Miliband = tool?

[Jubal]

On the other hand, he might be the Prime Minister.

Colossus: I guess what I feel like our side of the argument is trying to point out is that a neat little free market like you get on the supply/demand graphs a) doesn't operate in the real world very well anyway and b) to the extent that it does demand can be manipulated significantly to the detriment of consumers which prevents the market function actually proving better outcomes for consumers.

[Glaurung]

On the other hand, he might be the Prime Minister.

Indeed. I'm not sure which is more scary: Miliband being Prime Minister, or Miliband not being Prime Minister.

[Jubal]

Personally, I'd back Miliband over the alternatives - though I think he would be given a horrendously rough ride as PM by the media. In fairness to the man, his problem isn't stupidity or abject nastiness: he's clearly out of touch and hasn't got a great deal of charisma, though.

[Pentagathus]

The fact that you didn't (don't?) know the terms used means that this has devolved from what was an argument on tax rate to what a free market is. For the past 3 posts or so I've just been telling you what terms mean and not arguing anything because I thought that you'd then look over whats been said and realise that actually some of the previous posts don't make a lot of sense or are flat out wrong.

I'm pretty sure we haven't been arguing about what a free market is, is it not simply a market system in which the government has little/no interference on factors affecting supply and demand?

you could argue that because the energy market is inelastic, it needs more government control than a regular market, I'd have to agree.

I thought that this was what we were arguing about since it seems to run contrary to your claim that businesses are incapable of exploiting consumers. But I guess that you were generalising and that this has all been rather pointless?

Cost effectiveness is pointless to bring up (again), its a naturally occurring thing when you talk about markets. It's a given, there is no point in mentioning it.

Well surely its worth bringing up in a debate about whether or not consumers are being exploited since you could reasonably assume that exploitation would be obvious (for a basic good anyway) if the cost to the consumer is not actually reflective of the cost of the good. And Jub's original point was (I think) that if a business is not transparent about its profit margins its actually quite difficult for a consumer to determine whether or not they are paying more than they should (this would of course assume that competition is low or nonexistent such as when a natural monopoly exists.)
Also, since I feel  may as well try and understand this, surely minimum market value would reflect maximum cost efficiency (assuming high competition levels) for the reasons I've already pointed out earlier?

[Clockwork]

The thing is that you have absolutely no basis for any of that whatsoever... You realise that without this theory economists would be out of a job? Market manipulation is illegal as well btw. Without the theory side of things there isn't anything to work from, you're just making stuff up at that point you need to be able to have a direction that you think the market will go and provide a model for that to work within. Simply saying: Free Market doesn't work in reality is fine I guess, but what do you have to work with then? You just start saying, 'well if x happens then y *must* happen because that's what obviously would happen!' but without anything to say why. You seem to have some kind of baffling agenda against a free market without knowing how it works and are making stuff up to fit your theory that money is evil.

To be honest all of them are simpering, whining tools. Like or hate him, Farrage probably has the strongest personality of the current leaders but that's not saying much at all. Boris might take that in a bit though. Much rather have a leader who stands by their convictions and doesn't pander to the media or voters and just says what they think is best for the country. Too much to hope for and would fail horribly anyway.

@Penty: Nope. You can have a free market with mild-moderate government intervention like we have here or even with heavy government intervention like China.

No I did not say anywhere they are incapable, I said they don't last long if they do.

No. Think about it: a business is being clear about all its expenses, every little thing. Does the average consumer have the time or ability to go through a companies records to see if they're being ripped off or not? portugal no. Market value doesn't have a min or max in theory and in reality it shifts from product to product, company to company.

[Pentagathus]

What definition of free market do you use? Because the loosest definition I can find from a quick google is "an economic market or system in which prices are based on competition among private businesses and not controlled by a government" whereas the majority of them are closer to wikipedia's "A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority."
Is China actually a free market economy? From what I know their largest domestic businesses are government owned and operated and the others are likely to be bribing gov officials, IIRC there was some news stuff last year about microsoft's chinese offices being raided because they were competing with business owned by the government (I think they were officially accused of breaking anti-monopoly laws or something.) From what I've heard their new(ish) leader seems committed to tackling corruption and promoting competitive business nowadays though.

If you don't think consumer exploitation is a problem then why the energy market needs more regulation than others?

