The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[helmuth_hubener]

But not the supply.

Amount = supply. A asteroid off in space does not exist economically right now. It's not doing anything, it's not relevant, it doesn't exist. I spend a lot of money and launch an expedition. I set up camp there and start mining noble metals. Now it exists. I just increased the amount of natural resources at humanity's disposal. I just increased the supply of "land" in the economic sense (land in the economic sense, as we all know, is the "raw natural resources" component, or factor, utilized in the production of goods).

You will never admit this, I know, because that's not your style, nor will you even let slip any clue that you so much as understand me, but I nevertheless believe that by now you do understand my point. And you probably even realize that I'm right. So, that's that.

[MattintheCrown]

Amount = supply. A asteroid off in space does not exist economically right now. It's not doing anything, it's not relevant, it doesn't exist.

It does exist.

I spend a lot of money and launch an expedition. I set up camp there and start mining noble metals. Now it exists.

Obviously, it existed already.

I just increased the amount of natural resources at humanity's disposal. I just increased the supply of "land" in the economic sense (land in the economic sense, as we all know, is the "raw natural resources" component, or factor, utilized in the production of goods).

No, you increased the amount of wealth. The asteroid was already there, ready to use. By mining it, you turned the extracted bits into wealth.

You will never admit this, I know, because that's not your style, nor will you even let slip any clue that you so much as understand me, but I nevertheless believe that by now you do understand my point. And you probably even realize that I'm right. So, that's that.

You should now understand that you're irretrievably wrong.

[Roy L]

Amount = supply.

Bingo.

A asteroid off in space does not exist economically right now. It's not doing anything, it's not relevant, it doesn't exist.

It does exist. You are telling an absurd lie. As I predicted you would.

I spend a lot of money and launch an expedition. I set up camp there and start mining noble metals. Now it exists.

Helmuth, I would never dare to suggest that you are so stupid that you would spend a lot of money and launch an expedition to an asteroid that does not exist, and I won't stand for you saying it, either. You spent that money and launched that expedition precisely because that asteroid DID exist, and you knew it. So please apologize to yourself and retract your claim.

I just increased the amount of natural resources at humanity's disposal.

So now you're not part of humanity...? How could you set up camp and start mining an asteroid that was not at your disposal?

I just increased the supply of "land" in the economic sense (land in the economic sense, as we all know, is the "raw natural resources" component, or factor, utilized in the production of goods).

No, you didn't. Unused land is still land whether it is in the middle of Manhattan or on the fringes of the galaxy. You just started using land that was already there. You know this. You didn't spend that money and fire off that rocket aimed at nothing. To claim that you did is nothing but a lie and an absurdity, which I predicted you would resort to, as you know.

Quit trying to make me look like a prophet.

You will never admit this, I know, because that's not your style, nor will you even let slip any clue that you so much as understand me, but I nevertheless believe that by now you do understand my point. And you probably even realize that I'm right. So, that's that.

ROTFL!! Of course I understand you, Helmuth. I understand you perfectly, in fact much better than you understand yourself. That is very much your problem. YOU need to understand that you don't get to "right" by telling me absurd lies. You should know that by now.

[Roy L]

You omitted the most important part.

No, I didn't, stop lying.

Here's the entire paragraph from that source you accepted:

Which reconfirms what I said.

And if it does not trade for a given amount, it cannot be considered "available to the market", given that it never traded for that amount.

?? Yes, of course it can, don't be stupid.

See how that works?

I see that you are just makin' stupid $#!+ up to waste my time.

We don't have a conflict on the definition of price, Roy. We have a conflict on the definition of SUPPLY, and your misuse of the word. Keep reading.

You do not know what price is, you continue to use the word incorrectly, and you consequently don't know what supply is, either.

We're getting somewhere!

If only!

Your wagon wheels fall off with your misapprehension of supply as it relates to price.

I am correct and you are wrong.

