Is It Me...

[Devedander]

Perhaps I got it wrong, but I see this as being a contradictory comment. On one hand, you are legitimizing marketplace forces and the use of supply and demand as a method to determine pricing, on the other, you appear to be suggesting that dealers out of China cannot justify pricing on this baisis. Doesn't make sense to me, but again, maybe I got it wrong.

No... they can totally justify their cost on varying marketplace forces... assuming those forces are legitimately there. However you can't just claim rising cost if it doesn't seem justifiable. The statement you quoted wasn't clearly worded... I meant that in this particular case I don't think our dealers can legitimately claim some of the rising expenses that have been suggested... not that they aren't allowed to claim rising expenses in the marketplace overall.

In a free and open market, commodity Pricing is ALWAYS determined by marketplace forces, i.e. supply and demand. Dealers charge what they do because they can. They compete with other dealers. If their prices rise too much, you will take your business elsewhere.

This is true to an extent... but remember we are not in a regulated market... price fixing, gauging and other such practices are something we have to watch out for, indeed it's exactly why these types of forums exist. $1000 submariner sites are one of the vestiges of bad business in an unregulated market. If dealers raise their prices across the board, where exactly will you take your business? If one gas station raises it's prices by $5 a gallon and others decide to follow suit where exactly will you go? There are laws in place to make sure this doesn't happen in normal open market business, we have no such luxuries in our microcosm market so you can't apply all open market rules and theories here, it's more of a wild west sort of thing.

There are the sites that send you nothing at all, which are a different breed all together, but the ones that are simply overpriced... remember there isn't all that much besides price that seperates our dealers from those sites in some cases... it wouldn't take much to make that gap somewhat insignificant....

If dealers cannot compete with other dealers on the basis of price (adjusted for other factors such as service, willingness to customized, etc...) they either lower their price or go out of business. The other factors alluded to in your post (risk, expense, etc...) are profitability factors, but they are not relevant to the price of the product in the market. As far as pricing is concerned. All that matters is competition, service, and supply vs. demand dynamics

I don't see how you can claim risk and expense are not factors in market price... these are absolute factors... if someone can grab my case of watches and run off with it, or grab a watch or two and run off, I must factor that into my expenses and compensate with my profit margin. A drop shipper has no such risk and thus no need to compensate for this.

And look at the chanel j12, the higher quality one that incurs more risk and expense to create due to the dangerous final firing process, commands a much higher price... why? to cover expenses and risks.

Look below at later in your post where you directly relate risk to reward... reward comes from profit margins...

So again, how can you say risk and expense are not related to price in market?

As for the indigenous chinese watch dealer selling his product for 1/2 of what our dealers sell it for, he/she operates at a marked disadvantage vis-a-vis our dealers, in that he does not have access to the global market place. That lack of distribution capability restricts the marketplaces they can participate in, and by extenson, their potential clients. The consequence of more product and less market is higher supply and lower demand which equates to lower price. That is the nature of a wholesale business. By contrast our dealers have access to wider range of consumers. Less product, more market, lower supply, higher demand, higher prices.

First off this would be valid if the supply of watches didn't MASSIVELY bypass the demand... in ShenZhen there is litterally a city of watches waiting to be sold... if anything it's the opposite, our dealers wider market should give them the befeit of greater sales and volume discount. You don't see Walmart charging more than everyone else because they have a lot of stores and a lot of customers do you?

As for their profit margins, I have already stated I think we get services for our $$$ as it is, however I think we all need to be vigilant about watching out for ourselves. It's not a very long slippery slope between our dealers and "scam" sites. We have an advantage in this market that not many people do in other markets ie we know basically what the wholesale prices are so we can gauge what the markup is.

Again it's not the desire to make more money that I have a problem with, it's how trasnparent that desire is... if dealers say prices are rising on their end from the factories... yet we don't see this at the street market vendor level (I keep in contact with my family in China who isn't into actually buying and sending me these watches but can let me know how things look there - planning whether I need to go to ShenZhen or can shop from my local city on my next visit) there is something fishy... again our dealers must outsell most of these street vendors (you mentioned some very good reasons why above) and if they can't get better prices than the street vendors should at least not be doing worse.

