<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7718540#post7718540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tekknoschtev
The funny thing about capitalism (we've discussed things like this recently on a local forum) is that if no one was willing to pay the high price, it wouldn't be there. The price will be what the market can bear.
Trust me, I think its a huge joke, $500 for a single polyp. I also absolute love the creative use of "rare" this and "slow growth" that and "only two until 2008". I'd be very interested to follow whoever is selling those around other forums and local sales, because I find it hard to believe ANYONE has any of them if they grow so slow that frags come around 2 polyps every year and a half... The other sales also make clever use of the words "true" and "rare" and "real deal"...
This whole thing is a joke to me. Capitalism and marketing at its finest, yes, but still a joke.
Hmmm. Well, sort of.
Capitalism is not with out its inherent market defects. A market defect is when supply, demand, and competition do not control the price/cost of a product. For example, pharmeceutical companies. The consumer who is paying for the drugs does not get to chose the drug they buy- their doctor does. More to the point, the doc also controls whether or not a generic can be supplemented. That is why for many years the pharm companies romanced only the doc with incentives. And we won't even talk about the lobbying for public policy/legislation involved there with copyrights/intellectual property/trademarks/taxation on R&D costs for meds.
When the consumer cannot choose between products, it knocks out competition, and if they also do not have the ability to forego the product if the price is too high, capitalism fails... prices rise wihtout check, and we have to use other means to control the market experiencing the defect such as gov't subsidy or public policy. A great example would be the elderly choosing between groceries and cardiac meds.
I am not picking on the Pharm companies- it does exist elsewhere in our society: Airlines, fuel (gas, heating oil, etc), the salaries of Congress (J/k).
In this case with the polyp price- since we all can forgo the item because of the price and trade with each other, I would all but guarantee he won't get $500/polyp. If someone is stupid enough to pay it after all, there still will not be enough consumers to buy it at that price to make the market reset the baseline price for that polyp.
Of course, all that having been said.. we all saw Communism fail to human nature, so I'll take the market defects in capitalism anyday over standing in line for hours in the old USSR for toliet papar... LOL
I'm glad we can trade here.
My humble opinion
Laurie
