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ttd_76 t1_itsvifu wrote

Reply to comment by RVAMS in Rent too damn high? Landlords have formed an illegal cartel according to several reports by cogitator_tertius

The other vendors don't have to raise the price of tomatoes. They can keep their prices the same and just sell a lot more tomatoes by taking away your customers.

If the entire tomato industry raises prices and people are willing to pay those prices, then those prices are not "artificially high." They're an indication that the previous prices were non-efficiently low and we were overconsuming tomatoes.

In a perfectly competitive market, existing vendors colluding is not inefficient. One vendor having a monopoly isn't even inefficient.

The problem is that those situations probably shouldn't happen in a perfect market. The real market failure is with barriers to entry or something else, not the pricing algorithm.

>Now imagine that scenario, but there is a shortage of tomatoes, and it’s the only thing that anyone is allowed to eat.

This is pointing at the fact that housing should be a public good. Which I agree with. But again the problem is not a pricing algorithm. It's that we value equity more than efficiency for this good and therefore it should not be a private market in the first place.

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RVAMS t1_itsypir wrote

Except when there is a finite anount of tomatoes and it isn’t a consumable item. It is a commodity that you maintain and can fluctuate the pricing of. You don’t sell more tomatoes, you sell the same tomatoes you have always had for an increased price because people have to buy them, and there is no alternative.

Does the entire problem stem from a computer algorithm? No, nobody is making that argument. But price fixing can exacerbate an already fucked up economic system, which is what is happening.

The fact that you’re arguing there isn’t a problem with price fixing or monopolies is frankly fucking hilarious. Or waxing philosophical about a theoretical and completely inapplicable ‘perfect market’ to the benefit to nobody in this conversation really is some libertarian big brain play.

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