Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "How Martin Shkreli Became a Wallstreetbets Legend" video.

@woodenfloor3131 "Market failures require government intervention" - Usually it's the government intervention that causes the market failure. "Since it's a monopoly" - A government enforced monopoly... "Would like to see your economic argument other than government bad" - Sadly, you already did that for us. You correctly pointed out it's a monopoly. Who else but the government is enforcing it?
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@woodenfloor3131 How do you monopolize a sector when literally anyone can legally make a competitor product?
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@woodenfloor3131 Economics of scale only means that a company is so efficient they can undercut everyone else. If they're priced at a level nobody can get the same thing to you cheaper, they're not really taking advantage of a "monopoly". If a competitor can't get the same thing to you for a cheaper price, they might get you a slightly worse thing. At that point you be the judge, are you willing to deal with the inferior product to save some money and keep a company alive? And again the natural barrier means one company has the distribution to get things to you as cheap as possible. Is that bad? If you're getting fleeced, someone's going to get through the natural barrier for you and get you a better deal.
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@woodenfloor3131 "Economics of scale means it's harder for individuals to enter the market" - With most barriers removed you can do more with less. We're talking about a very different world here. "Just because it's the cheapest option, does not mean it's efficient" - You can't do things at a low price without efficiency. The whole point of economics of scale is having efficiency because trying to do the same at a lower scale will incur higher unit costs. If you're inefficient, people will capitalize on it. "The marginal cost of an individual entering the market will be higher than their marginal benefit since they don't have economics of scale working for them" - Again, most of the barriers were removed. Straight up bulldozed. The monopoly doesn't exist because the phantom competitor is always looming, waiting for when marginal benefit goes over marginal costs.
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@woodenfloor3131 "Can you tell me how you would address market failures without some sort of government intervention" - That's just being purely unimaginative. Almost everything around you gets done DESPITE government, not thanks to it. It's akin to believing roads or buildings couldn't exist if not for the state. Meanwhile you're surrounded by government-induced failures and refuse to accept that in a way that isn't pure dismissal. You could even do a straight trade off, less competition in the ISP market for cheap life saving drugs. But no. My side doesn't even get that benefit of the doubt, while your side gets ALL the benefit. What special magic powder does government sprinkle on its actions that somehow make them better than people on their own? "How would you deal with public goods or externalities without government?" - There's probably smarter people than me who already answered those questions decades before me, but you never listened because you're not interested in anything that doesn't reinforce your belief in the state. How would you crush small business, violate the rights of people for over a year and run dangerous g@in of funct1on research without government? How would you drop nucl3ar f1re on innocent women and children without government? If I'm going to have to answer for the hypothetical failures of anarchy, you WILL have to answer for the REAL failures of government. "Do you really believe any attempt by government to correct market inefficiences cannot yield positive marginal benefit?" - Yes, I do. Because all government can do is steal. All the "attempts" (hey at least you're willing to admit it's just an "attempt", because they tend to fall between pathetically ineffective and counterproductive) to correct anything are just an exercise of taking resources needed elsewhere and dumping them on a problem.
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@linusmlgtips2123 Sand does get blown off deserts and get carried by winds - can even be seen from satellite - but that's beside the point. Sorry to be the one to have to explain to you what a figure of speech is. Oh, the government is the people. Okay, show up tomorrow at your government's office and try to get stuff done. See how well that goes.
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@woodenfloor3131 But the capital is right there. It's all the money the people are spending when they're getting ripped off. Requires intervention to fix? You mean building redundant infrastructure? Giving out corporate welfare? That's your idea of fixing? Where does it stop? How do you pick which other company gets to mooch of your money? Why would anyone invest into building infrastructure if they're going to be considered a monopoly and the competitor is gonna get them gibs from daddy government? Why only two? That's a duopoly. Why not six? Why not pay for 5 separate broadband lines? There's a reason that's not the common solution around the world. Nevertheless forcing sharing by law is another bandaid solution that only serves to steal money from the taxpayer and give it to corporations as subsidies. Something that could be done directly by the people involved, but first the money has to go through the laundromat so that it can go towards bombing people in foreign countries and gender studies in Pakistan, and then a sliver of an infinitesimal goes toward laying down fiber optic cables. Boy I sure am glad that all these government backed monopolies still exist and the government won't do anything about it.
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@woodenfloor3131 Yes, you were. You might not think you were, but that's how things culminate. "government intervention is sometimes necessary" - If you're not going to describe under what form this intervention will come, you can't exactly dismiss what I'm arguing about because you "weren't talking about corporate welfare". "most monopolies exist due to government corruption" - It's not even corruption. The stated goal of a state is monopolizing some sectors. We just "agreed" under this system to lock in some monopolies through government power. It's not corruption, it's the way things work. It's not a bug, it's a feature. "What do you think about public goods like national defense" - I see it as a public "bad", not a good. "even the most extreme libertarians accept that government intervention is necessary in order for MSC = MSB?" - Then they're not "extreme libertarians", they're milquetoast small L lolbertarians, who for the sake of the argument might as well be progressive republicans and don't deserve the prefix "liber".
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@linusmlgtips2123 You put the government in charge of the Sahara and they'll run out of sand in 5 years. Imagine defending the organizations that murdered a quarter billion humans in the 20th century alone. Couldn't be me.
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@AO-xc8mz Standard Oil only had 70% of the market by 1906, and by the time it was broken up by anti-trust laws it only retained 64% of the market, with 147 competing companies in the field. 147 companies that Rockefeller couldn't kill even before he lost in court. The gilded age is actually a tale of massive corporate welfare and government enforced monopolies.
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It's part of the WSB slang.
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Internet lingo.
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@patf92 Sorry I confused you for someone else in my notifications.
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@masstv9052 "until they are forced to close due to lack of capital" - You're treating this as a foregone conclusion without the premises to support it. "Then they can set the prices at whatever they wish after they've crushed competition" - Yes. And when they set prices above what the market supports, anyone can come in and take the market for themselves. You're treating a crushed competition as something permanent. Instead of like a mold that just grows whenever you stop cleaning. "they can force retailers into selling their products only" - This is very true. Which is why it would still be possible to engage in direct sales to skip the retailer. Especially with the internet. "A larger company has the capital and cash flow that new and smaller competition doesn't have" - Yes. Now why would you need "cash flow" when your product sells itself by virtue of not fleecing the customer and doesn't need massive advertising campaigns? As long as you don't do something stupid like grow your operations too fast, you're golden.
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@AO-xc8mz After those lawsuits they created a company that was operating in Ohio and controlled through trusts to retain their monopoly. It's not BS. Back then plenty of companies were state subsidized. Rail, shipping, etc. If they were losing money then how was Rockefeller filthy rich?
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@AO-xc8mz Apple is actually increasing prices to compensate for dwindling sales. If you go to the Apple board of directors proposing a price cut they'll skin you alive. Is "fairness" better if the products underperform and cost too much? An unfair market where I get a good product for a good price seems better than one where I have 50 choices, but all of them suck. Telecom markets are the opposite of free.
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@AO-xc8mz You do realize that there's an entire federal agency called the FCC, right?
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