It also explains why you might have left out the complete quote I provided, which comes in very handy, because now we are talking about supply as it relates to price:

You are actually talking about something else. I don't know what, and won't hazard a guess. Your post is starting to look like what Matt suggested: a filibuster.

Supply can relate to the amount available at a specific price or the amount available across a range of prices if displayed on a graph.

And fixed supply means those amounts are the same.

The problem is, where do we plot the supply of something that exists but has never traded for a price, or isn't available for trade at any price? Technically we can't even plot it, because it has never traded, and therefore has yet to have a price established.

We plot it at the amount that exists, because that is the amount that will trade at its price. Claiming it "isn't available for trade at any price" is question begging.

Oops. Remember? That "isn't its price" because it hasn't traded.

Oops, that's what I just told you, oops.

But that does not change the economic definition of supply, and is also where your price trap slams shut on you.

<yawn> Speaking of shutting traps...

Like you said, there is no price until a thing actually trades. Thus, for a thing to be considered "available to the market at a specific price (since we are talking about supply as it relates to economics) - there has to be an actual trade!

Your idea of a "specific price" is incoherent, as the price is specifically what the item trades for, no more, no less.

That's how you know it was "available" to the market at that price.

Garbage. It's available to the market at that price because that is what price MEANS.

So to correct your sentence once again for completeness and accuracy:

I.e., to lie about what I said and the facts of economics...

If a thing is not for sale for some given amount, it just means that isn't its the price at which it is considered available to the market.

No, it just means that's not its price.

Circular reference, and also the source of your misapprehension - your incomplete understanding of supply.

There is nothing circular about it, stop lying, and it is you who do not understand supply.

You can't use the same word to define a word,

I trust it was obvious that by "the supply curve" I didn't mean the drawing on a piece of paper or a computer screen, but the relationship of quantity to price that that drawing represents. Maybe you're not even that clued in, though...

and you can't jump conveniently from a economic definition to a common definition.

I didn't.

The curve itself is nothing but a string of individual "quantity per specific price" points, each with their own meaning as it relates to supply.

I have no idea what you imagine that means, if anything, which I doubt.

You can only pull points off the curve to see what the supply was at a given price.

Would be, not was.

You can't take an entire supply curve and extrapolate a "supply" meaning that simply isn't there, because for each SPECIFIC PRICE point the QUANTITY SUPPLIED answer will be different!

Unless supply is fixed, as the supply of land is.

That's what I meant when I said "collectivized" reasoning. You're trying to collectivize a curve into a single answer, which is absolutely meaningless.

Huh?

Saying "the supply curve IS supply" is like saying "the speedometer IS the speed", or "the voltmeter IS volts!"

Nonsense. The supply curve does not measure supply, it describes supply.

Some more reading for you:

I guess you missed this bit:

"supply represents the entire relationship between the quantity available for sale and all possible prices charged for that good."

So just as supply is not the number of an item a shopkeeper has on the shelf, it is also not the amount of land, total or parceled, Earth has on its shelf.

Yes, it is, because unlike the number of boots or oranges a store has on its shelf, the supply of land earth has on its shelf is fixed. Read the damned sentence you so unwisely just told me to read, from YOUR OWN SOURCE:

"Supply is not simply the number of an item a shopkeeper has on the shelf, such as '5 oranges' or '17 pairs of boots', because supply represents the entire relationship between the quantity available for sale and all possible prices charged for that good.

You cannot even discuss supply of a thing in economic terms except in terms of its relation to a specific given price -- the amount a thing actually trades for -- which then establishes the "quantity supplied".

Wrong. Discussions of supply are typically all about hypothetical prices.

Absolutely incorrect. Land is parceled, and different parcels trade for different amounts (read=are supplied at a given price) at different times.

LOL! You could with equal "logic" claim that the supply of paintings by dead artists is not fixed (vertical supply curve) because different ones sell for different prices at different times.

