Big food at it again V. Price fixing and why we don't trust big business

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheRemains
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except it is, just on a higher scale. But as long as their is free competition, it shouldn't be an issue. Companies A, B and C get together and fix their price. D undercuts them.


Of course the issue is when the govt limits who can enter a industry. Or companies growing so large that they can easily control a huge part of the market
 
was it only a minor problem because it was a minor price increase? Just because they're trying to screw you out of a few extra cents on a $2 pack of eggs doesn't mean it's a minor problem and any less illegal.

Americans eat about 250 eggs each annually, apparently (from http://www.unitedegg.org/useggindustry_generalstats.aspx). That's almost 21 dozen-pack crates.

So sure, as an individual you might only be paying an extra $2.10 a year or whatever (assuming they raised prices by only 10 cents in price fixing). But spread out over 300 million Americans that amounts to an extra $630 MILLION in the pockets of egg producers every year thanks to illegal price fixing.

This is a big deal.
 
The thread is about "why we don't trust big business", and my rebuttal to that is "sure, I don't trust big business - but given the alternative (big government), I'll take big business any day."
 
This is a different point altogether. The point you made, that I replied to, was that it is somehow worse when government does it. I suggested there is no real difference, as the actions of one lead to the other.
 
I've been able to buy eggs for less than 10 cents a piece every time i've walked into a grocery store.
 
Of course not. But then, price-fixing doesn't really matter if you don't have a monopoly.
 
It's collusion. The entire premise of a market is based on competitive pricing. When the major players in the market get together to fix the price, that breaks competitive pricing. There's no legitimate way to call that "not a distortion of the market."
 
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