Why does it matter? It's back to the leg pissing/raining thing... if you tell me something that's not true you are pissing on my leg and then we have problems. It's the same reason we protect each other from scam sites... it's the point where it turns from business to taking advantage of people.

Finally an editorial comment. Considering the risks, costs, and value provided, I really do not consider a 100% price market to be all that unreasonable, at least not for the products we buy. As has been said before, this is not Walmart. Our dealers risk alot.. as consumers it is unlikely we will ever run afoul of the law for buying a replica watch... worst case, we lose the watch and/or our purchase price... but the dealers risk is far greater. If High risk did not = high reward, who would be in this business?

I don't think it's unreasonable etiher, but it certainly shouldn't be shrugged off as nothing or looked at as a starting point to add on to to achieve fair profit... nothign wrong with rewarding risk. Just keep an eye on how slippery the slope gets... I have seen it time and again in many situations (I am not talking about here with watches, but in general with many things in life) where people essentially credit the same risks over and over to justify increasing reward. ie no new risk, but increased reward - a very simplified example would be "our dealers have to deal with customs losses so they must factor that into their profit." Then next year prices go up, customs losses stay the same but higher prices are attributed to customs losses... someone comes along and states that there is nothing wrong with prices going up as our dealers have to deal with customs losses that street vendors don't... repeat at al.

[mhinagoya]

Somewhere, TTK is sitting back chuckling to himself. I know the gentleman and he likes to go 'fishing'.

Guys, I am unaware of a single instance where the manufacturing cost of anything has had any bearing on the market price of said object. The rep watch business is no exception. The watches cost what the dealers charge for them. "Why" doesn't matter.

This is a HOBBY. As such, it is a money pit. My wife is in to rubber stamping and scrapbookking. The cost of her money pit is staggering. However, neither she nor I have any illusions about her hobbies. We both know that any money spent is gone with absolutely no hope for return. We both know that when she spends four or five dollars for a little bottle of ink, we are probably paying a 20:1 markup (at least). It doesn't matter. She wants that little bottle of ink and we can afford it.

If you can afford what you want, then buy it. Consider the money gone and enjoy your purchase. If you can't afford what you want, then wait till you can or change your 'want'. All this speculation will accomplish nothing except to build resentments toward good people that are trying very hard to help you with your 'hobby' and make a little money in the bargain. Without them, your hobby wouldn't exist.

You want a really cheap knockoff? Go buy a $3,000 airline ticket to China and pick it out for yourself (if you can even find what you want). Sorry to sound a bit brutal, but it's not like you can run down to the corner store and buy one of these watches. I lived in Taiwan and I can assure you that finding reps is anything but easy there. It isn't so tough in Mainland China, but it is an accomplishment in Taiwan. Kudos to River and Eddie for sourcing them.

Have fun with the hobby and quit worrying about who is making how much on what. It doesn't matter, as without them, the hobby ceases to exist.

Bill.

[eddhead]

No... they can totally justify their cost on varying marketplace forces... assuming those forces are legitimately there. However you can't just claim rising cost if it doesn't seem justifiable. The statement you quoted wasn't clearly worded... I meant that in this particular case I don't think our dealers can legitimately claim some of the rising expenses that have been suggested... not that they aren't allowed to claim rising expenses in the marketplace overall.

Thanks for the reply but unless I am miss understanding you, I actually think it is you that is not really being clear.

