51–60 of 90 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they're evil unless the taxpayers happen to be bankrolling their downside.
> I don't think they're evil unless the taxpayers happen to be bankrolling their downside. The taxpayers made that decision, so it's unclear why you think that the recipients are evil. I think that the taxpayers made the wrong decision, but ....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ebay flippers allow MSFT / Nintendo / PS3 to charge $1000 on launch day so that demand == supply The only winner here is the scalper though. The customer Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are put in a lose/lose position. The scalpers have the highest profit margin while the real fans who buy the extra games have $500+ less to support the companies that are bringing real value to the market.
The only winner here is the scalper though. Even if true, we only say that after the fact when all the risk in the trade is gone and the profits banked. The trade could have gone badly and wasted the scalpers' time and money. If I remember correctly, there WAS a console flip fiasco in Boston (PS3 I think), where the scalpers who waited in line all night didn't wind up profiting. Edit: first link I found, probably man…
In the example you just pointed out, Sony just lost market share from that because the scalpers took those consoles away from legitimate gamers who may have even switched to the wii or xbox.
And since we all know that the profit is mostly from the games, not the console, this was a lose/lose situation for Sony, the consumer, and in this case, the scalper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but as much as we HATE those guys who line up for the first Xbox360 / Wii / Playstaion 3 trying for the ebay flip, they are technically not doing evil. The ebay flippers allow MSFT / Nintendo / PS3 to charge $1000 on launch day so that demand == supply, but the game companies won't do it for social / PR reasons.
The ebay flippers allow MSFT / Nintendo / PS3 to charge $1000 on launch day so that demand == supply The only winner here is the scalper though. The customer Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are put in a lose/lose position. The scalpers have the highest profit margin while the real fans who buy the extra games have $500+ less to support the companies that are bringing real value to the market.
You have to think of the value people assign to their time. The console flipper simply converts the price of the console from ($300 + 10 hours) to ($500). Think of it as the ultimate owner hiring the person to wait in line for $20/hr.
Sure they're making money particularly from being smart, but would someone be able to explain to me how making money from money contributes to something worthwhile to society? Is it just that they're being that much quicker in smoothing out prices of stuff on the stock market? I'm not being snarky, would just like to know. Another slightly different topic: the trend during the Bush boom years is that the so-called 's…
They used to have this graph that showed the DOW never lost money in any ten year period. It wasn't adjusted for inflation, do that, and you'll hear a giant sucking sound. 401K chumps don't stand a chance of beating inflation, they're sole purpose in life is to add volume to the markets so the skimmers, who add far less value than they take, have someone to fleece.
It's white collar crime: if you can pay off some legislators and capture a couple regulatory agencies, then it's almost legal, though it's far from moral.
Joe 401K should seriously consider keeping his retirement money closer to home where the electronic thieves can't get their hands on it. Let the hedge funds make the long investments. I know corporations need to issue stock in order to grow, but the hedge funds just sit in between the investors and the corporations and manipulate the market.
Sure they're making money particularly from being smart, but would someone be able to explain to me how making money from money contributes to something worthwhile to society? Is it just that they're being that much quicker in smoothing out prices of stuff on the stock market? I'm not being snarky, would just like to know. Another slightly different topic: the trend during the Bush boom years is that the so-called 's…
The hedge funds and the Goldman Sachs of the world (as if there is more than one GS), are profiting at the hand of institutional investors, you know, the folks that don't get pensions any more, but instead have some 401K pitchman come into their office and tell them how to plan for retirement. They used to have this graph that showed the DOW never lost money in any ten year period. It wasn't adjusted for inflation, d…
Joe 401k doesn't have much choice in the matter; the tax system leads him in by the nose.
Here in the UK, the housing bubble was largely caused by individuals looking for a viable asset class for their retirement. The stock market was out due to a combination of poor returns and Gordon Brown's tax raids on the pension funds. So we see when regulators meddle too much, lots of honest individuals making the correct decision for their own and their own family's future leads to negative effects on the economy as a whole.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty well documented that value investing in general will beat the market over the long term. See: The Super Investors of Graham and Doddsville http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Superinvestors_of_Graham-an... How the Small Investor Beats the Market by Greenblatt, Pzena, Newberg (Journal of Portfolio Management, 1981) More recently, James Montier has released research at Societe Generale reflecting the fact that…
The average mutual fund will not beat the market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only winner here is the scalper though. The customer Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are put in a lose/lose position. The customer has a choice on whether or not it's worth the purchase. To the customer who values the item (Wii/Sporting Event/whatever) over the (inflated) cost, it is a net gain, not a loss. To the person who doesn't value it above the asking price, they don't have to pay, and they don't have to get…
The customer has a choice on whether or not it's worth the purchase. To the customer who values the item (Wii/Sporting Event/whatever) over the (inflated) cost, it is a net gain, not a loss. That is too short sighted of an analysis. Too much value is being lost by unnecessary overhead. Have you noticed how overhead is something to be eliminated by every company except the middleman's themselves? With your reasoning,…
Most of the people who bought houses are also scalpers; they bought a house in the hopes that it would be worth more later. "Real estate never goes down!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
scalper can buy all the tickets to a popular game and sell them all at 10x the price How is this a problem, especially one requiring regulation? Nothing has changed from your original formulation, except apparently that he's now making 'too much money.'
Scalpers often have the time, money and incentive to build automated systems which hammer ticket services to buy up tickets which otherwise would have been sold directly to people attending an event. Whenever you hear about a concert or sporting event selling out within a ridiculously short period of time (sometimes 30 seconds after online sales open), it's because of this, and represents the creation of inefficiency…
represents the creation of inefficiency rather than the remedying of it.
With scalpers, the venue venue has their risk removed (they lock in their sales early), and the scalpers increase liquidity by removing the venue's monopoly power over pricing the event. And price discover is better.
Now either the consumers are able to buy the tickets from the scalpers in a competitive market (and often with increased convenience), or the scalper can destroy the tickets and nobody can turn up the the event. They generally won't - that's irrational. Even if they did - it's not an ineficiency for the purpose of the original marketplace. In fact, it creates opportunity for extra production: the venue can arrange a late-entry-for-unfilled-spot policy which allows them to get people in and sell some tickets twice.
Or the venue can detect scalpers and create a dynamic price market of their own and maximise their volumes.
In the situation where multiple scalpers get the tickets and plan to sell them, there has been a massive gain in efficiency. The scalpers have removed the venue's monopoly power over ticket prices and created a second market place which will have more effective price discovery.
Either way, the event provider is focussing on what they're good at, and the scalpers at what they're good at.
Scalping is entreprenerial in spirit and good for the system in practice.