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Comment by pfdietz

4 hours ago

What abuse? Responding to supply and demand fluctuations isn't abuse, it's the proper operation of the market.

11 comments

pfdietz

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dumberquestions  4 hours ago

Would if one industry gobbles up an important resource to the point that other consumers lose practical access to it, shouldn't there be limits?

  • jefftk  4 hours ago

    No. The other industries can bid for access to the resource, and under most circumstances, whether they are willing to bid higher tracks importance. Sometimes there are cases where something has significant positive externalities and so people are not willing to bid high enough, and then we can talk about some kind of government intervention (typically a subsidy that attempts to track the value of the externalities) but I don't see that applying here.

  • pfdietz  4 hours ago

    If others are willing to pay more, that a signal that more value is created if the resource goes to them rather than to the more price sensitive customers.

    • applfanboysbgon  4 hours ago

      This logic falls apart completely when gamblers allocate one trillion to bidding up the price, denying access to the resource to people who are responsibly spending their own money. The ideal world of the imaginary perfect free market never takes into consideration the messiness of the real world, like the fact that people will spend extreme sums of money irrationally. It can take years for this effect to correct, damaging the market severely in the meantime.

      Alternatively, the money invested can be rational because it prices out competitors and establishes a monopoly, after which point the monopolist earns their absurd investment back with complete control of the market. This is also bad.

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