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Comment by ta8645 | Hacker News Reader

How exactly can a company price-gouge in a free market? First, nobody is compelled to buy anything from them. Second, anyone else is allowed to become a supplier, and easily make a fortune by offering a cheaper price.

And the only thing that prevents the above from being true, is oppressive government policies that undermine the freemarket, which are sold to the people as "for their protection".

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Cartels and predatory monopolies can exist in a free market. It’s not as simple as conjuring up companies with billions of operational supply chain investments into thin air.

As Tesla likes to point out, they are one of 2 car companies formed in the last century.

"nobody is compelled to buy anything from them"? Really? How are you going to get to work when your work only pays you enough to live 10+ miles away and there's no public transit (i.e. the vast, vast majority of people in the US)? Or should they just not have a job (and thus no shelter or food either)?

The free market is not free. It's a myth. It's a lie.

(And before you say Tesla or some other electric car, remember that they are a luxury and priced as such, not to mention that most Americans can't even charge them at home.)

Unfortunately the (usually imported) gasoline car is somehow heavily tied into the image of the American dream. While I am no fan of Tesla (mostly because of right to repair), it baffles me that a patriot would choose an imported car that uses Russian gasoline over an American-designed car that uses American-produced energy.

While it is definitively a free market, it isn't in practicality.

Most Americans are using gasoline produced from crude drilled by Americans, Canadians, workers in Saudi Arabia, and Mexicans, that has been refined by Americans, in America, and supporting jobs in those countries. Russia accounted for only 3% of total crude imports before the war. Yes, the environmental impact is negative, but lets not pretend the relatively high wages in oil and gas jobs doesn't help American workers.

> How exactly can a company price-gouge in a free market?

We don't have a free market.

Are you saying that price gouging cannot exist in a free market?

What do you define as a free market?

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