For one thing, you are using the term 'cost' to reflect multiple meanings. Dealers do not justify their cost.. they justify their price.. i.e. what we as consumers pay. Thier costs are reflected in thier expenses, i.e. how much they pay for thier products, including supply costs, marketing costs, breakage, customs losses, fraud, etc.. and in reality has little or no direct impact on the price they charge. Instead, the price is based on marketplace factors (which do no not include costs) such as supply and demand, and consumer perception of value added services such as customer service, communication and the ability to customize. Factor costs are not marketplace factors as they relate to price. You charge what the market is willing to pay. If that price does not cover your variable cost, you exit the market. That is the way a free market functions.

this is true to an extent... but remember we are not in a regulated market... price fixing, gauging and other such practices are something we have to watch out for, indeed it's exactly why these types of forums exist. $1000 submariner sites are one of the vestiges of bad business in an unregulated market. If dealers raise their prices across the board, where exactly will you take your business? If one gas station raises it's prices by $5 a gallon and others decide to follow suit where exactly will you go? There are laws in place to make sure this doesn't happen in normal open market business, we have no such luxuries in our microcosm market so you can't apply all open market rules and theories here, it's more of a wild west sort of thing.

True enough. Some of us take it on faith that price fixing does not occur with the dealers on this forum but in reality we have no way of knowing for certain.

I don't see how you can claim risk and expense are not factors in market price... these are absolute factors... if someone can grab my case of watches and run off with it, or grab a watch or two and run off, I must factor that into my expenses and compensate with my profit margin. A drop shipper has no such risk and thus no need to compensate for this.

Following your example, if you raise your price to compensate for your loss, and have competition who sells the same product for the same price with the same service levels than you do, and that person does not raise his price, you will not sell a lot of watches, until he starts to run low on product. Perhaps that person does a better job with security, or has better breakage rates, or whatever... The game here is to control your expenses and your losses to the extent you can. If your costs are higher than yoru competiton for whatever reason, and you cannot compete on price for a like product, you are doomed. That is the nature of the market.

And look at the chanel j12, the higher quality one that incurs more risk and expense to create due to the dangerous final firing process, commands a much higher price... why? to cover expenses and risks.

You are comparing apples to oranges. The reason the Chanel j12 commands a much higher price is because the market perceives it as being a more quality product, not because it has a higher production cost. If there is no demand for the price at current prices, dealers will have no choice but to lower the price. If the margin than becomes unacceptable to them, they will stop making the watch. Again, that is how the market works

Look below at later in your post where you directly relate risk to reward... reward comes from profit margins...

I qualified that as an editiorial comment, meaning 'opinion' to justify the cosmic justice of the profit margin, but sinse you asked, the risk reward equation relates to production side dynamics, not consume side. The price of a good is determined by supply and demand. This is a high risk business. If, as a producer, you cannot achieve a profit (reward) that justifies your risk, you do not get in the busines. There is no direct influence on the final price to consumers. Indirectly however, I will give you that , if enough producers exit the business, supply relative to demand drops and prices rise. That would be the root cause, but not the direct cause. The direct driver would be lower supply.

First off this would be valid if the supply of watches didn't MASSIVELY bypass the demand... in ShenZhen there is litterally a city of watches waiting to be sold... if anything it's the opposite, our dealers wider market should give them the befeit of greater sales and volume discount. You don't see Walmart charging more than everyone else because they have a lot of stores and a lot of customers do you? ...

But the suppliers in ShenZhen do not have access to the same markets our dealers do. That lack of access and distribution capability restricts the demand.. they effectively act as wholesalers. Refer to my previous post.

[Devedander]

My mistake on price vs cost... used the words incorrectly. Hopefully the point can still be figured out, I am first to admit that what sounds good in my head comes out wrong on screen sometimes. Stupid punctuation and inflection

As for the J12... Well then our dealers are straight out lying to us already. I was told that the J12 is high priced for a quartz watch because (amongst other reasons) ceramic carries a high level of breakage and problems and since loss is high on production the price is high at our end.

I am curious who told you it was a higher quality product... it's a quartz watch... something generally not desired in this hobbie it would seem.

Following your example, if you raise your price to compensate for your loss, and have competition who sells the same product for the same price with the same service levels than you do, and that person does not raise his price, you will not sell a lot of watches, until he starts to run low on product. Perhaps that person does a better job with security, or has better breakage rates, or whatever... The game here is to control your expenses and your losses to the extent you can. If your costs are higher than yoru competiton for whatever reason, and you cannot compete on price for a like product, you are doomed. That is the nature of the market.

