I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that this does not get me banned but if it does, this means enough for me to make this post anyway. I have edited out the name so that the other party will not be revealed. I do not think this is a private matter since it was communicated to me and I feel that I can share it. I was not harmed at all in this situation but I think the principle of fair play is very important here. Below is a cut and paste of an e-mail I recieved from a CPF member. I hope you can understand why this disturbed my sence of ethics. It seems to violate the auction principle to me, and I have reported it to ebay and to the party that I though could have been damaged by this.

below is the e-mail sent to me.

"just wanted to let you know, if your going to bid again, please outbid me, being that we're both flashaholics, i don't want to end up paying a lot more. If you want to outbid me, please bid over $300, thanks"

not really in the right spirit.
It doesnt take much digging around on Ebay to find what Jon is talking about either.....

Well its something that I would never do. I would feel way to guilty for it.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

hm ... actually he/she was telling you as a fellow CPFer what his high bid was and let you decide weather you'd want it at this price or to step back and let him have it without driving the price up.
ok, it's not 100% the rules, but what would you do if you were sitting with a friend at your computer in the same siatuation? would you hide your bids from each other and see who gets it or would you discuss the issue before bidding?
I do not find this whole affair very offensive, it is a private matter among "friends"/CPFers and not a professional treachery to push prices.
I personally would not have been offended the least. I rather find your reaction a bit heavy since he will get punished for this. Maybe working it out behind the scenes if you were offended that much would have been better?
bernhard

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

it cheats the seller from an agreed upon procedure, a student of economics it does offend me deaply. I will not take advantage at the expense of proper economic efficency. And working it out behind the scenes further damages the seller. What if everyone did this, we could agree not to compete, I will not bid on item A if you will not bid on item B, if it only occured once but remember Philosophy as well. Is it ok for one to do something but not all to do the samething. This action lowers the supply of goods available to purchase, as the expected marginal return drops, sellers think it is less worth it to put the item up and may think it is better to keep the item. The capitalist system is in fact an auction market as well with price being directed by demand, supply, and marginal cost. If we all go cheap, lower incentive to produce occures as we reach the margin....then we would have smaller economies. Almost all Economist would agree that this is the reason tha a handfull of places has twice or better median living standard then the second tier countries and I am not meaning the third world. If we all behaved like this, we would be in dire trouble but many do not realize this. You know it seems like when a business or someone we can call the other guy does something, we can all be very wholly, but when someone like "us" does something wrong, its ok and no big deal. Perhaps buyers will not see a problem in this but I am sure some sellers will see a big problem in this. But remember the economic equation is a circular one. It goes from consumer, to inputs including labor, to producer. According to most tested and proven game theory, we kill off ourselves and make ourselves collectivly worse off when trying to take unfair advantage. Save ourself a dollar and loose ourself two dollars. Its not the price that counts but the relative price that counts in the circle, but lateral differences can hurt your peers even more. If the person who takes advantage and unethically saves an undeserved dollar, it might seem ok until you realize as the equation expands, and if he in the end does not pay for it, you and all others from your peer group pay for it indirectly but you might not even realize it. Just looking at one item and it seems ok, but if you expand the behavior to be all inclusive, it gets pretty ugly and we are all worse off for it. I am not going to go into big economic models and mathamatical proofs, or emperical proofs as it would make this long post ten times longer. With that, YES, it does still offend me because we tolerate a little and over and over again it is real slowing, it changes the velocity of money and the supply structure, what good is your money in the end if it cannot buy anything. You might think you are saving but this activity reduces supply, which means less exists, which means there is less to have, which means we have less, which means we have economic inflation if not finacial inflation as a result and it is economic inflation that we really fear more then financil inflation, even though many do not realize that.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

this may seem unrelated but in reality it is the same thing but from a different angle. Lets assume we all want lower prices and higher wages. Lets say we get the lower prices that we want, thats fine until before kensian bottle neck approachs. At this point the only way to go further is to eliminate research which costs us future goods, but we also want higher wages, with out a new discovery in efficency which increases production per man hour we have a problem. We essentially want more for less capacity growth gets squezzed hard. Guess what happens, we do not get anymore, we have what we have. Without seller and buyer moving towards equilibrium which changes from moment to moment, to get more we have to have less, to have less gets us more on a temporal scale. That is what happens in the circle. Now when we are close to equilibirum and someone takes a lateral advantage, they cost you with out contribuing to the circle and may even rob from the circle.
You can not buy what does not exist. We reduce supply, less exists. So whats your money worth then?

