGULATING BODY!
Where do you think the regulations are coming from? Not just the elected officials... but the corporations, the money itself is paying for it... they gain power because they paid for the power... there is nothing in Austrian Economics that explains that away. Nothing. A unregulated market would find a way, any way, to pursue the ultimate purpose of it's existence to any end...
I am a realist. You very early demonstrated your abuse of the language by trying to pigeonhole the definition of model and a monopoly. Realistically speaking, it is better for any economic system, as research has shown, to have a more balanced economy, or rather a mixed economy. An anarchist economy is not tested and a working understanding of market forces eliminates completely any viability that might have been overlooked. Scientific insight has also completely shed light on the actual chances of an unregulated market existing in the utopian view that Austrian Economist take... in other words, the ultimate cost of deregulation is nearly unquantifiable, unpredictable, immeasurable, without qualification, and without any empirical observation on it's ultimate course. Or.. you can pretend that the failed market economies of Mexico, Brazil, and Chile were just flukes.
So you march on here, calling everyone an idiot, and proceed to copy and paste a few CATO papers and what not all over place, and then continue to define the debate in terms that are easy to molest. I don't buy it, but then again, I don't go with herds.
I'm glad the herd has accepted your nonsense. Cheers.
And to the rest of you clowns, go think for yourselves, tools. Ron Paul has given you a gift... now use it.
http://ideas.repec.org/s/nbr/nberwo.html