Some land never trades at all. You can say "that's not its price", but that's silly, because price, by economic definition, requires a trade.

So, why would it be "silly" to remind you of that fact?

Oh. Right.

Gibberish - which is understandable, given your utter lack of understanding of the economic concept of supply, which is to say amount available to the market and its dependent relationship on price (what it actually trades for).

<sigh> The amount of land available to the market is NOT dependent on price. The amount of land that trades for its price is the same no matter what that price is. That is very much the point.

Incorrect in the absolute.

It is definitely correct, and in fact true by definition.

a) Supply is defined as "quantity made available to the market at a specific price".

Or the relationship of quantity to price over all prices.

Hence, b) Supply is a dependent relationship between the quantity of a thing AT the price it actually trades for.

Cannot parse.

c) Omit price and you are no longer talking about the economic definition of supply.

Wrong. The supply curve describes a relationship over all prices, not just one price.

d) Like you said, price is not established until a trade actually occurs. Ergo,
e) The "quantity made available to the market" (supply, or quantity supplied), which is completely dependent on price, is also not established until a trade actually occurs.

Garbage. The quantity is NOT completely -- or in any way -- dependent on price when supply is fixed, and it is indisputably self-contradictory to claim that an item is not available to the market until it actually trades. How could it trade if it was not available to the market? You have again descended into absurdity, striving mightily to make me look like a prophet.

Are you getting it yet?

If by "it" you mean "incredulous," yes.

Since price is dependent on an event that occurs in real time, real market supply is nothing but an historical snapshot in time based on actual transactions - a quantity traded at a given price. If it wasn't traded at a given price, it cannot appear as "quantity supplied" at that price.

As proved above, an item does not have to trade to be available to the market, and therefore part of supply.

And that's where you went off the deep end, because the economic definition of supply is inextricably linked to and wholly DEPENDENT on price (which is, as you correctly pointed out, dependent on an actual trade).

How can an actual trade occur if the item is not already available to the market?

<crickets>

So it price is not just "not irrelevant" - it is absolutely dependent, and has nothing to do with whether it is produced by anyone or not. Land, like fixed quantities of works of dead artists, is no exception to the supply rule. That's another huge source of your misapprehension (love that word).

More garbage. Works of dead artists are a canonical example of fixed supply.

The "supply" of these widgets available to the market is based on the amount that I actually trade them for at a given price (the actual economic definition of supply). And I have FULL control how much I choose to make available for supply at any specific price level. That has nothing to do with whether or not I produced them,

That's clearly false. If you weren't producing them, you'd have no control.

or whether that price level (my willingness to offer it for sale at that amount) will be established as the actual price based on a transaction.

Incoherent.

Your biggest problem with understanding this as it relates to land is that while you may argue that land may not be produced (cannot be considered a factor of production),

<sigh> Wrong. Land is the factor of production that by definition is not produced.

you cannot argue that it is immune to the laws of supply and demand, or the economic definition of supply -- else there could be no LVT to even propose.

<yawn> Those "laws of supply and demand" are presumably the same ones that resurrected Michelangelo from the dead and made him produce more paintings and sculptures...

The "supply" of land, economically speaking, is not fixed because the economic definition of supply is absolutely dependent on quantity at a given price -- the actual quantity of land that actually trades for a specific price at a given point in time.

How much land trades at its price? Is that amount altered by how much the price is?

Show me an economist who thinks that land (or any scarce, finite resource) has a different economic definition when it comes to supply.

It's the elasticity that is different, not the definition.

Show me one who thinks the supply of original works by dead artists is not fixed.

Thought not.

[Steven Douglas]

Any other NATURAL resource, which is fixed in supply and therefore has a vertical supply curve.

Roy, you don't know what price is as it relates to supply, because you confuse two different uses of the word (the ASK price vs. actual market price).

