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167 Comments
- faithhealer, on 10/11/2007, -4/+92The supreme court did not OK price fixing. Price fixing is an agreement between competitors, whereas minimum pricing, which they allowed, is when a supplier prohibits a reseller from pricing its product under a minimum price. Also, the congress can change this, so voting for Ron Paul probably won't make any difference (unless you vote in his district in Texas and re-elect him to congress).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance - Floris, on 10/11/2007, -13/+43Another Ron Paul propaganda 2.0 article. Yay
Another reason to start taking digg.com less serious : ***** spammers - PATSCRU, on 10/11/2007, -16/+45aaahhh yes, more thinly veiled ron paul spam.....pesky little critters.
- airwalkery2k, on 10/11/2007, -5/+34Wouldn't a true free market allow these types of price-fixing agreements?
- reed311, on 10/11/2007, -3/+30Buried as more Ron Paul spam. The funny thing is, Ron Paul (as a Libertarian) supports the supreme court decision. He believes in a free market with no set rules by the government. Some of you think that Ron Paul is this magical candidate who supports things that he really doesn't. It's getting out of hand.
- washingtonydc, on 10/11/2007, -7/+33Vote for Ron Paul to prevent price fixing? But after he dismantles the FTC, SEC, DoC, parts of the DoJ and nearly every other administrative agency, who would regulate and enforce anti-trust and other market issues?
- eladon, on 10/11/2007, -8/+32Buried as Ron Paul spam...
- PunkFenixJT, on 10/11/2007, -5/+29I was going to digg this story until the "vote for Ron Paul" line. Now i gotta bury it as spam.
- mpineiro, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18Will Ron Paul cure AIDS too?
- LooseCannon1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15Thank you. Finally a voice for reason on Digg. Too many times here the shrieks of liars and idiots are heard, instead of sound, reasonable opinions.
- chris098, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12I support Ron Paul (and frequently dig relevant articles related to him), but this article has absolutely nothing to do with him, or what he stands for. Why did the submitter need to add that line about him at the end?
- gotamd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13Thank you for posting this. This is not price fixing at all, and I actually support the ruling of the Court. If a company has written in its contract that its product cannot be sold for lower than a certain amount, then it should be free to stop selling to any store that violates that contract. I don't see the problem here. If they are mandating excessively high prices, then there's room for competition to move in and beat them on price.
- yunus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11Saturn price fixes and makes car buying easier. I'm just saying its not always a bad thing.
- HabboX, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11The article does not describe price fixing. It simply is one company setting the price of their product. It's only price fixing if they call up their competitors and agree to set a price in order to artificially increase the value of their product.
- halosniper7, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11doesnt apple already do that?
- LoveWidescreen, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11Buried because I'm sick and tired of Digg submitters using any possible article as an excuse to use the post summary as their own, personal, attack podium. Tell us what the article is about and keep your f**king proselytizing restricted to the comments!
- teadrinker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Agriculture, a free market? Laughable. They have so many subsidies. The government controls to make sure that prices do not crash. The patents on GMO and other techniques. (Patents are government granted monopolies, which recognize that sometimes free market is not great, so they alter the market to get a different equilibrium)
- Lerg, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11Why in the world is this labeled as "Business and Finance" when it is clearly political? This sort of incorrect topic labeling happens all the time.
I strongly urge digg users to start digging down incorrectly labeled stories, or for the Digg software folken to find a way to better enforce categories. I purposefully turned off the political stories (amongst other topics) to avoid these sorts of stories. How is this a useful feature when no one respects the labels? - TheCash, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9I was just thinking the same thing.
- jeffiek, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8I support Ron Paul fully, but I buried this article back when it had 2 diggs. I did so because it is inaccurate.
For you Anti-Paul people: Neither he, nor I, nor anyone else, control what this idiot posted. There are plenty of blind diggers (damn them) and plenty of blind buriers (damn them) too.
RTFA!!!!! Think about what it says. Then act. If you don't read it, shut up. - ikzeidegek, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9Here is an answer from an Economics professor.
