I often buy Made in USA products for twice what I would pay for a cheap imitation at Walmart.
There’s more to the market than price.
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[quote=“Texashusker, post:12, topic:2550, full:true”]
Government has no business deciding fair prices. [/quote]
I quite agree.
You may note that nowhere did I call for government to become involved here.
I simply find it unconscionable that an enormous profit–well beyond anything that might be considered reasonable–is being made here.
I can see some standing before their maker
"B…b…but the free market, the free market . What about the free market? The free market told me it was OK. "
[quote=“DMK, post:16, topic:2550, full:true”]
Well, I reside in Tennessee; and the cost of living here is exponentially less than it is in, say, Los Angeles or New York.
My total income is a mere $42,097.92 per year; and my wife’s income is much less than that. Yet we live a very comfortable lifestyle.
So (to paraphrase the real-estate people), the three principal points are location, location, and location.
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There are some well-reasoned comments above; but many seem to rely upon the belief that “the market” is an entirely amoral force. More precisely, they seem to imply that we should just expect sellers to generally act in an amoral fashion.
That is something that I simply cannot buy.
I believe that capitalism is the most moral economic system ever devised–certainly more moral than Marxism (in any of its various forms)–even if the latter were actually workable…
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That works great in theory. The problem is when all manufacturers decide that the bowls should cost $22 even though they only cost $3 to make. It’s called competitive pricing and it happens despite things that used to control costs, such as supply and demand.
Competitive pricing is the process of selecting strategic price points to best take advantage of a product or service based market relative to competition .
If every product/service provider agrees to charge their customers the same base price for that product/service, then customers have no choice but to accept that base price. This is also why there are such things as agreements between companies not to sell their products in an area that is “owned” by a competitor, which while technically not illegal, stifles competition and happens everyday because at the end of the day, these companies are all beholden to shareholders who want the price to keep going up so those shareholders can keep making money. Eventually it will bottom out as less and less will be able to afford their products/services. Make no mistake though, this is the new business model for many of these companies. It’s also why we’re seeing automatic price increases on an annual basis. That never used to be a thing. Now it’s getting to be commonplace.
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The consumer is the financial arbiter when it comes to goods and services
You don’t like the price, you don’t but it.
You don’t like the quality, you don’t buy it.
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You proudly say you hate big government and then rely on that government to defend your right to overcharge by punishing anyone with jail time who won’t pay what you and your “free market” demand. You seem to need the government to tell you it’s OK for you to use people’s basic needs as the source of your investment income.
The faceless “free market”, the government, and you: the father, son, and holy ghost of your moral code.
Just be honest. You make the decision to do this. Adam Smith doesn’t make you do it. No faceless economic philosophy makes you do it.
Read what I said again, but this time, read the entire paragraph and not just the sentence you picked out. Maybe I should have put quotes around it as if the government was saying “Don’t like it…”
I said that’s WHY I hate government… because if you don’t pay what they demand, they throw your ass in jail. The free market has no such power. If you don’t like what I charge for my house, you don’t rent it. Period. If no one rents it, I go broke. When government steps in and starts siding with the corporation, you pay it or you go to jail.
I want the government out of the equation which forces me to look a person in the eye and charge them a fair market price or lose my ass. Like I said, capitalism isn’t perfect but it beats the alternative.
As to the faceless free market comment, that’s just stupid. The free market allows two free human beings to negotiate for a fair price. If person A agrees to pay person B, it’s a mutual agreement. Where we end up with problems is when you have person C tell A what he’s going to do for B and person D tells person B how much he’s going to pay… I live in the world where adults get to decide and the ONLY function of government is to prevent monopolies that kill competition.
Again, I never once said I don’t make the decisions on what to charge. My decision is based on whether or not someone will pay what I want. If I charge $1800 for rent on a house in an area where $1500 is the going price for that size house, it’ll sit on the market for 3 months and MAYBE someone that’s desperate will rent it but you can bet your ass they’ll be gone the SECOND that they find something cheaper. We don’t live in some fantasy world where I can just set a price and you’re force to pay it, so long as we have competition. . . which is my objection to government involvement. They kill competition more often than not.