You also don't understand supply, or "available to the market" is it relates to a seller's willingness to make a given quantity available to the market at a given price. You argue that "price" is only established after a trade has been made, and I tried to go along with that in order to make a point, but it's actually wrong. That's the market price only, which does NOT control the ASK price, which is the only thing used to to determine supply on a supply curve.

Here's a chart, a simplified version of a more general figure representing a comprehensive ABM market model described elsewhere (Filatova, Parker et al. 2007; Filatova , van der Veen et al. 2007; Parker and Filatova 2008)) that illustrates this, including the supply/price relationship in economics:



Note how the actual market price of land is differentiated from the Ask price in the Ask formation. The "actual land price" or "market price" is to the right of SUPPLY SIDE. This is determined by actual transactions (i.e., when Bid=Ask ---> MARKET TRANSACTION). This market price (established, and always in the past) is no longer part of the supply, but only serves as informational feedback that helps both sellers and buyers in their future "Ask price formation" and "Bid price formation", respectively. But in a free market neither are bound by it, which is why market price (past) does not control supply or demand (present) which, when consummated as future transactions, determine future market price.

The DEMAND SIDE and SUPPLY SIDE (Bid/Ask formation) occur BEFORE market price is established, and as separate entities, which come together during the PRICE NEGOTIATION PROCESS. Because the market price is determined by supply and demand, and not the other way around, there is lineage that leads back to an original transaction - for which a market price had yet to be established. Thus, no chicken/egg paradox exists for supply, because the FIRST SUPPLY of a thing does not require a market price. Only an Ask price.

The market price (as historical information) is often used by buyers and sellers in their respective Bid/Ask formation, but as decision making feedbacks only. It DOES NOT determine or control them, and is NOT, therefore, a controlling factor on supply or demand. Only buyers control the demand side (willingness to buy a specific quantity at a specific bid price), just as only sellers control the supply side (willingness to sell a specific quantity at a specific ask price).

Again, from that same source: (which shows the word "prices" in "ask" and "bid" context)





Supply is neither defined as nor controlled by what HAS BEEN made available for purchase in the past. It is constrained to the quantity that is NOW made available by sellers for FUTURE purchase at a given minimum ask price.

Ask Price determines supply, not Market Price.

Thus, if a seller has 10 acres of land divided into ten 1 acre parcels, that seller can decide which of these parcels he is willing to make available to the market at a given price. The seller may even FIX that supply as a function of quantity (area) made available for a given price over a specified time (the seller's supply schedule). That's the supply of that land made available to the market, which has nothing to do with market price, the total quantity, or even whether any of it actually trades.

A little more reading for you, to help you understand: (emphasis mine)

The quantity of land, in terms of geographic area, are fixed. But that does not necessarily mean that the number of tracts or acres to be offered for sale on the market will not vary with price of land or that changes in relative product prices will not encourage changes in products.

In the market-schedule sense the definition of supply of land follows that of other economic goods; the supply schedule refers to the relation between prices and the quantities (area) that owners are willing to sell. The supply price is the seller's minimum asking price.

I can see why it's important for you to remove the seller's decision making power and its role in supply as it relates to land, and why you would attempt to change well-established economics theory to make "market price" rather than "ask price" the determinant for supply. After all, if "supply" indeed equals the total quantity in existence, you can then claim that the supply itself fixed. But that is not reality, not the truth, and certainly not established economic theory as it relates to supply and demand.

You want to think of supply in terms of production only, such that anything rare, already in existence and non-reproducible as a factor of production as somehow ALL "available to the market" and therefore "fixed supply", on the basis that it exists in the aggregate in fixed quantity, which can then be placed somewhere on a supply curve. You erred in trying to a) make supply a function of the market price, not ask price, and b) assume that the seller's willingness to sell is only a matter of price, and c) ignore the fact that only a seller is in a position to create a supply curve in the first place! I tried accommodate your misapprehension in all of this by ignoring a and c, and saying that this could be true so long as you make the ask price range somewhere from ZERO to INFINITY. Then it could technically include all possibilities.

