jwallaceparker

Here's Hayek and Friedman on monopoly:

http://principlesnotmen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/does-the-fr...

Rothbard, Sowell, Mises and others share this view. Google their names followed by the word "monopoly" for an abundance of material.

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly

"A monopoly is a grant of special privilege by the State, reserving a certain area of production to one particular individual or group." in bold in the middle of the page.

If I can't quote a university that advocates for the Austrian view without you labeling it bias, there's no point to this discussion.

You accused me of redefining monopoly. I point to an entire school of economics that defines monopoly as I defined it. You dismiss it as bias.

> You are making the false assumption that capitalism = free market.

anarco-capitalism = free market

crony capitalism != free market

I use the term capitalism to describe the anarco flavor. Capitalism is defined as the private ownership of production, and when this idea is adhered to rigidly you end up with something exactly like or closely approximating the anarco-capitalist flavor.

> in the modern world, capital owners have a disproportionate influence on law-making to subdue this power.

You're right. It's abhorrent but this is not capitalism, this is a mixed economy (state capitalism or crony capitalism) in which firms use government to buy influence over the marketplace. I am not advocating for that.

> you are pretending monopolies don't exist except where created by the government

There is a strong case for this view, and it is shared by many well-regarded economists throughout history.

And I haven't redefined the terms: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly

The Marxist term was misused in this case, you're right. I was just making a general comment about a perceived anti-capitalist bias in these forums.

"Any market left to its own devices will devolve into a monopoly." This is not an observable phenomenon. A market left to its own devices will continually deliver better, cheaper products to its customers over time. This is the effect competition has on a marketplace.

"Businesses left to themselves will raise the barriers to market thereby making the market non-free in Smith's terms." If a business is not using physical force or fraud then the only barriers they can erect to keep out competitors are superior offerings in the marketplace.

Microsoft is such a great example here. Their competitors were crying monopoly but Microsoft had created its marketshare through innovation and entrepreneurship. If they abuse this marketshare by offering inferior products at high prices, it creates a market opportunity for another competitor to create better products at more attractive prices. In this sense it's the free consumer choice that's providing the "regulation" in the market. Businesses have to follow the consumer's wants to gain marketshare.

The only government "regulatory" role in a market is to settle disputes about property or fraud or criminal behavior. With that basic structure in place, Adam Smiths's "invisible hand" would take care of the rest.

Regulatory intervention into a marketplace is not "ensuring vigorous competition."

Markets are vigorously competitive in their natural state. This is the nature of a market, where firms compete for customers' business. This can only be hindered with regulatory interference where a legislator is arbitrarily granting privileges to certain firms and not others. That's crony capitalism or mercantilism. It's not a free market.

You're right. Regulation is not explicitly Marxist. My edit was born of a frustration with the general bias in this community in which advocating for capitalism or free markets is guaranteed to earn you down votes.

Hey. Great example.

I think you're correct to point out that "in Telstra's case the government did effectively grant them a monopoly" in the first place.

The specifics I'm talking about in the Comcast case is that government is continually granting the monopoly privilege by preventing other companies from creating infrastructure (laying wire), even if a company wishes to do so.

This is precisely what allows Comcast to charge whatever it wants, begging more regulation down the road to force Comcast to charge 'fair' prices ('fair' in the minds of the legislators).

If any competitor was allowed to enter what is an enormous market it would provide continual downward pressure on consumer prices. The monopolistic privilege granted to Comcast leads to higher prices, as consumers can only pay the high price or forego service.

Those cable lines that run down the streets into all the houses. By law nobody can use them but Comcast and by law nobody else can string up another set of lines to run to all the houses. That's the monopoly privilege.

Can you name one monopoly that exists anywhere that is not the creation of a government in the first place?

Do some digging into the history of antitrust legislation. The Sherman Antitrust legislation was an act of mercantilism designed to protect incompetent businesses who were losing market share to superior competition, most notably Standard Oil, the poster boy monopoly which gained an 85 percent market share through lower prices and economies of scale, delivering a benefit to consumers but harming their comparably inefficient competitors. It was those same competitors who spearheaded the antitrust legislation, not the poor consumers 'suffering' from lower prices and superior service at the hands of the 'monopolistic' Standard Oil.

It's government that is granting Comcast the monopoly privilege to be the only ISP on the market. That is not the natural state of a market. It's government intervention in the first place that creates the monopoly.

Government regulation doesn't create competition.

Edit: It's remarkable that any statement regarding regulation that isn't overtly Marxist immediately gets half a dozen down votes on HN.

> I'm a huge fan of free markets, but there are market failures requiring some government intervention in the form of contract law, property law and its exemptions, and regulation in specific situations.

I agree that contract and property law need to be enforced - this is a vital component of a free market. But I don't consider that regulation or intervention.

What are the "specific situations" that demand regulation?

And then this happened:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25213846

> Fiat currencies only end if the issuing entity ceases to exist or abandons them

I'm curious - can you point to one example of this happening?