Competitive pricing ONLY exists where there are a low number of manufacturers for a set product and it’s something that’s difficult to duplicate. These bowls… idiots will pay the price because nothing’s too good for Fido but there are hundreds of alternatives out there that cost a few bucks. What you elude to is effective monopolies and that’s the only role of government in my opinion, is to ensure that we allow for competition. If it’s patented, that’s one thing but if it’s something that anyone can make, a lot of times, government regulations ensure certain companies get to rule the roost by design. It’s a side effect of political contributions and lobbying.
The free market isn’t a theory, it’s practiced every single day in America. What happens to gas prices when the price of oil drops? Does it stay at $3.50 a gallon even after the price of oil dips or does it fall fairly quickly afterwards? Why? How about food? Does the price of corn go down with excess supply or up? How about housing? If there are too many houses, does the price keep going up? The market drives the prices and competitive pricing to drive UP the cost of a products only exists in narrow fields where the competition is limited, such as cell phone providers or cable providers. For other goods such as gasoline or clothing, it’s usually a race to the bottom with the rare exceptions of name brands that people will pay extra for.
Speaking of bowls, I have a collection of wooden bowls made by a friend who sells them from a booth at arts and crafts festivals. The prices range widely depending on the intricacy of the design and the types of woods that he combines to make them.
He gets most of his wood stock free from another artist that makes custom furniture and scraps some fairly large pieces.
No two bowls are identical. Since this is considered to be art rather than a manufactured product, the market value of each piece is in the eye of the beholder.
I’ve given away three of the bowls to friends that simply admired them. My driving force in buying them was simply to help the po boy out! 
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Sometimes, name brands are truly superior; other times, they are not.
For instance, the name brand of body wash sells for $5.50 at a local Family Dollar store; but the store’s knockoff sells for just $2.50.
And I truly cannot tell the difference–if there even is any.
And that can be because they’re identical products, just the brand name with recognition has more advertising, thus it’s more expensive. Because you’re also paying for the advertising.
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Tech sector products. Automotive products. Household cleaning products. You name it. This isn’t a limited phenomena. Competitive pricing is already in place for LOTS of stuff and has been for some time. And yes, the free market is a theory. It’s also dependent on no interference from government, corporations, or even the consumers to work properly. Name one business that is free of all three.
LOL… I thought you were going to call me out for naming Tennessee. I was thinking…oh grief, here it comes 
But, I’m glad you agree with the overall point I was attempting to make.
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I’m not sure you understand what a free market is. Consumers are kind of vital. While there are varying degrees of “free” in the free market, it’s certainly no theory. It’s been in practice for a very long time. No one said a free market has to be free from corporations, consumers or government. I’m not talking about the strict definition, I’m talking about a market with minimal government control where free people buy and sell based on their own needs and abilities.
Literally every example you used shows the free market in action. While the auto industry is full of government regulation (this has driven up the cost substantially), you can see the obvious play for consumers in the auto industry. Competition. Discounts. New features. More horse power. . . The same goes for the tech industry and hell, ever seen cleaning products on the shelf? Our Kroegar’s has an entire aisle dedicated to cleaning products and God knows how many brands there are.
I don’t think some government regulation means the free market isn’t working as intended. I don’t think it does us any favors in a lot of cases because it drives up cost and puts the little guys out of business but I think our free market has done well despite government interference.
I didn’t say free of, I said free of interference from. A boycott can interfere with the free market. A company going bankrupt can interfere with the free market. New regulations can interfere with the free market.
I don’t agree with it’s dependent on interference from… there are tons of things that can impact the free market.
Not disputing that. But to work according to the theory, it must be free of those things. It sometimes works despite those things but it never works because of them.
Oh I don’t disagree. I think the theory of a free market is so solid that it can survive even borderline socialist governments! Capitalism always funds socialism up to a point, then the entire house of cards collapses.