3 ms·
> They also don't care at all about short-term vs long-term consequences. Prices don't care about externalities. External consequences, not consequences per so
by nerfhammer 9y ago
> They also don't care at all about short-term vs long-term consequences.
Prices don't care about externalities. External consequences, not consequences per some sort of time window. Markets are actually often as good as can be expected at taking time into account at least as it may pertain to a particular good in question.
> Are there things like airplanes that defy market forces in a controlled manner
Markets exist because there are finite amounts of things, you can't really defy that. It would be nice if tradeoffs never needed to exist.
- ballenf 9y agoTo emphasize your point further, airplanes make a tradeoff in terms of massive fuel expenditure to get a few people or goods elsewhere quickly. There are similar tradeoffs in markets -- the town here made one of those tradeoffs in excluding Walmart. They relegated their residents to buying from higher priced stores or driving further to shop at a big box store. And they (and I) were happy with that tradeoff. The tradeoff they have available against e-commerce is higher local taxes on all goods purchased with subsidies from those taxes going back to brick and mortar locations. (You can't only tax mail order goods without violating the interstate commerce clause, as I understand it.)