An analysis of the recent Supreme Court ruling

[JayB]

Terrible logic, in addition to blatant mischaracterization of what I stand for. Corporate tools like yourself should come up with better arguments in lieu of pretending trillions are spent in advertising to no effect.

 

It clearly has some effect, but not enough to serve as a basis for warrant granting government the power to hobble competition using policy tools like tariffs, subsidies, etc that are all too easily usurped by organized economic interests to serve their own ends, which leads directly to "Controlling political outcomes to enhance one's economic activity to the detriment of the great unwashed masses..." Who do you thinks gonna win that game, kemosabe? ADM or the organic carrot farmer?

 

It's also worth asking how corporations with massive budgets and dominant market positions ever get displaced in the consumer-zombie model. How do you reconcile that model with the reality in which GM went tits up in a massive way? How come all of the zombie consumers aren't driving GM cars? Why aren't we shopping at A&P supermarkets and subsisting on a diet composed entirely of Kraft foods?

 

 

 

[j_b]

You are the one pretending that "consumers make up their own mind" whereas in fact businesses spend huge amounts of money to blanket all media with advertising and convince consumers they need a particular product even when it is clearly contrary to their own best interest. I guess you'll have to revise your copy because it isn't consistent with reality.

 

Tariffs may be needed to prevent dumping (social, environmental, monetary, ..). Subsidies may be needed to enable a development model over another like it has always been the case. Nothing should be excluded in the name of myth like free markets.

 

Mega corporations get rarely displaced by competitors in this age of oligopolies (thank you free marketeers for justifying consolidations into monopolies under the disguise of "competition"). GM was displaced mostly because they didn't account for oil depletion and rising energy prices. When oil prices more than tripled in a couple of years GM had no capacity to push fuel efficient cars because they were still pushing gas guzzlers.

[tvashtarkatena]

Thank God...my insomnia, finally cured.

[JayB]

"GM was displaced mostly because they didn't account for oil depletion and rising energy prices. When oil prices more than tripled in a couple of years GM had no capacity to push fuel efficient cars because they were still pushing gas guzzlers."

 

But we both know that consumers only respond to marketing messages, not complex evaluations of what's in their own self interest as they see it.

 

Clearly all GM needed to do to stem the bleeding was distribute messages saying "BUY A SUBURBAN" and consumers would have blissfully forked over the $120 it took to fill the tank with nary a thought of the less expensive alternatives available to them....