Boys boys boys....

Post #7,499 by bepatient 9/2/01 1:24:22 PM Reply	Boys boys boys.... There are ALOT more factors than Supply and Demand...(pricing falls from these 2...and is thus derived...in >theory< :-)_) BUT...I feel inclined to poke my head in here... Weather, shoplifting and fashion ARE market forces...because they relate to how product cost or material supply is derived. Bad weather does indeed affect the supply of citrus fruit...for example. Shifting fashion sense has certainly reduced demand for double-knit polyester leisure suits...has it not? HOWEVER...this thread, IIRC, began by someone trying to call government intervention a "market force". THIS...is not correct. While government intervention does indeed affect the market...by economic definition it is NOT a "market" force....but an external influence to the "market"...needed to ensure an adequate supply of "public" goods that would NOT be produced by the market itself (national defense...pollution control...etc...) AND...just to make another point...I can graph a shitload more stuff than just supply and demand...there's resource allocation, indifference, marginal outputs, interest rate and fx affects on money, money multipliers... Only Father Guido Sarducci can get away with all of econ being supply and demand based. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #7,508 by Ashton 9/2/01 4:30:42 PM Reply	Now don't spoil it, BP By introducing rational qualifiers. My guess is that the visceral antipathy to all the boffins is - that they tend to perpetuate the idiotic ideas that (say) A) The Market is... anything other than a highly idealized er 'massless rod of length h'. B) That its entire dynamic may be expressed in mathematical model, displayed in 2D or nD 'graphs' -- which 'explain' it all. (Though unlike the scientific ideal: rarely predict events with more than owl-entrail accuracy) Agreed that we 'want' Some methodology a bit better than owl-entrails; it's our nature to seek explanations (some folk even imagine there's an ontological 'proof' of er God!). I suggest that the concept 'market forces' is simply an open-ended labelled container into which, with perfect 20/20 hindsight: are tossed each new factor as was seen to have affected That particular run-up or run-down; factors as varied as The Weather and - Imagine an idea, sufficiently sophisticatedly noised about that: The phosphorous in Coke (the liquid kind) + the accumulated random DNA from the millions of steer carcasses intermixed into any one Big Mac: are asymptotically approaching a certain date (elapsed time) ~ a la Code Red algorithm - at which time flaming kidney stones shall appear in millions of fast-diners, all within a likely window of just 'weeks' = excruciating pain! (How many $B support, feed-off UFO sightings overall?) Economists thus purport that their algorithms work, yet that 'market forces' container is as malleable as gold leaf hammered between leather sheets. It's no nearer a science (however unarguably it is Dismal) than is 'socio'logy; but it must pay well, and soothe lots of CIEIOs - and after all they Are the most important ones to buy the snake oil: they own most of the stuff (even the patented ideas!) [/Aummmm]: Dollllarrrrzzzzz Unite against the Dismal Doctors of Deception D\ufffd ? Don't be a Rube !!
Post #7,661 by drewk 9/4/01 4:35:31 PM Reply	How much is this a semantic argument? While government intervention does indeed affect the market...by economic definition it is NOT a "market" force. Someone (Ashton?) recently brought up the concept that professions are just the way to keep non-professionals from playing your game through the use of technical jargon. I'm not an economist, but a layperson ... one who pays attention. It seems there is some disagreement even from the people with formal training in the field as to whether government intervention should be classified as a "market force." To the extent that anything that affects the market is a market force, it is. To the extent that the "idealized market" only consists of supply, demand and price, it isn't. The "truth" must lie somewhere in between. My understanding, as I said in my other post, is the simple Supply/Demand graph, and that everything else is just inputs into determining these curves. The simple chart, by itself, is not predictive or useful. But even at this level of understanding, I see government intervention -- in the form of patents, anti-trust regulation, price fixing, nationalized industry, etc. -- as fundamentally different from buyer/seller inputs. In this sense, supply is the idealized end-point of all inputs involving the seller, and demand is the end-point of all inputs involving the buyer. IMO government input is still orthoganal to these forces. I suspect that Addison's viewpoint is farily close to this. FWIW I believe that's the "proper" way to view government input since "the government" is theoretically a representative of "the people," which should include the buyers and the sellers. Slightly OT: A gas station franchise owner in Alabama (he only has one station) has sued OPEC under anti-trust legislation for price fixing. At the first hearing, OPEC didn't appear and the judge entered summary judgement on behalf of the plaintiff. Another judge has set aside the verdict, and a second round is under way with OPEC taking the matter somewhat more seriously. The US Attorney isn't weighing in, claiming they don't have a mechanism to pursue the case. OPEC's position is that the plaintiff has no standing to pursue a multinational, due to sovreign immunity. They are explicitly holding themselves up as equivalent to the U.N., as deserving of immunity to local prosecution. This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Post #7,668 by bepatient 9/4/01 5:03:41 PM Reply	Definition... I can understand why the confusion exists. Public finance (government intervention in the economy) is a couple of full time courses in economics. The basic principle is that "market" forces are those inherent in the interaction between the "suppliers and demanders"...where government intervention is "enforced" on the market from the outside. Both have influence on the derived outcome of the market...so the net effect is pretty much the same. So... ...I understand both points of view...but to really be true to my school...have to split laws and other government issues away from the naturally occuring "market". You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]

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