Infinity could be used to technically account for anything that that a seller is NOT willing to make available at any price (NO ASK EXISTS, NO BID WOULD BE ACCEPTED). You could plot that as INFINITY on the supply curve, because whatever a seller is NOT WILLING TO MAKE AVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE is, by definition, "priceless", and not available to the market, and therefore not normally counted as "supply". By referring to it as infinity, it's only a question of time, theoretically, before the possibility of that number coming down to some lower point on the supply curve. But that doesn't mean it's "available to the market", or that this could become the actual market price for that particular quantity, because it is impossible for anyone on the demand side to Bid infinity. But at least you could sneak it onto the supply curve.

How much land trades at its price? Is that amount altered by how much the price is?

You're talking "market price", and therefore history - not actual supply, as defined as the quantity now made available at a given ask price, for which a future market price has yet to be established.

Show me one who thinks the supply of original works by dead artists is not fixed.

Pretty much most economists, including those cited in this post, given that they understand the difference between a quantity in existence and actual supply as it relates to a willingness to sell a portion of that quantity in existence at a given price at a given time.

[Roy L]

Roy, you don't know what price is as it relates to supply, because you confuse two different uses of the word (the ASK price vs. actual market price).

You also don't understand supply, or "available to the market" is it relates to a seller's willingness to make a given quantity available to the market at a given price. You argue that "price" is only established after a trade has been made, and I tried to go along with that in order to make a point, but it's actually wrong. That's the market price only, which does NOT control the ASK price, which is the only thing used to to determine supply on a supply curve.

You don't know any economics, Steven. None.

Here's a chart, a simplified version of a more general figure representing a comprehensive ABM market model described elsewhere (Filatova, Parker et al. 2007; Filatova , van der Veen et al. 2007; Parker and Filatova 2008)) that illustrates this, including the supply/price relationship in economics:



Note how the actual market price of land is differentiated from the Ask price in the Ask formation. The "actual land price" or "market price" is to the right of SUPPLY SIDE. This is determined by actual transactions (i.e., when Bid=Ask ---> MARKET TRANSACTION). This market price (established, and always in the past) is no longer part of the supply, but only serves as informational feedback that helps both sellers and buyers in their future "Ask price formation" and "Bid price formation", respectively. But in a free market neither are bound by it, which is why market price (past) does not control supply or demand (present) which, when consummated as future transactions, determine future market price.

The DEMAND SIDE and SUPPLY SIDE (Bid/Ask formation) occur BEFORE market price is established, and as separate entities, which come together during the PRICE NEGOTIATION PROCESS. Because the market price is determined by supply and demand, and not the other way around, there is lineage that leads back to an original transaction - for which a market price had yet to be established. Thus, no chicken/egg paradox exists for supply, because the FIRST SUPPLY of a thing does not require a market price. Only an Ask price.

The market price (as historical information) is often used by buyers and sellers in their respective Bid/Ask formation, but as decision making feedbacks only. It DOES NOT determine or control them, and is NOT, therefore, a controlling factor on supply or demand. Only buyers control the demand side (willingness to buy a specific quantity at a specific bid price), just as only sellers control the supply side (willingness to sell a specific quantity at a specific ask price).

Again, from that same source: (which shows the word "prices" in "ask" and "bid" context)



Supply is neither defined as nor controlled by what HAS BEEN made available for purchase in the past. It is constrained to the quantity that is NOW made available by sellers for FUTURE purchase at a given minimum ask price.

Ask Price determines supply, not Market Price.

Thus, if a seller has 10 acres of land divided into ten 1 acre parcels, that seller can decide which of these parcels he is willing to make available to the market at a given price. The seller may even FIX that supply as a function of quantity (area) made available for a given price over a specified time (the seller's supply schedule). That's the supply of that land made available to the market, which has nothing to do with market price, the total quantity, or even whether any of it actually trades.

