Saturday, March 29, 2008

Government Control Competition

I was listening to the radio the other day when it struck me - maybe people do not believe in the Free Market. In thinking about it today over breakfast/lunch, I realized that they might have the right idea. Let me explain through example:

Take your average purveyor of quicksand. Business is going along fine, the products practically move themselves, but at kind of a slow pace. Sure, he makes enough to keep his head above water... until one day some competition moves in on his turf. These Free Market people think that this would be okay, the more competition, the better the service/pricing - help build a better mousetrap, they say.

But say this new guy starts competing, but is new to the field. He has a lot of money to sink into something and he thought this would be a good area to try his luck. The problem is that he isn't very good at it, so this water jockey mixes his products wrong and starts costing both of them a lot of business and lost customers. What can the first person do to compete; he is sunk.

If there was government control over businesses, then they could regulate all of this. They could prevent this new guy from stumbling his way into the business. The first business would continue to do well, the customers would have the government controlled quicksand quality that they deserve, and everyone is happy.

The average quicksand customer doesn't have time to clean the trap - he probably bought the quicksand to deal with problems quickly and effectively. Out of sight, out of mind. When the trap fills, then what? Who wants to put up with that bellyaching all night long? This is where government control could help the consumer - research dollars!

Lots of money is spent by private industry, and how is this fair to the small quicksand vendor who doesn't have that kind of capital? With the government control of research, money could be allocated to help! I've been hearing a lot about bacteria that can break down oil and convert it into something harmless - useful in oil spills. Could not something like this, with enough research money, be converted over to something that converts human and animal remains into something like sand and water? This would make a killing in the quicksand market!

I hope that I have proven my point. Think of the little guy in all of this - we need government to protect him from all of the pitfalls of business. Help make him successful and his his product better for the consumer.

The Edward

4 comments:

Aravind Krishnaswamy said...

Your premise is based on the fact that the new guy entering the market:

a. Knows little about the product/service he is selling/providing

b. Has way more money than sense

This is unlikely precisely because of the way the free market works. Unless your new guy is independently wealthy AND mind numbingly stupid the situation you've outlined wouldn't happen.

If the existing quicksand market is so small that the only person in the market is barely able to stay afloat, then no intelligent independently wealthy person will want to enter the market and no investor will want to fund some poor fellow who wants to enter the market. So basically what you need is someone who really doesn't know what they are doing financially AND someone with massive financial resources.

But lets not allow simple facts to get in the way of the bleeding hearts :)

Samantha said...

Oh, poor Edward. Of course there is an oil-eating bacteria, but unfortunately it is not able to live outside the petri dish and so all the oil spills have to be cleaned up the old fashioned way of let nature deal with it, have the do-gooders comb the beaches for oil-soaked shore life, or use machines to clean it up but then that begs the question, What does the goverment do with oiled-up dirt/sand/soil?

Most likely the bacteria has been engineered to live outside the lab, but the David Icke reptilians prefer us to live in a trash heap as it furthers their own agenda for making us live in fear and beg to be microchipped and have the government run our lives, like you suggest they run the free market.

Just sayin'.

The Edward said...

But Free Market has two words that do not go together - one pays for stuff at a market or else it would sink like a stone. What if some slick new guy decides to create quicksand with oil and sand rather than water? Sure, if a bottle of vinegar happens into the trap it could create a tasty situation, but otherwise we the general public are left to watch him slowly go down. I think government is large enough to fill in these holes and make quicksand safer for all of us! This way anyone can rise to the top of the business - it would be like walking on solid ground.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.