The point being that if the price is rising across the market, all dealers have to accomodate the same changes and that's how the market works. But if one set of dealers claims changes and another set imperically shows no changes then that's where the fishyness comes into play.

All else being equal and fair, yes that's how it should work. But things are rarely equal and fair and thus why we need to watch out for things like price fixing etc... that's why we have laws to prevent price fixing and unfair market control... again we do not have these in our little world. So you must think one step ahead, every dealer knows if he raises his prices and others don't, it hurts him, but if all dealers know this and realize the only way to increase profits is to all do it at the same time, then they have but to find a way to do so while keeping face.

So how do you keep it fair and the way it SHOULD be in the absence of laws to do so? Be vigilante about what can be said while keeping face...

This is a high risk business. If, as a producer, you cannot achieve a profit (reward) that justifies your risk, you do not get in the busines.

I agree completely. But if you will notice, no one claimed prices were going up do to need to compensate for risk... the only thing mentioned I noted was that prices from the factories were going up. Something which street vendors do not reflect so brings into question.

But the suppliers in ShenZhen do not have access to the same markets our dealers do. That lack of access and distribution capability restricts the demand.. they effectively act as wholesalers. Refer to my previous post.

No they don't, but it has nothing to do with the point being made becuase our dealers do have access to the wholesalers in ShenZhen and the factories they get their watches from. Are you really saying you think there are NOT more than enough watches to cover the market demand available to our dealers?

And again think about it carefully, I think you have it backwards in your head, as in almost any market having a LARGER market means you get REDUCED prices, not the otherway around. Otherwise the mom and pop corner store would not be so expensive compared to walmart.

Your argument is based on missuse of the supply/demand curve... if I only have a market of 10 people and thus sell 10 items a month I must make a high profit to stay afloat. If I suddently get a market of 100 people and thus can sell 100 products per month I can significantly reduce profit margins and still make money and even better I should be getting a better deal on my product from my supplier. Larger market SHOULD = lower prices, not the other way around.

And the real comparison is not even to guys in ShenZhen but rather to the street vendors in my own city in China which is very far from ShenZhen... if these guys in street booths can get these watches at $x in the small quantities they deal, actually stock then, not have the benefit of dropshipping and have to incur the expenses invovled with brick and mortar (well tend and table) type operation, our dealers (who by your own argument have a larger market share) shoudl have no problem getting the same prices. Thus the questionable nature of claiming higher from factory prices... if factories were bumping prices, wouldn't the small volume street vendor be showing the same results?

I think you are readind more or other points into what I say than what I am intending to say. What I am trying to say is: All things considered I don't understand how our dealers can claim increasing costs from the factory as a cause of increased price to consumer when others in the same business, drawing on the same resources in smaller volume do not seem to suffer from this.

[eddhead]

As for the J12... Well then our dealers are straight out lying to us already. I was told that the J12 is high priced for a quartz watch because (amongst other reasons) ceramic carries a high level of breakage and problems and since loss is high on production the price is high at our end.

I am curious who told you it was a higher quality product... it's a quartz watch... something generally not desired in this hobbie it would seem.

The point being that if the price is rising across the market, all dealers have to accomodate the same changes and that's how the market works. But if one set of dealers claims changes and another set imperically shows no changes then that's where the fishyness comes into play.

All else being equal and fair, yes that's how it should work. But things are rarely equal and fair and thus why we need to watch out for things like price fixing etc... that's why we have laws to prevent price fixing and unfair market control... again we do not have these in our little world. So you must think one step ahead, every dealer knows if he raises his prices and others don't, it hurts him, but if all dealers know this and realize the only way to increase profits is to all do it at the same time, then they have but to find a way to do so while keeping face.

So how do you keep it fair and the way it SHOULD be in the absence of laws to do so? Be vigilante about what can be said while keeping face...