To my knowledge they've all gone to zero in a hyperinflation but I'd love to know of a counterexample.

> does that mean what the FED is doing through monetary policy zero sum?

It leads to malinvestment as you pointed out.

> Can this be true? Or am I looking at the situation too simplistically?

I agree. It's a wealth transfer.

> Or do you look at the protocol as having no intrinsic value (pure fiat)? And do you think that that matters as a currency?

I'm not a Bitcoin expert. Right now I see no value in it in the short term other than a speculative investment.

There is much political uncertainty surrounding it. It could go to zero in a day.

Like you say, gold has over 5000 years as a consistent store of value. Bitcoin is a few years old and wildly volatile.

Do I believe a crypto-currency with no real-world backing could thrive? Sure, someday.

Do I believe that crypto-currency will be Bitcoin? I have no clue.

> Well then maybe you should point that out in your initial comment.

Okay I will next time!

> You'll have to do a little better to support your claim that deflation can result in economic growth. One data point from a rather unique point in history isn't enough.

This isn't my claim.

My claim is that economic growth comes from increased productive capacity and not from manipulation of the money supply (neither inflationary nor deflationary).

See my simple economic example elsewhere in the thread.

I'm just talking about deflation in general. Bitcoin is a new phenomenon but the 'fear of deflation' argument has been used by monetarists for decades.

Bitcoin is hardly viable as a unit of account at this point. It's a speculative investment at the moment.

I don't use Bitcoin at all.

I'm just talking about the general idea of inflation.

I'm not arguing the merits of Bitcoin.

I am well aware of "Gresham's law" that bad money drives out good.

I'm just referring to the idea of deflation in general and the fear mongering that happens around it.

I'm not talking about Bitcoin versus USD.

> What's your opinion on inflation as an economic driver?

My opinion is that inflation does not drive economic growth.

> Are they right and both deflation and inflation can supply economic growth?

Neither one supplies economic growth.

> does that mean another factor is the main proponent for growth?

Increased productive capacity is the source of economic growth. Not the supply of currency.

Take a simple example.

Three people live on an island after a plane crash.

They fish, build huts, make tools. To facilitate exchange, they use paper money from the game Monopoly happened to survive among the wreckage.

One day a new box of Monopoly washes ashore, including a fresh supply of Monopoly money.

Their money supply has doubled.

Will they experience any economic growth? Clearly not.

The next day a power saw and generator wash ashore. They have new tools and increased productive capacity.

Will they experience any economic growth? Clearly they will.

> why buy something today if it will be cheaper tomorrow?

Because you want it today.

The "fear of deflation" argument is now pervasive among monetary theorists. The argument goes that if people know that prices will fall, they will indefinitely delay all economic activity.

This ignores the time preference aspect of economic decision making. For example, I will buy my cup of coffee today rather than wait a day or week to save 1% because I WANT IT TODAY.

We've seen periods of significant economic growth coupled with falling prices.

Before going fiat, we had slowly falling prices in our nation's period of largest economic growth, the late 1800's.

"Wholesale prices dropped 47 percent from 1879 to 1900 and economic growth averaged nearly four percent per year." - Ron Paul

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-mythical-merits-of-paper-money...

> As a side note I love how 80% of the comments here are about the number of books available as a pissing contest versus any real discussion for the merits of the idea. For shame.

I think a lot of us (at least I did) expected that a good portion of past purchases would be eligible for this service but we're finding that only about 3-5% are.

We're just sharing information.

I have 24 books eligible for the program, which seems like a high number based on the comments here.

I've probably ordered 600-700 books since 1999.

Most of the Matchbook matches are at the $2.99 price point. None are listed for free. Most are fiction. Most are from my 1999-2004 purchases.

Incidentally, four (out of six) books from my first Amazon order were eligible.

I suspect (hope) that more publishers sign up in the near future.

http://gumbyframework.com is fantastic

I buy on Bandcamp because it's significantly less expensive.

Artists set their own prices and many are below the $0.99 price point.

A lot of albums are "name your price" and you can't beat that.

Bandcamp allows musicians to sell their music directly to listeners.

From DistroKid.com: "We'll put your music on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon."

Different model, no?

DistroKid helps musicians get their music in the mainstream stores. Bandcamp is its own store.

I think they're serving different ends.

This is fine as long as each driver migrates back to the right as soon as feasible.

I wish more drivers would follow the driving etiquette that advises one to "stay right except to pass."

On every highway trip I see countless cars camped out in the left lane but moving at the same rate as the rest of traffic.

One should only use the left lane for passing. Otherwise, stay right.

Traffic flows smoothly when people follow this system.

Would like to see the Ruby micro-framework Sinatra on this list.

It's a great starting point for Ruby development and could be a good entry point into Rails, which can be intimidating for a beginner.

I dropped Reeder after the Google Reader shutdown and went looking for a new service.

I wanted an RSS service that would sync seamlessly on all my Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, two computers).

I found NewsBar to be (AFAICT) the only service currently offering this.

The UI leaves a bit to be desired but it's been working flawlessly and serving its purpose.