Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Self-explanatory poll, do you believe in a free-market society? Edit: Hey moderators, can you guys enable multiple votes for me, thanks? Everyone: Vote once under monopolies, once under trade ____________________________________________ Monopolies won't really hurt anyone, and we should be able to trade with everyone, regardless of their moral or economic status Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Would if we could, but we can only edit the entires on the polls, not the type of poll. Sorries. Edit - I voted to ban monopolies though, as monopolies = bad for consumers. Without competition big businesses can drive prices as high as they want and nobody can do anything about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shok_Tinoktin Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Well, not quite as high as they want. If the people simply can't afford to buy something, they wont buy it. Regardless of how much they want/need it. But yes, monopolies = bad. (Except the game of course) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 im thinkin if the monopolies drive up their prices, consumers will turn to independants, which will lower the cost of the big boys, and it will continue to cycle until the prices level out. all in all monopolies=neither good or bad, but should be allowed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 But the problem with monopolies is sometime's they're the only choice. Lets say for instance UPS was the ONLY global shipping option you had in the US. They could charge you as much as they wanted to ship a package from California to Spain, and you couldn't do ANYTHING about it, because nobody else did that kind of shipping. Independant shipping companies aren't going to be able to pull off interstate shipping, let alone international shipping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 actually, i can almost guarantee some little company would start up doing in-state shipping and inter-state, and eventually grow, btw you can always ship usps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Originally posted by Lieutenant_kettch actually, i can almost guarantee some little company would start up doing in-state shipping and inter-state, and eventually grow, btw you can always ship usps I am AWARE that right now we COULD ship USPS, that's because UPS doesn't have a monopoly on the international shipping gig. It was an analogy. If monopolies were legal, then UPS would use it's billions of dollars to buy up ANY independant company that tried to muscle in on their territory, so they could keep their stranglehold on the market. Monopolies are a bad thing for consumers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcd1234 Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 The thing with monopolies are that they are big enough that they can just buy out their competitors, thus continuing to rule the market. And there is no way that the small independents can dare to compete with hugh multinational corporations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 the small companies don't HAVE to be sold out, they could hold their own btw usps is a government organization, government organizations are not involved in monopolies, (i.e. UPS could be a monopoly even with usps in effect) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shok_Tinoktin Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 What they said, but lets just say that UPS didn't buy out some independent that popped up. Whats gonna happen, the is gonna supply shipping needs for everyone? I don't see that as happening. They would have to raise their prices in order to reduce the number of people wanting their service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 It. Is. An. Analogy. If the small company makes an attempt to BECOME a national company that means in all likeliness they will be purchasable by someone with money, they just have to purchase a controlling share of the company. But in all likeliness anyone who establishes a small company like that and is successful enough to draw the attention of the bigger ups is going to be offered so much money that they'll almost CERTAINLY sell out. It is VERY unlikely that they started that company for altruistic reasons, odds are they started it to make money, which is what they would do more quickly by selling out. You can say that they COULD try to hold out, but COULD and WOULD are very different. most often the big business wins, consumers lose. Edit - that's the entire idea of a big business monopoly though, they COULD cater to everyone. All they'd have to do it expand their business to employ more people and have more offices (which in turn generates more revenue for them because they get to charge a lot more because they don't have competition) Competition is what drives our economy. The more competition a company has the more likely they are to cut markups in order to attract more people. Lower prices means more people spending their money on the goods, which means more money in circulation which is healthy for the economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 but.you.need.to.make.analagies.that.work and they wouldn't have to be publicly traded:rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Not really, you just have to imagine. But for the sake of arguments lets use something else. Lets use clothing stores. LET US say that there is only ONE store in america where you can buy a pair of jeans. we'll say Walmart won this battle and NOBODY else sells jeans, so walmart gets to charge as much as they want to for jeans. But you say anyone could sell jeans locally! But they cannot BUY jeans, because every jean manufacturer is going to sell THEIR jeans to Walmart because Walmart will pay them more because they CHARGE more. So even if somebody WANTED to try and break the monopoly they couldn't, because they wouldn't be able to buy enough jeans to outfit their store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 somebody could *gasp make jeans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shok_Tinoktin Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 For how many people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Originally posted by Lieutenant_kettch somebody could *gasp make jeans Yup, and after they made the jeans, they'd sell em to Walmart. Because Walmart pays top dollar, and they'll make a TON more money than if they sold them themselves or sold it to an independant company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 actually, they could be one of the not greedy people, and be angry at wal mart, and sell them at their price, and i guarantee they would still make a TON of money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcd1234 Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 You are saying that some small independent could challenge a monopoly. The small business has to grow and there is no way that the monopoly is going to let them do that because they have the money to just buy up there competitors. That is what monopolies do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 they cannot buy them out if they are not publically traded or sell freely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcd1234 Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 People start businesses to make money. that is how bug business is able to acquire the small businesses, they simply offer them a large amount of money and in the contract the small company agrees to provide its services to the big business or they simply stop performing the service they were doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Sitherino Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 or you have instances where the big business brings in "muscle". And things go rotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 28, 2004 Author Share Posted October 28, 2004 who knows, there could be someone out there who got sick of ridiculously high prices and went into business to make money, but to make a ton of money by selling cheap enough to make profit, but still be a LOT cheaper than the big boys is plausible and little guys can get their own "muscle", although i bet it would suck, but still, monopolies are fine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 Originally posted by Lieutenant_kettch but still, monopolies are fine Have you ever taken an economics class? Monopolies aren't just bad for monetary reasons, competition in business is what drives creativity and innovation. The fact that there is always someone else right on yoru heels, coming up with new things and improving on old things means YOU have to do the same. Without that competition innovation stagnates. Monopolies are banned for a reason. People who studied economics their entire lives made a law against it because it is BAD for the economy, and ONLY good for the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lieutenant_kettch Posted October 28, 2004 Author Share Posted October 28, 2004 yes, as a matter of fact, i have taken several economics classes... did very well actually,, but that is besides the point, my personal view is that government should not control business in that way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET Warrior Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 If you have indeed taken economics then how could you not realize the potential economic disaster that allowing monopolies can bring? It seems to me that should have been covered at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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