Clearly the average consumer doesn't have time to spend calculating their energy supplier's profit margin but all it takes is one relatively educated person with time on their hands (and there's quite a few of those about tbh) to work it out and spread the news via various forms of mainstream media for the average consumer to find out.
By minimum market value I mean the minimum value you could reasonably expect it to be.

[Clockwork]

Both those definitions use a sort of hypothetical 'ideal' (in the sense that it's what it trends towards if left in a simulator, not that it's a desirable thing)

A free market is a market where the price of a good or service is determined by supply and demand.

This doesn't say 'solely determined' for a reason. Yep, China does have a free market economy, supply and demand are a thing there even though as you say the government owns huge amounts.

The energy market needs more regulation because the market price of energy is above what a group of low earners can afford. So the government artificially lowers it to a price which means that they don't have to pay people they care for (financially) more. Basically they redistribute the cost from one area of themselves to another and one would assume that it costs them (us? the country, whatever) less.

The minimum market value doesn't exist as far as I'm aware. And it seems like it would change person to person. And would have to be held without bias.

EDIT: By artificially lowers it I mean that it doesn't affect supply or demand and goes straight for the price. You can alter the value of a product un-artificially by creating more/less demand (advertising, health warnings etc) or supply (buying a ton of wool to be spun into jumpers will mean more jumpers are on the market and so the price goes down).

[Pentagathus]

So any economy is considered a free market as long as its government is not directly setting prices? I always thought it would operate on a sliding scale with the ideal being one end and china probably being slid right off the other end of the scale.
As to minimum market value what I was trying to say is that generally is it not safe to say a product would not be sold for less than its cost, hence the minimum value you could expect for any given product would reflect its cost of production? And so if the product is a basic good and there was high competition the market values for comparative products would reflect the cost efficiency of the businesses supplying/producing them.
I think I'm generally happy to agree with you, I suspect we may have different views on what constitutes consumer exploitation but I don't think its particularly important tbh. Thanks for explaining this stuff btw, was actually quite interesting.

[Clockwork]

It is a sliding scale you're right there and like many sliding scales either extreme is ridiculous irl. But yeah that's the very basic criteria for a free market. With regards to the minimum market value thing...I'm going to go off on a tangent but it's relevant...Sorta.

To set up a business you need land, labour, capital, entrepreneurship. Each of these will have a different cost to start with and a sort of upkeep cost. Land is the physical location of your business, an easy one to work out: either buy land or rent it (even bought land has upkeep because you take maintenance into account). Labour again is easy enough (initial cost of labour is things like paying construction workers to build an office, upkeep is paying your staff). Capital is anything which can be assigned a monetary value, so it could be literally money or it could be that you need some kind of machinery to get your business to work or a pc or whatever, generally things. The initial of this is easy to work out (exactly what you've spent to get the business running) but the upkeep usually happens on a sort of 'as it needs fixing' basis so you put in an estimate. The entrepreneurship you provide yourself; it sort of represents the opportunity cost of your person being used for this project and not something else but also is a measure of profit. That part honestly always eluded me and I didn't see why not just call it profit...


Anyway: For entering into a large market with either monopoly or oligopoly (by the by, a monopoly is defined as a business with 25% market share) you'll need to be competitive in price which is difficult because they'll have benefits from economy of scale and brand loyalty and such things, especially if the business has been around for a long time. So, you have all your initial expenses and you have the yearly/monthly/daily/hourly 'upkeep' costs. The upkeep should change according to the market (e.g one year rent may go up due to housing prices) but the initial costs will stay the same (with regards to paying them). The businesses already in the market will have paid their initial costs already and so will just be paying the upkeep which is where they get their predicted yearly expenses from and then decide whether its still profitable to run the business. For the one starting up they ordinarily would have to factor in paying this initial start up cost but because they can't afford to do that due to needing to have a competitive price (just talking about necessities btw, otherwise things are different) they are forced to operate at a loss for a while until they have paid off the initial cost. Although by that time they can be in debt a lot of money which then locks them in the market or else they go bankrupt.

So the moral of the tangent is: you either get things that are affordable or you can have more choice. Although having said that, perfect competition also drives prices down while giving maximum choice. But it's a unicorn.

Happy to explain economics, finally there is a topic which I have at least some credentials in xD