I agree completely. But if you will notice, no one claimed prices were going up do to need to compensate for risk... the only thing mentioned I noted was that prices from the factories were going up. Something which street vendors do not reflect so brings into question.

Thanks for the response. I am beginning to feel like I am hijacking the thread, so this will be my last public response. If you want to continue the conversation privately, please PM and I will give you my e-mail address.

I do think you are missing my point, but that could be as much my deficiency in communicating it as anything else. In a free market, product supply and demand naturally move to a state of equlibrium (suppply = demand) through price dynamics. When the supply of a particular good exceeds the demand, prices tend to fall. That in turn spurs additional demand and results in a movement toward equilibrium. Conversely when demand exceeds supply, prices rise until equilibrium is achieved. That is the only definition of market dynamics... the sellers costs are not a consideration. This is not my definition, it is Adam Smith's who is often referred to as the Father of Economic thought. This theory is is foundation for micro and macro economic price modeling and is widely accepted by all including Friedman, Keynes, Marx, etc..

There are 5 conditions that must exist for a free market to exist, key among these are 1. No governent price regulations, 2. No seller price coersion, collusion, or fraud, 3. Buyers and sellers must all have compete and unencumbered access to the market.

No they don't, but it has nothing to do with the point being made becuase our dealers do have access to the wholesalers in ShenZhen and the factories they get their watches from. Are you really saying you think there are NOT more than enough watches to cover the market demand available to our dealers?

What I am saying is that the dealers in ShenZen do not have access to the market, i.e. they do not have the distribution channels to easily market their products to you and me. Instead, they rely on resellers such as the dealers who participate on this board, and we rely on those same dealers for our supply of watches. Hence, while the supply of goods available to our dealers is high, the supply of those same goods available to you and me is much lower because we do not have direct convenient access to ShenZen market (at least I don't). That is why our dealers can buy watches at a lower cost than we can. It is just supply and demand dynmaics. In effect, the ShenZen dealers are wholesalers, and our dealers are retailers That is how wholesaling vs. retailing always works.

And again think about it carefully, I think you have it backwards in your head, as in almost any market having a LARGER market means you get REDUCED prices, not the otherway around. Otherwise the mom and pop corner store would not be so expensive compared to walmart. ?

As I said above, we do not have access to the larger market and the those suppliers do not have access to us, so the point is moot. Our only access is to the supply provided by our dealers. That supply is the basis for our price point.

our argument is based on missuse of the supply/demand curve... if I only have a market of 10 people and thus sell 10 items a month I must make a high profit to stay afloat. If I suddently get a market of 100 people and thus can sell 100 products per month I can significantly reduce profit margins and still make money and even better I should be getting a better deal on my product from my supplier. Larger market SHOULD = lower prices, not the other way around.?

Again, you are confusing profit with supply and demand dynamics. Price is a contributor to profit but profit is NOT a contributor to price. Economies of scale contribute to profit, but only contribute to price to the extent that such economies result in increased production and thus, more supply. In this case, where supply will exceed demand, prices will naturally fall.

Price points are ALWAYS estabished by suppply and demand.

I

think you are readind more or other points into what I say than what I am intending to say. What I am trying to say is: All things considered I don't understand how our dealers can claim increasing costs from the factory as a cause of increased price to consumer when others in the same business, drawing on the same resources in smaller volume do not seem to suffer from this..?

And what I am trying to say is that approach will only work if one of the following happens:

1. They all collude to raise prices

2. They are testing the market to see if other dealers will also respond with price increases

2. Current supply exceeds demand (and i am afraid that in certain cases that is what is happening)

3. They each independantly determine that they their current profit margins are not acceptable enough for them to stay in this business. If they raise thier prices and the price increases do not stick, the natural course would than be to exit the business.

[Pugwash]

If one gas station raises it's prices by $5 a gallon and others decide to follow suit where exactly will you go? There are laws in place to make sure this doesn't happen in normal open market business, we have no such luxuries in our microcosm market so you can't apply all open market rules and theories here, it's more of a wild west sort of thing.

