4 ms·
To anyone who wants less government and more free markets, unfortunately greed works in such ways that price fixing and market segmentation is very prevalent. E
by cm3 11y ago
To anyone who wants less government and more free markets, unfortunately greed works in such ways that price fixing and market segmentation is very prevalent. Everywhere, even Western Europe. You'd probably not expect it, but take backpacks as an example. German backpack manufacturers hold retailers to fixed prices, disallowing anything lower than the set price. Same for mattresses (the kind you sleep on). The result is an illusion of free markets but where those who try to sell cheaper either get their supply cut off or get bullied in other ways. Same racketeering goes on with ISPs, and these are strong arguments why regulation bodies need to exist and impose hefty fines. Why am I mentioning this? Well, unfortunately without regulation there's no real competition because companies will split up a market and also agree on unofficial pricing structures to keep it expensive.
- namlem 11y agoAbsolutely. Deregulated systems are every bit as vulnerable to greed and corruption as regulated ones. With regulation, you have to be careful to avoid rent-seeking schemes by established interests trying to raise barriers to competition. With deregulation, you have the obvious health, safety, and environmental risks, but you also have the issues of collusion that you mentioned, like price fixing and market segmentation. Fwiw though, there are online-only mattress brands that bypass the establishment by delivering directly to the consumer.
- cm3 11y agoBut what other choices than regulation do we have? The regulation has to be regulated and fully transparent. I hope that as long every penny crossing the table is visible we'll have a positive outcome. e.g. US judges feeding inmates to private prison companies they have shares in is an extreme instance of where regulation and oversight failed. > Fwiw though, there are online-only mattress brands that bypass the establishment by delivering directly to the consumer. Yeah and there's one online-only mattress firm that is now shifting to making their own mattresses and selling them as "Anti-Cartel Mattress" and promptly the firms that tried to prevent them earlier from selling their products cheaper than fixed have been trying to sue them for the product name. In German: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/streit-um-eine-matratze-wie-ein-matratzenfabrikant-gegen-den-marktfuehrer-kaempft/11945698.html http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/streit-um-eine-matratz...