Huge demand for copper hasn’t brought its price down to the price of stainless steel, has it? Most definitely not, so it seems like Econ 101 was incomplete. Not

Huge demand for copper hasn’t brought its price down to the price of stainless steel, has it? Most definitely not, so it seems like Econ 101 was incomplete. Not all goods are perfectly elastic. Inelastic goods do not get cheaper with more demand. Tantalum is in demand today, yes. Tantalum capacitors are a well known application, but it is used in all sorts of things. My point was that even if tantalum were free, a material that is 96.5% copper is still not going to be significantly cheaper than copper, which I think is a pretty self-evident outcome.