Things like cartelling and quangoes happen all the time in free and open markets. That's the problem with free markets and open markets. It's why we simply don't use them in the western world, contrary to what Americans seem to understand.

What we have are highly regulated markets. We need them to keep capitalist from succumbing to the lower prices of their neighbours, so we impose subsidies and duties, carrot and stick, in the hope that it keeps the faith in our economic strength alive.

There's nothing overly wrong with our current capitalist system, but to call it either open or free is a fallacy.

... just my 2.6c US

[Devedander]

Things like cartelling and quangoes happen all the time in free and open markets. That's the problem with free markets and open markets. It's why we simply don't use them in the western world, contrary to what Americans seem to understand.

What we have are highly regulated markets. We need them to keep capitalist from succumbing to the lower prices of their neighbours, so we impose subsidies and duties, carrot and stick, in the hope that it keeps the faith in our economic strength alive.

There's nothing overly wrong with our current capitalist system, but to call it either open or free is a fallacy.

... just my 2.6c US

Absolutely correct! When I speak of open market business again I probably use the wrong term, I mean open markets as in our regulated but open market places, not truly "free" markets. And you will see earlier I reference the fact that we don't have the luxury of a regulated market here, so we must be vigilant in protecting our own interests as we don't have a governing body to do it for us.

[Devedander]

2. No seller price coersion, collusion, or fraud

And what I am trying to say is that approach will only work if one of the following happens:

1. They all collude to raise prices

2. They are testing the market to see if other dealers will also respond with price increases

2. Current supply exceeds demand (and i am afraid that in certain cases that is what is happening)

3. They each independantly determine that they their current profit margins are not acceptable enough for them to stay in this business. If they raise thier prices and the price increases do not stick, the natural course would than be to exit the business.

And to keep it short and sweet those are what I am addressing. Everything else was some tangential spinoff to explain points that each of us think the other is addressing but they probably aren't

Again short and sweet: I don't think our dealers are ripping us off, but in business it's a fatal mistake to let down your guard. No one who is doing honest business has anything to fear from being questioned. Those who are not, well....

[Pugwash]

And you will see earlier I reference the fact that we don't have the luxury of a regulated market here, so we must be vigilant in protecting our own interests as we don't have a governing body to do it for us.

Shh, don't let the Libertarians hear you! They're all over the internet and they'll start quoting Ayn Rand at you!

... and they're armed!

[that_watch_guy]

True, prices are going up, but they never should have come down in the first place, because once dealers start to lower prices to compete with eachother or to draw more customers, the customers come to expect those low prices forever, and don't expect them to increase. When the factories raise their prices, the dealers must in turn raise theirs, and to customers it appears as though the dealers are becomming greedy, when in fact they are just trying to make the same amount of money they were making before, and sustain the same amount of loss.

Fruthermore, as TTK said, there are lots of COSTS associated with selling these products. The paypal/money booker/merchant account 4.0+% is one, returns, exchanges, repairs, broken watches, lost watches, watches taken by customs, watches that customers didn't pick up from the post office in time... When a dealer ships a watch to a customer, and then customs takes it, the dealer either has to replace it or refund the customer. This money 100% comes out of the dealer's pocket. Any dealer selling 20+ watches per month is going to experience problems of one sort or another on a monthly basis, no matter how much they inspect their product or stand behind their service, they are losing a percentage of the money they make, guaranteed.

I estimate that like other retail businesses on the internet, our watch dealers probably lose 20+% of their total profits due to misc. problems and that is not even including the outright fraud that they definitely encounter from buyers from time to time, where once again they lose out. So if buyers demand extremely low prices, which in turn lead to extremely poor margins for the dealer (who doesn't control the prices demanded by the factory), and losses/fraud levels remain constant through out the process, the dealers might as well not be in business. They might as well go out and earn a living some other way. Dealers on the streets of Shenzen can sell you watches for $150 all day long. You know why? They have ZERO risk. They are accepting cash only, they aren't shipping anything, they don't need to warranty their product, once they have the cash, it's over. Police are unlikely to do anything to them, they don't have to worry about credit card fraud, shipping, frozen paypal accounts etc. Plus their cost of living is unimaginably low, so if they make $5 profit from each sale, that's just great for them. For our dealers, that doesn't even cover the suckpal fees.

