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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (321127)	1/16/2007 7:59:19 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1574295

You are 'nuancing' your definition in your effort to be right. Its just plain silly. Not that nuance is bad, but it wasn't what I was doing. I gave a simple explanation, and then gave examples. The simple definition is that totalitarian means exerting near total control. It doesn't mean non-Democratic. A monarchy or dictatorship that doesn't exert much control isn't totalitarian. It is very difficult for an independent league to succeed because they usually do not have profitable venues from which to play. Give them the venue free and it would still be difficult for them to compete. If you define the market narrowly you could have a monopoly. For example only NFL teams play NFL football. But you have the Arena league, or if you live near the border (or can get the games on cable or satellite) you have the Canadian league. And of course you have other sports and other forms of entertainment. Should AMD face anti-monopoly measures because it has a monopoly on Opterons? Should Apple face them because they are the only place you can buy a Mac? The supply/demand factor is a negative because supply can be manipulated. And political decision making can be even more manipulated. scalper rates for tickets of all kinds They have a good, which people want and are willing to pay for. Nothing bad about that, at least nothing bad enough to justify government control of prices. Control the prices and you have much more distortion and manipulation. riots and gauging over too few playstations And government set price would avoid the riots? Of course not. I the prices where set low, then you'd just create a black market, or ration them by something besides price (political connections perhaps). The long lines and fights within lines where because the price was below the current supply and demand. The market was a fairly free market but the price was below the market clearing rate. If "gouging" where not discouraged you wouldn't have had the long lines and riots. So call gouging is just bringing the price up to the market price. It is normally, perhaps almost always a good thing. Higher prices reduce demand and often increase supply. Cap the prices and you have negative effects like gas lines in the 70s or riots, or running out of essential items in a disaster area. see econlib.org boston.com cafehayek.typepad.com virginiainstitute.org i-r-squared.blogspot.com I still question the priorities of a culture that places greater value on its entertainers than its president. With the benefits (including post presidency benefits, and the perk of power) a good case could be made that a president hardly pales in comparison to execs and movie stars. You could shift your point to compare members of congress or members of the supreme court (both of whom receive lower salaries and a lot less benefits and perks) pale compared to execs and movie stars and major athletes but, once again a higher salary does not equal society placing a greater value on anything. Salaries aren't determined by the societies opinion of someones value, and any attempt to set them that way is likely to be disastrous.