A little more reading for you, to help you understand: (emphasis mine)

I can see why it's important for you to remove the seller's decision making power and its role in supply as it relates to land, and why you would attempt to change well-established economics theory to make "market price" rather than "ask price" the determinant for supply. After all, if "supply" indeed equals the total quantity in existence, you can then claim that the supply itself fixed. But that is not reality, not the truth, and certainly not established economic theory as it relates to supply and demand.

You want to think of supply in terms of production only, such that anything rare, already in existence and non-reproducible as a factor of production as somehow ALL "available to the market" and therefore "fixed supply", on the basis that it exists in the aggregate in fixed quantity, which can then be placed somewhere on a supply curve. You erred in trying to a) make supply a function of the market price, not ask price, and b) assume that the seller's willingness to sell is only a matter of price, and c) ignore the fact that only a seller is in a position to create a supply curve in the first place! I tried accommodate your misapprehension in all of this by ignoring a and c, and saying that this could be true so long as you make the ask price range somewhere from ZERO to INFINITY. Then it could technically include all possibilities.

Infinity could be used to technically account for anything that that a seller is NOT willing to make available at any price (NO ASK EXISTS, NO BID WOULD BE ACCEPTED). You could plot that as INFINITY on the supply curve, because whatever a seller is NOT WILLING TO MAKE AVAILABLE AT ANY PRICE is, by definition, "priceless", and not available to the market, and therefore not normally counted as "supply". By referring to it as infinity, it's only a question of time, theoretically, before the possibility of that number coming down to some lower point on the supply curve. But that doesn't mean it's "available to the market", or that this could become the actual market price for that particular quantity, because it is impossible for anyone on the demand side to Bid infinity. But at least you could sneak it onto the supply curve.
You're talking "market price", and therefore history - not actual supply, as defined as the quantity now made available at a given ask price, for which a future market price has yet to be established.

I refute your stupid, dishonest, irrelevant garbage, and you just post more garbage that is even more stupid, dishonest, and irrelevant. There is no point to it, and I think I had better stop before you create a singularity of stupid, dishonest, irrelevant garbage that swallows the earth.

Pretty much most economists, including those cited in this post, given that they understand the difference between a quantity in existence and actual supply as it relates to a willingness to sell a portion of that quantity in existence at a given price at a given time.

You're lying. None of them has said the supply of dead artists' original works is not fixed, and you know it.

It gives me no pleasure to make apologists for landowner privilege resort to lies and absurdities. It is a loathsome reminder of how far humanity has fallen, and how Sisyphean is my task to raise it up to liberty, justice and prosperity against its will.

[Steven Douglas]

You don't know any economics, Steven. None.

Well forget what I said, then. Are you claiming that Virgil L. Hurlburt and the other economists I quoted and cited don't "know any economics"? You could at least respond to what they wrote, which I thought contradicted your own assertions, or tell me why it is that they "don't know any economics".

I refute your stupid, dishonest, irrelevant garbage, and you just post more garbage that is even more stupid, dishonest, and irrelevant. There is no point to it, and I think I had better stop before you create a singularity of stupid, dishonest, irrelevant garbage that swallows the earth.

That's it? Those non-specific blanket moral denouncements are your refutation? No argument, no citations, no sources that actually refute what I quoted, cited and argued, to prove that I'm wrong?

You're lying. None of them has said the supply of dead artists' original works is not fixed, and you know it.

How about I throw you a bone, then, and show you where someone specifically claims that it is fixed. He gets part of it partially right...then goes terribly wrong, as he agrees with my premise, but also yours in a way that is contradictory (as will be logically refuted and proved with actual arguments and reason, without resorting to moralizing screed):

Excerpted from: http://www.pitt.edu/~mgahagan/Defini...yandDemand.pdf

What does the supply curve show? It shows the lowest price at which producers are willing to sell.

Note how the author omits a vitally important criterion of supply as defined and commonly understood in economics.

