Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

It's not competition. Overproduction(eg housing) leads to economic catastrophe. Nothing ends up cheaper. It has to all be paid for somewhere down the line. Eg Why build 9 plants when only 3 are needed? If those 3 firms got together and shared out the demand, the COSTS of producing the drugs would be cheaper than otherwise. Yet people claim that it anti-competitive and drives up prices? Their aim is to minimize costs and therefore prices.

Your original claim was:-
Competition means that if there was unfulfilled demand, somebody, somewhere would fill it. The central problem is that there isn't a massive unfulfilled demand.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

The problem is you want to limit the number of suppliers. That's not perfect competition as defined in economics.

Oversupply isn't bad for the consumers it drives down prices until the market finds its equilibrium.

Capitalism should only be good for big business appears to be your stance.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

The high level of fares is explained by the fact that the government decided that rail users should pay more than the non-rail using taxpayer to fund the modernisation of the railways after many decades of neglect.

As an economist, you should be explaining that to us, not the other way around!

---------- Post added at 10:38 ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 ----------

That's an absurd analysis. Capitalism has the effect of reducing costs. Governments are well known for wasting money. Nationalised industries are inefficient. Everyone knows that.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Exactly, the consumer still pays and more where competition isn't genuinely created. Giving us some of the highest fares per mile in Europe.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Nationalised industries are monopolies, of course. You are just winding everyone up, you know you are talking nonsense.

---------- Post added at 10:45 ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 ----------

As I explained, the fares in this country are high because the government has decided that it is not fair that all taxpayers should fund the required cost of investment and that it should be the rail user who pays for this.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

In other words the government does not give two hoots about the rail user..

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

I'm not winding anyone up. Another poster just outlined the pharmaceutical industry as one that suits being a monopoly against all the conventional wisdom. If capitalism is failing in pharma, to the cost of human lives, health and wellbeing, it begs the question where else it is failing?

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

You're not paying attention, are you?

---------- Post added at 13:41 ---------- Previous post was at 13:41 ----------

Why should people who don't use the railways pay for it?

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Why should anyone pay for anything that delivers public good through taxation? Roads, education, etc.

Privatisation to the maximum leaves everyone worse off as profits are creamed off and losses passed back to the state with the state picking up the tab anyway.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

Just as unbridled Socialism, nationalising everything in sight, has worked so well in Venezuela to the total impovrishment of the people.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

tbf, that was after decades of corrupt right-wing military dictatorship, so it didn’t start off in the soundest of footings...

(I think Venezuela "Socialism" is just another chapter in the corrupt governments of that part of South/Central America, with the label changing, but corruption reigning supreme...).

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

As an economist, you should know that the benefit of privatisation is that you get major savings through being more efficient than the public sector. This allows you to make a profit as well as enable price reductions.

I have told you more than once already that it is government policy to increase rail fares to pay for the investment necessary to overcome decades of neglect by the former British Rail.

---------- Post added at 16:20 ---------- Previous post was at 16:15 ----------

The right wing government was not a good example, it is true, but the present Venezualan government has been remarkably unsuccessful at running the country on socialist lines. In fact, not a single socialist country that has abandoned capitalist ideals has ever been successful. Capitalism may not be perfect, but it has not been the utter disaster that socialism has.

I am hopeful that one day, someone will find the ideal mix of capitalism and socialism that actually works well.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

I don't use schools but I expect to pay for them..

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

I know, but we have all benefited from education ourselves and by educating the population they are able to use their skills to benefit the economy, from which we get the money to pay for public services. So it is not a proper comparison.

Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.
 

As an economist I actually know that to be untrue.

If you can't introduce genuine competition into a market all that happens is supernormal profits enter the private sector to the harm of consumers.