I have an idea, how about all of our dealers start accepting only cash in the mail, and in turn, they agree to lower their prices by 10-30%? I think that with prices going up, people should just more carefully pick and choose which models they want. Take some time to consider exactly what you want before buying it, as now it's going to be a little more pricey of an investment.

[eddhead]

Things like cartelling and quangoes happen all the time in free and open markets. That's the problem with free markets and open markets. It's why we simply don't use them in the western world, contrary to what Americans seem to understand.

What we have are highly regulated markets. We need them to keep capitalist from succumbing to the lower prices of their neighbours, so we impose subsidies and duties, carrot and stick, in the hope that it keeps the faith in our economic strength alive.

There's nothing overly wrong with our current capitalist system, but to call it either open or free is a fallacy.

... just my 2.6c US

I agree with that statement, i.e. that there is no such thing as a truly free and open market (the statement about Americans feeling otherwise is an unfortunate generalization and blatently untrue). The Free market is a model.. and models never exist exactly as they are conceived in the real world. Nonetheless, the principles of a free market econony including supply and demand economics are major contributors and in fact the driving forces (Exxon-Mobile et al not withstanding) to the current capitist system you seem so fond of.

[fotoman]

I agree with that statement, i.e. that there is no such thing as a truly free and open market (the statement about Americans feeling otherwise is an unfortunate generalization and blatently untrue). The Free market is a model.. and models never exist exactly as they are conceived in the real world. Nonetheless, the principles of a free market econony including supply and demand economics are major contributors and in fact the driving forces (Exxon-Mobile et al not withstanding) to the current capitist system you seem so fond of.

There is no such thing as a free market - except maybe for ebay. Markets are manipulated by all the players, gov't business ect ect

Further - for a free market you must hvae KNOWLEDGE everyone forgets that. Without knowledge you might as well have people shitting in the wind.

[Usil]

Hey guys, I forgot to tell you what I saw on the TV in the US when I went back on Holiday - not to hijack my own thread - and I don't mind the good discussion going). I was flipping channels and passed a 'sales network' - the kind that sells stuff 24 hrs a day and that day they were selling watches. Lots of watches, all Asian look alikes with a made up initial set on it (can't remember the initials - maybe SW or something else) so I watched for a few minutes as this guy explains the quality of this watch with it's great 7750 movement, blah, blah, blah. It was a sport watch and had three sub-dials and then he showed the offer price of $2499.00 USD. But no - he was knocking it down to $1999.00 USD. I could not believe it. I was looking at a cheep Asian watch, no where near the quality of the watches we buy and they were selling these for almost $2000.00 USD.

Maybe the price our dealers charge isn't so bad.

Usil

Edited January 17, 2007 by Usil

[eddhead]

There is no such thing as a free market - except maybe for ebay. Markets are manipulated by all the players, gov't business ect ect

Further - for a free market you must hvae KNOWLEDGE everyone forgets that. Without knowledge you might as well have people shitting in the wind.

agreed that conditions of a free market include knowledge and access from both the consumer and seller, lack of price collusion fraud and lack of govt involvment. Also agreed that Free markets are utiopia... (see above).. still free market principles, including supply and demand economics are the foundation of our global capitalist economy. In fact the WTC's mandate is to ensure that systemic barries to markets are mitigated. It doesn't always work to perfection, but it remains a guiding principle, cartels and trusts not withstanding.

Regardless of what has been expressed previously, I am not a liberterian, nor am I armed. And I certainly do not believe that the free market exists exactly as Adam Smith's model lays them out, but as it relates to global economy as a whole, I put a lot of credence in market dynamics and principles.

So much for not responding further in public!