Not without committing the stolen concept fallacy.
WTFDTM??
No.
So how are they going to vote for the regulations against “smoke and mirrors” pricing? Or are you saying bureaucrats know better? Sometimes they may well know better, but then so may the King sometimes know better than his people. In other words, assuming you are for democracy (not saying you should be, but that you probably are since most people are), you’ve got a much bigger hurdle for implementing this new regulation when there is a government monopoly on force than when there is a free market. In a few market, it only takes a relatively small number of people to create a market for something, but in a democracy it takes a majority of voters or the whim of a “representative” who could just as easily (actually more easily) side with special interests than with the people.
“The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (“appeal to ignorance” [1]), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true.”
If your argument is a logical fallacy that even wikipedia knows about, it might be time to reconsider your line of reasoning.
Yes.
this could go on all night.
hopefully, in another thread. :]
No!
Yep. Agreed.
It doesn’t matter if the monopoly is a government mandate or not, the analysis is the same. Consumers get screwed no matter what.
Firms produce externalities when they pollute and don’t compensate the victims. Lawsuits are sometimes difficult if the victims are spread out across many nations or legal jurisdictions. The government has to do something like create pollution credits or whatever.
No, there simply has to be clear property rights and the ability to sue for tort damages. No government needed.
And low transaction costs. If the cost of suing exceeds the cost of the externality, nobody sues and the externality persists. Same idea with property rights; if the cost of negotiation exceeds the benefit of the transaction, no transaction.
Get this: if “nobody” sues because they deem the costs prohibitively high (btw, guess who is in control of legal services…), their preferences are being served.
And no, the analysis is not the same when there is a legal monopoly on the provision of a service - like law.
Austrians seem to think that this type of thing either won’t happen in a free market, or even if it does happen then its not much of a problem or the cost of regulation outweighs any potential benefit.
I’m sure you can get a lot of regulation for 38billion dollars.
what exactly is your argument? free markets are bad because regulated markets are terrible?
Well what we know for sure is that it’s happening now, despite lots of regulators “looking out for your best interest”
So the argument is… we need those regulators just in case something like this happens?
You sure can get lots of regulation for $38 billion – in fact for a lot less – that’s why bankers have captured the regulators
From the point of view of someone from England, the USA is at the free market end of the spectrum. I’d put the UK in the middle then France, Germany and Sweden all more regulated than the UK. I think it was Mrs Thatcher (who had Austrian leanings) who deregulated much of the banking system.
Thinking about it, perhaps this is not a great example to use for many reasons - but I mentioned it because the size of the “rip off” is so large.
And one more thing. I thought there was an Austrian idea that if there was a lack of regulation somewhere then a private entity would evolve to help consumers. Where is the business that helps consumers find out which banks are a rip off?