[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sirrom', 'i') would just like to point out that there will be no widespread oil shortage in free market economies.

i seem to see lots of posts about rationing petrol/oil/oil products,but what people forget is that if there is low supply the price will go up and demand will be reduced,so there will always be oil for those that can afford it.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twilight', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sirrom', 'i') would just like to point out that there will be no widespread oil shortage in free market economies.

i seem to see lots of posts about rationing petrol/oil/oil products,but what people forget is that if there is low supply the price will go up and demand will be reduced,so there will always be oil for those that can afford it.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')they they just wouldn't have bought those luxerious Ipods they would have plenty to eat

ghhesh!

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')they they just wouldn't have bought those luxerious Ipods they would have plenty to eat

ghhesh!

[stepka]

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) once remarked, $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."

[Dezakin]

No, if they were in a free market, warlords wouldn't be shooting people and interrupting commerce and Nike would open up a shoe factory.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'P')eak Oil is the end of cheap oil, that's common knowledge. Oil will always have a price, however, eventually; even first world countries will find it not worth it.

[SolarDave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'S')irrom, your assertion is nonsense, because it assumes that 100% of oil demand is elastic.

In fact, a very large proportion of oil demand is inelastic. It's baked into the continued functioning of civilization as we know it.

Thus, oil-demand destruction can go only so far before a different kind of destruction comes into play.

[zeke]

It might be more accurate to say that oil will be available to those who can afford the price, as is true with so many things these days: food, housing, medical care, insurance...

However, oil and its deriviatives, like gasoline are in one sense the most valuable single resource on earth in terms of the "modern economy." Meaning, that if you don't have it, you get off the merry-go-round.

Only, there IS no getting off the Merry-Go-Round.

So, you think the (ever-growing) masses of have-nots are just going to sit around moping?

In time, the ability to "afford oil" will include the ability to pay for increased security to protect the oil or gasoline that one has purchased. As more people get desperate for the thing that enables participation in the modern world, the more violence their will be to obtain that thing, both on the geo-political and local scale.

At some point there will be so many people confronted with "doing without" and so few people who have, that it's easy to imagine something less than an orderly textbook supply and demand scenario.

gphz

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sirrom', 'i') would just like to point out that there will be no widespread oil shortage in free market economies. what people forget is that if there is low supply the price will go up and demand will be reduced,so there will always be oil for those that can afford it.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')they they just wouldn't have bought those luxerious Ipods they would have plenty to eat

ghhesh!

[phaster]

There was an article in the LA times that caught my eye titled, "Americans may be losing faith in free markets."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-losin ... 2010.story

just thought it would be interesting to have a poll and see what people here think about the idea of a free market.

Since I'm posting the question,here are my own thoughts on the subject...

Yup I do believe in the free market system, because like Churchill said, the free market is the worst form of an economic system except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

The way I see it is politicians and american public, want to have the the illusion that they present a face of living and working in a free market capitalist system, yet want the safety net of a socialist system. Take the recent blow up of fanny and freddy, these governemnt sponsored enterprises want it have it both ways, in that they trade shares on the open market, yet have the backing of the federal government for the express purpose of promoting american home ownership.

As I see it, the recient rise in gas and oil prices and the fall in stock prices of fanny and freedy, along with other the fall in stock prices of many other financial institutions, is an indication that the free market system is indeed working. In other words, I view the fall in stock prices and the rise in gas in gas/oil prices as indication that the economic system is responding naturally to an unsustatiable system, much akin to how nature is responding to damage caused by man to the natural environment.

[jlw61]

I fully support free and open markets. I do not support the current corporate system where corporations are entities unto themselves. Corporations serve an important and useful purpose regarding trade across governmental boundaries, but they should not have rights nor should they pay taxes. Corporations should simply be an umbrella organization that provides certain protections to the owners and creates a way to issue stock.

Individuals may have to pay taxes, but never coroprations. Nor should a corporation receive any kind of government largess.

[Windmills]

Give it time. The unemployment rate isn't nearly high enough to spark big changes. People will lose faith in this lesser-socialist market when the market drives them out of work. When unemployment starts to approach depression levels (and then surpasses them), we'll surely see a bit more socialism added to the picture.

[CarlosFerreira]

No, and by two orders of factors:

First, markets were never free. Richer countries finance their production, gaining advantage.

Second, "free" markets bring about inequality. Because of said financing of production, they place their products in poorer - and therefore, less financed - countries' markets, therefore destroying their production sector and rendering them virtually dependent.

As globalization starts fading, poorer countries will be left with a question: how do we MAKE things, again?

[emersonbiggins]

If someone knows of a free market, tell me about it. I'd like to go see one in action sometime.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I')f someone knows of a free market, tell me about it. I'd like to go see one in action sometime.

[Tyler_JC]

An economic recession is not a failure of a free market. It's a normal part of the business cycle.

There is nothing wrong with it!

Losing faith in the markets during a recession is like demanding never to be sick and then disowning modern medicine because you get the flu.

It's irrational and idiotic.

Any move to stop a recession WILL backfire and make the problem much worse in the long term.

We should have had a recession after the dot com bubble but thanks to 1% interest rates and Sub Prime Mortgages...we didn't get one.

Now we're going to have a major recession/depression because of the Fed's counter-recessionary move.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I')f someone knows of a free market, tell me about it. I'd like to go see one in action sometime.

[Canuk]

The drug trade is essentially a free market - there are no government controls (other than banning) and there is free and open competition including removal of competitors. The cartels and organizations that work in it are examples of the market at work.

[neocone]

The commies are back... all is good when an excess of resources is what conquering a market means, but when the essence of competition implies concentrating means into the hands of the just, capable and dynamic away from the lazy, stupid and selfish, the later will whine all they can to keep possessions they don't deserve, by the very nature of their personalities.

Exhibit A: The housing mess. Stupid idiots taking on more houses than they need, and (governement backed) lending insitutions obliging, then whining like little girls when the "profits" they already spent and think are entitled too fail to materialize.

Meanwhile... true investors and real self made men can stomach a 500K loss in the stock market like a Man.

The population is a Gauss curve.. the top 1% will always be persecuted by the laggards.