Ah yes, the customers are stupid routine.
We owe our entire existence to the government, as we are too stupid to even tell which store has cheaper apples without it.
Lobby your congressman to regulate your industry, creating industry standards to ensure that none of your competitors can offer a better product.
There are a lot of laws that are put up by legislation, I’m more convinced by the actual judicial opinions.
What is so objectionable about your rule is that it’s dumb. People understand marketing speak, they react to it yes, but usually not in ways that seems grossly “immoral.” Most people would find your idea of regulating marketing speak and cents-off deals as being strange at best and stupid at worst.
Good luck running a campaign on that.
By the way, there already exists a proven judicial system that “regulates” what you’re talking about. Instances of gross fraud are almost always prosecuted and won by prosecuters.
It infringes on my right to free speech.
[:D]Have you tried preditory pricing?
… but seriously I’m waiting for a refutation of the benefits of my rule. And by the way, if nobody can find an argument that shows that my rule does more harm than good, then my original theory is proven. i.e. free markets are not optimal because “free markets + micks rule” is even better.
Is that a joke answer?
Attempting to shift the burden of proof.
Nope, but I did skip a few pages from the middle of the thread. Was this already covered?
It wasn’t, he’s just stupefied that someone would use a rights argument.
So he started under the assumption that he’s free to violate other people’s rights as long as he thinks he’s improving their lives?
Here’s the short list:
-it limits consumer choice
-it assumes that everyone has the same buying preferences as you
-in reality you won’t make the rule, it will be made by politicians, therefore: It will be compromised (changed) just to get it passed, some business will bribe their way around it, it will cost tax money to enforce and will eventualy require its own department of enforcement, etc…
-it could require punishing CONSUMERS who buy from vendors who bend the rules
-it is moraly equal to kicking the door down and holding a gun to the owners head until he changes his pricing (now who’s the bad guy?)
-there may be thousands of other ways to “screw the little guy” and this is only one of them
-GOD would tell you it’s a bad idea
Should I go on?
I’m just trying to goad someone in to adressing the question.
I don’t see how.
What type of person would benefit from being told about a false price “reduction”
Hmmm, not quite sure how to respond to that. I feel you could use that argument against almost anything I planned to do ever. Let me think that one over.
Now here you have a valid point. My rule does have a cost. My hunch is that the benefits will outweigh this cost, but I’m not sure of a good argument or experiment to prove it off the top of my head. Let me think that one over.
Not if I were in charge.
I’d be more polite!.. don’t forget that most laws have the ultimate threat of violence, but in practice violence is incredibly rarely used in commercial law.
I don’t understand this point at all.
Yes, this is right at the heart of the entire thread, so the more the merrier.
I’ve thought about this some more…
Assuming that there is already a police force and a legal system with pre-existing laws (no murder etc.) (will you grant me that?) then the additional cost of this extra law should be very small.
So we have the highly questionable possibility of what would highly likely turn out to a highly marginal net benefit (if not a net loss) by instituting a law to ban “smoke-and-mirrors” pricing. As a bonus, it requires the threat of violent enforcement.
Moreover, if “smoke-and-mirrors” pricing really did turn out to be a significant net harm to the consumer, and if consumer needs are better reflected on a free market, then the free market would suppress “smoke-and-mirrors” pricing.
Please explain the mechanism by which this would happen. I don’t think it would.
The whole point of smoke and mirrors pricing is that consumers rarely notice its happening - so what incentive is there for consumers to do anything about it?
You can’t prove it. Also, you are assuming that you have the right to experiment with people. May I ask who appointed you social engineer in chief ?
If there were a significant consumer need to suppress “smoke-and-mirrors” pricing, in a free market there would be a significant profit opportunity for a business to serve that need. As a possible off-hand example (I’m not an entrepreneur), a certification label on a shop window from an independent review agency - like Consumer Reports - that reviews and verifies that the store in question does not practice “smoke-and-mirrors” pricing. [Edit: added the missing “not”]
The problem is that consumers would not see any need to protect themselves from a problem they do not realize exists, so the “profit opportunity” would barely exist.