The mistake you make is thinking free markets are what promotes welfare. However, much of Economics as a science agrees that it is competition, not free markets, that promote welfare. Economists can be highly skeptical about Microsoft's of Halliburton's monopolies, even though those monopolies were created by a free market.
Justice Kennedy's comments are basically the economic equivalent to claiming that earth is flat. - teadrinker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Halliburton is not a free market monopoly. It is a government chosen monopoly.
Microsoft is much closer to what you want. However, while the competition is what promotes efficiency (welfare?), competition can not exist / will be limited without a "free" market. However, free market does not adequately protect against coercive business tactics due to start-up costs and dumping. Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) Wal-mart are good examples of being able to drive out and prevent competitors through those tactics. - gotamd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6But in this case, the Wikipedia entry...at least the first sentence or two that I read (which contains the basic point that is being made) *is* accurate.
- auxplage, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8The market would settle that out for itself in theory.
- Mediaright, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8I mean I like Paul when it comes to international policy, but I'm not set with him on domestic issues. In an interview, he said he voted against net neutrality even though he didn't understand the issue, because it involved government intervention. Any candidate who doesn't allow for exceptions to personal ideologies is NOT ok in my book, and the fact that he voted without trying to understand what's at hand shows you something.
- xrenjrvt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I think there is a general misconception of "free markets", it is a term applied to lasie faire economies, which is a style of economy which lessens the amount of control a government holds over the markets. It does not mean the government lets anyone do anything, much like a free society maintains rules, so does a free economy.
- TMelcher, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6I have no problem with legitimate news about Ron Paul, I'm just tired of Digg taking everything and turning into pro-Ron Paul propaganda. I can't seem to read a politics-related story here without it somehow being warped to be about him anymore. That's what's frustrating.
- TubaTechno, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7I could deal without the submitter's comment. Not everyone likes Ron Paul's hypocrisy...check his voting record.
- yhan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6First of, this story is under the wrong section. Digg has under "world & business" a "US 2008 elections" section.
Second, if you want to submit a story about some supreme court decision or whatever do it, but don't mix news with political campaign. If you want to submit a news story about Ron Paul's opinion on the issue, create a separate story and put it in the right section as I said earlier.
social news networking is great and all, but people should try to be more accurate and thoughtful when posting stories. - xrenjrvt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4No government regulation isn't good for an economy either.
- babar77, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5To the seeming supporters of Ron Paul above. The reason that I can't follow his ideologies is because it seems to forget history. Study up on the Gilded Age which existed from about the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century. This was a time of very little to no Government regulation (relatively speaking) and although this time was marked with amazing economical and technological gains, it was only seen for the rich. It was a time of unprecedented wealth disparity, monopolies, Social Darwinism, deplorable working conditions, etc. If you were a rich businessman times were great, if you were anything else, times were almost as bad as it was in the Depression. Many of the Pay-to-play schemes and the giving of government jobs to political supporters started and rose to new levels during this time. The media became more "yellow" and sensationalist. This is also when real corporate power was born. Many of the things I see on Digg that really pisses people off all started or became commonplace during this age. The regulations that so many libertains deplore were all created or started under Teddy Roosevelt in the Progressive Era that followed the Gilded Age. This is where anti-trust laws got their start and continued into FDR's presidency.
Recently, all the regulations that were put in place to protect us from slipping back into a Gilded Age have been slowly torn down, and it's starting to sound like the Gilded Age all over again. Monopolies like Microsoft are allowed to thrive, corporations have a bigger voice in politics than the people, working conditions are bottoming out (in foreign countries), pay-to-play schemes are rampant, government jobs are going to those who are politically loyal (Alberto Gonzales anyone?), disparity of wealth is increasing, corporate powers are expanding, and corporations are growing in size while the number of competitors is dropping due to mergers. All this amidst economic growth and technological advances.
So to all the Libertarians out there, how do you plan to fix all this with your policies? You claim to have theory on your side, I have history. - knomevol, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5i appreciate the point you are making.
if i understand you correctly, you seem to be implying that the vendors would charge more for a saturn vehicle than saturn wishes, if the price weren't fixed.
while that may be true, some vendors would surely do everything in their power to sell for less than the other group, left to their own devices. perhaps people would then be potentially able to buy a saturn for less than they could with status quo.
this is not just a "maybe" it is fact. that is the free marketplace, and it works. - san1ty, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Excessive government regulation also isn't good for the economy. See Soviet Russia for more details.