"...the lowest price at which producers are willing to sell..." is incomplete. It should read: "...the lowest price at which producers are willing to sell [a given quantity of a thing]."

How is it that he could fail to mention such a critical factor as specific or given quantity in determining supply?

Note also how the author prefers to use the narrower, more constrained "producers" rather than "sellers". Why constrain it to producers, who are nothing but a subset of all-encompassing "sellers" to which that statement equally applies, and has always applied? Either he is referring to all sellers as producers, or else he is deliberately narrowing the statement as one that happens to apply to producers. Whatever the case, it doesn't matter. We can substitute sellers in place of producers and the statement will be just as true as it has always been, and has always been understood by most economists:

What does the supply curve show? It shows the lowest price at which [sellers] are willing to sell [a given quantity of a thing].

Which, of course, is nothing but a tautology for "the quantity of a thing a seller is willing to make available to the market at a given price" (ask price, not market price).

Now, here's where the author agrees with your assertion completely...while getting it completely wrong:

You may also see vertical supply curves: the supply of Rembrandt paintings is fixed, so an increase in price will
not increase the quantity of Rembrandt paintings supplied.

This can only be true if you accept his prior (incomplete) sentence about the supply curve, which omitted the all-important "a given quantity" requirement, while also ignoring the explicit "willingness to sell" requirement. The author forgets that supply is not defined as a total quantity in itself, but is already well defined in economics as "the quantity of a thing a seller is willing to make available to the market at a given price".

Remember again what Hurlburt wrote, which is an indisputable fact of objective reality:

The quantity of land, in terms of geographic area, are fixed. But that does not necessarily mean that the number of tracts or acres to be offered for sale on the market will not vary with price of land... - Virgil L. Hurlburt

There is also the issue of the producer/seller question that was begged. Is the owner/seller of a rare work from a dead artist also considered a "producer"? Again, it makes absolutely no difference. Yes or no, such a distinction is not a requirement for how supply is determined. If the seller is not a producer, he is definitely a seller, for which the economic definition of supply applies equally, and at all times.

Take the case of art originally produced by a now-dead artist, the only three works in existence of which are owned by a single individual. The "supply" is not the total quantity of those works - the supply is the quantity [of those works] a seller is willing to make available to the market at a given price. That particular quantity (as defined as economic supply) is neither fixed nor is it dependent on whether any trade occurs. So let's stipulate the following about this particular supply, as determined at all times in a free market by the seller:

Work #1 OR #2: $2,000 each (ASK)
Works #1 AND #2: $3,800 (ASK)
Work #3: PRICELESS (NO ASK - off the market, while expressly stating that no ask will be issued, no bid accepted)

In this case only two of the three works can be counted as "supply" available (made available by the seller's willingness to sell those particular quantities at those specific prices). Whatever they actually might (or do) trade for later is IRRELEVANT to supply, because supply isn't based on past trades or successful transactions, but only the quantity made available for sale now by a seller at a specific price. The supply, and the supply curve, therefore, is completely within the owner/seller's control, and anything but fixed (unless the seller chooses to fix it).

Now you could come back and say, as you have in the past, "That's just not its price." - referring to "market price" of course. Big deal. We're talking about supply, which doesn't require and isn't controlled by market price.

You can always come back with a different offer (YOUR BID) to see if you can INFLUENCE SUPPLY, which is a possibility. You decide you want all three works, and you're willing to pay $10,000 for the entire lot. He rejects your bid, and so far the third work is not available at your BID price. You plead with the buyer to give you an ASK price to work with. That would certainly make that particular quantity available at that particular price, which you could then plot on the supply curve. But he refuses. He's not negotiating. Until the buyer actually indicates or agrees to a minimum price at which he will make THAT PARTICULAR QUANTITY available, it is NOT COUNTED AS SUPPLY - or "AVAILABLE TO THE MARKET".