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

Wow, you're sound very expert in economics. Sorry for being insensitive about this matter, but I keep being puzzled by economic model in Star Trek movie. AFAIK, there is no money involved there, only point system, and everyone are free to do what their talent led them to. Did you happen to know about it? Can you explain it to me, how it works, maybe in my PM or e-mail? I really want to know more about it. Thanks a lot. Cheers...

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

[ QUOTE ]
JonSidneyB said:
... The capitalist system is in fact an auction market as well with price being directed by demand, supply, and marginal cost....

[/ QUOTE ]

Good insight, I never thought of it in those terms.

Brightnorm

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

StarTrek point system? wouldn't points be money? Money is such a confused thing, particularly fiat money. The value of money is the various money supplies X its velocity=goods and service transacted. Oh, what is velocity of money, lets say you made shovels, I made chairs, and Bob makes bagles and there is only one 5 dollar bill in our economy and you have the 5 dollar bill. You give me the $5 for a chair, I am hungry so I trade it for a dozen bagels, Bob need a shovel to grow wheat for the bagles do gives you the $5 for the shovel. We have a $15 economy but only 5 dollar in it, but what really happened, we really did nothing more than trade items. In a more complex economy money act as a lubricant for trade, in reality the production has the value and shakes the economic dog, money is only the tail. Also, what can be money, almost anything that acts like money. Which would you rather have, a piece of paper that said you could have $100,000 in gold, or $100,000 in rice on demand, It really should not matter, I can take that piece of paper and collect that item or I could trade sections of it in the commodities market, move those credits into the stock markets, or convert part of it into cash and buy a pizza which is still then trading rice for a pizza. Rices relative value changes relative to other items by its corresponding supply and demand compared to other goods. So what is money...money is what we say it is and agree it is, but this is an example of commodity money, fiat money is just as real as rise but less tangible since it is a coupon rather than a commodity but works the same with the same flucutating value.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

Next class will be the Ricardian model followed by the Edgeworth box.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

Looks like the seller wasn't cheated afterall, at least.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

I wonder if the Law of diminishing marginal utility applies to flashlights? Because as far as im concerned, the more the merrier!

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

kakster, depends on if the demand curve for small groups is backward bending as it is with other areas. It also might be following the economic laws of addiction where demand for a single item causes the demand for more in itself.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

the seller may not have been cheated but it was the principle that I was upset about, but it is possible that he could have been still. If a number of CPF memebers received the same message, the others may have not participated. Often participation leads many to go higher than they think they would have.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

"Often participation leads many to go higher than they think they would have" ... ... which would be a true sign of flashoholitis

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

Bernhard,
Oh, I fogot to answer all of your question. How can StarTrek have the utopian economy. Perhaps production is so cheap and supply so great, that there was a diminsing return on ownership since things were so easy to replicate. Parts of it would seem to be an Economy that would have made Karl Marx proud, and we know where that led. The people would till have wanted more, but the producers could provide for the non-producers bye manipulating points which could be a hidden Tax. No the part that would have frustrated Marx was the rewards of achievment, the captain clearly had better quarters than lower ranked people. Now it might have been top heavy as Rikers quarters didn't seem much better then some others quarters.

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

Principles are fine, especially when justified, like the ones you are talking about seem to be (I trust you on this). They may bitterly fail when individuality is concerned, and I am not talking philosophy here either.
would you have reacted differently if he would have been your brother?
or your wife?
other principles:
did you never try to cheat only a little in school?
did you never cross the road when the sign was red?
have you never lied?
etc.
My point: principles are subject to variations and equilibriums, too, especially when the individual level is concerned. We have to pay attention to that for the good of all, ok, but we have to think carefully about how and to which extend we enforce those principles.
You denounced a fellow CPFer because he told you his high bid. He did not beg you to step back nor was this a huge conspiracy to circumvent e-bay rules. I think you overreacted.

bernhard

besides, is there something in the ebay rules that forbids bidders to tell their high bids?

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

ah, JSB, finally another one who thinks that Star Trek is a Marxist world! No one would believe me on this ...
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bernhard

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

It indeed sounds unfair for one Ebay bidder to contact another Ebay bidder about one particular auction.

The word "colusion" (I'm positive it is not spelled that way!) comes to mind.

I'm also pretty sure that the way Star Trek portrays life is WAY more one world than I would like!

Re: I am so mad that I cannot see straight!!!!!!!!

kiessling
I have given up my best friend in the past because he stole. I gave up a girlfiend that cheated on time at work. My best friend had her own brother arrested. I lady deputy I know in Vale arrested her cousin several times even though she cares about him. There are those of us who feel this strongly about something, no matter how close it hits home.

Oh, and that does violate E-Bay rules.