- mco5t9, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6The free market didn't cause the Great Depression; The government's bad monetary policy and excessive tariffs did.
- xrenjrvt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3A manufacturer can have a supplier sign a contract agreeing to support their price structure, it happens all the time, especially on high margin items. There is nothing wrong with that, when there is only a few suppliers and the tactically collude to set prices and avoid competition, that is price fixing. This is more associated with monopolistic industries such as energy and telecom, where there is naturally less competition.
- LooseCannon1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Right, because as we all know, the iPod is so unique and can't possibly be acquired in any other manner. I mean, where are we going to find a portable device that plays MP3's and shows pictures? Plays video? Gosh, if only someone could offer an alternative!
- TubaTechno, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5But everything is black and white here in my parent's basement.......please don't shatter my reality....
- jeffiek, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I don't know what Digg's algorithm is, but I suspect it includes the number of comments posted. In other words, I think all you Anti-Pauls are shooting yourselves in the foot by commenting!!!!!
- FearlessFreep, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Which relates to the supreme court issuing a decision on retail pricing...how?
- StillGaming, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You would've got a *****-ton more blind diggs from users with multiple accounts, so you are correct.
- clutchperformer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Let me make this abundantly clear for everyone reading. Because this is a subject near to my heart and I speak from experience on the matter of Saturn price fixing. Saturn does *not* price fix. They set an MSRP and retailers are encouraged to follow the MSRP. A retailer may set whatever price they wish for a car. (Though, there could be some serious problems with other Saturn retailers if you try to undercut the MSRP. You want your fellow retailers to be friendly.) What Saturn states is that they don't want retailers to play the negotiation game once they post the price at which they are willing to sell the car. Saturn also requires that the no-haggle price for the car is clearly marked on the vehicle.
- knomevol, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3sounds like sound business strategy.
- xrenjrvt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Price fixing is when two or more competing companies collude to keep prices high to screw consumers. GM sets its own price structure, there's a big difference.
- TheCash, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Obama? You mean the same guy who only became a senator recently, yet has no problem attacking Hilary's lack of experience? I'm not going to vote for either, but if he wants to play the hypocrisy game this early, that doesn't speak highly of his behavior down the road.
- lordmike, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3There you go... there is no free market anywhere...
- teadrinker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Depends. Price-fixing agreements work only if no other competitors are allowed to appear on the market, and that there are ways to punish those who break the agreement.
Basically in a free-market situation, there is a benefit to sell more stuff a little below the set price. Thus when a price-fixing agreement takes place, there is an incentive to break it. This is different from a monopoly situation where there can be no other competitors, and there is only one entity, thus no one can break the agreement.
This is also why OPEC has such a hard time controlling oil prices. They can not just set a price...members would break it as soon as it was very profitable to do so (meaning when the set price became significantly higher than equilibrium price).
So the answer is: yes, free market would allow the agreement, and no they would not accomplish anything, as they would be broken. But we do not have a free market. There are start-up costs, and companies manage to punish those who break agreements. - jeffiek, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Always have to come up with an excuse when it involves YOUR favorite product, don't you? I'll skip the next two complaints, I doubt you would understand the answer (no insult intended). It DOES NOT violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. That involves pricing agreements between manufacturers. This involves manufacturer and retailer.
- cjhowe, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Manufacturers are competitors and are thus forbidden from colluding. The supplier and customer are not competitors and are not forbidden from colluding. Why is this so difficult?
- elleanee, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3this piece is obviously planted by an opponent of ron paul. ron paul supporters happen to be conscious, intelligent, and educated people. when you look at the teaser copy below the headline, it is obviously a farce. blah, blah, blah about the supreme court and then a "vote ron paul" closing sentence. ridiculous! ron paul supporters, don't buy into this type of propaganda. it's meant to discredit you and ron paul.
- Novion76, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Shut up about Ron Paul already. If you're going to post something about him, make it to a link related to him, not just a tagline.
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