And that is thanks entirely to property rights, which empowers and benefits both the supply and demand sides, both of which have ultimate power over the specific quantity of a thing they are willing to exchange for a specific quantity of another thing.

It gives me no pleasure to make apologists for landowner privilege resort to lies and absurdities. It is a loathsome reminder of how far humanity has fallen, and how Sisyphean is my task to raise it up to liberty, justice and prosperity against its will.

Well, your last post went completely away from all reason, logic and actual arguments as refutations.

I take that on face value, Roy.


EDIT: ROFL! Wow, it just now occurred to me what you wrote:

"...my task [is] to raise [humanity] up to liberty, justice and prosperity against its will."

[helmuth_hubener]

"...my task [is] to raise [humanity] up to liberty, justice and prosperity against its will."

He shall save the world from itself and usher in the Millennium. There was the Age of the Father, that was the Old Testament, there was the Age of the Son, that was the New Testament, but now we are living in the third age, the Age of the Holy Spirit, and the Incarnation of this age is Mr. L. If only we would listen to its mechanical voice in the wilderness, forever tracing out its infinite loop in the desert sands, ever-faithful, just as it was programmed to do.

[MattintheCrown]

So, Steven, are you basically now arguing that nothing can be fixed in supply? You could have saved a lot of words and just said that.


But, then the manifest absurdity of your position would be kinda unavoidable. So maybe the filibuster approach was the right tack.

[MattintheCrown]

EDIT: ROFL! Wow, it just now occurred to me what you wrote:

"...my task [is] to raise [humanity] up to liberty, justice and prosperity against its will."

Show me a wrong, no matter how monstrous, that ever yet, among any people, became ingrafted in the social system, and I will prove to you the truth of what I say.

The majority of men do not think; the majority of men have to expend so much energy in the struggle to make a living that they do not have time to think. The majority of men accept, as a matter of course, whatever is. This is what makes the task of the social reformer so difficult, his path so hard. This is what brings upon those who first raise their voices in behalf of a great truth the sneers of the powerful and the curses of the rabble, ostracism and martyrdom, the robe of derision and the crown of thorns.

Am I not right? Have there not been states of society in which piracy has been considered the most respectable and honorable of pursuits? Did the Roman populace see anything more reprehensible in a gladiatorial show than we do in a horse-race? Does public opinion in Dahomey see anything reprehensible in the custom of sacrificing a thousand or two human beings by way of signalizing grand occasions? Are there not states of society in which, in spite of the natural proportions of the sexes, polygamy is considered a matter of course? Are there not states of society in which it would be considered the most ridiculous thing in the world to say that a man's son was more closely related to him than his nephew? Are there not states of society in which it would be considered disreputable for a man to carry a burden while a woman who could stagger under it was around? – states of society in which the husband who did not occasionally beat his wife would be deemed by both sexes a weak-minded, low-spirited fellow? What would Chinese fashionable society consider more outrageous than to be told that mothers should not be permitted to squeeze their daughters' feet, or Flathead women than being restrained from tying a board on their infants' skulls? How long has it been since the monstrous doctrine of the divine right of kings was taught through all Christendom?

What is the slave-trade but piracy of the worst kind? Yet it is not long since the slave-trade was looked upon as a perfectly respectable business, affording as legitimate an opening for the investment of capital and the display of enterprise as any other. The proposition to prohibit it was first looked upon as ridiculous, then as fanatical, then as wicked. It was only slowly and by hard fighting that the truth in regard to it gained ground. Does not our very Constitution bear witness to what I say? Does not the fundamental law of the nation, adopted twelve years after the enunciation of the Declaration of Independence, declare that for twenty years the slave-trade shall not be prohibited nor restricted? Such dominion had the idea of vested interests over the minds of those who had already proclaimed the inalienable right of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!

The sad fact is, even potential beneficiaries of social reforms will generally fight them, kicking and screaming all the way. People fear change, and they tend to think within the confines of what they're familiar with.