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Ban On Price Floors Abandoned, Internet Prices May Rise
paro12 and i_like_spam informed us of a 5-4 decision by the US Supreme Court which abandons a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting price floors for products. The Slashdot community discussed the issue when the case was argued back in March. The ruling means that anti-competitive complaints based on price-fixing will have to be argued case-by-case and will be harder to prove. Discounts and discounters in all venues may be under pressure, with internet sales possibly the hardest hit. "Importantly, this case points a dagger at the heart of the most consumer-friendly aspects of the Internet. The Internet has shifted power to the consumer in two ways. First, it allows consumers to search for and gather information in a cost-effective, efficient manner. Second, it provides a low-cost means of retailing, making it easy for discounters to offer products to the public. This combination squeezes excess profits and inefficiencies out of product prices. Retail price maintenance seeks to short circuit this extremely consumer friendly process. By setting minimum prices, manufacturers can build in excess margins for themselves and for their favored retailers -- prices that consumers have no choice but to pay."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Oh well, MS and other huge multis, must have paid huge fees to get this one to pass, essentially turning the USA into a fascist corporacy. This may sound alarmist, but that is exactly the way things worked in fascist dicatorships.
Why is this tagged slownewsday? Is this not something that will in theory affect all internet shoppers?
How did this get tagged slownewsday *before* there were any comments? Are Slashdot now selling tags to partisan groups? If so I wish to buy a large supply of 'thistagisnotatag' tags. Not for any real reason, I just like to confuse people.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Am I the only one who's alarmed by the fact that the one government institution that has generally made sense my whole life is now controlled by a conservative majority that I have very little in common with?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Most of the price-fixed stuff like this is crap you don't need anyway, like movies and music (especially music!)
All they're really going to accomplish is to end up devaluing their merchandise, because it will be harder to get rid of excess stock.
Ultimately you DO have a choice, except when purchasing necessity goods from monopolies - and again, that is typically not the purpose of a price floor. Usually it's for crap goods, which are from monopolies (artificial ones) but which you don't need anyway.
You do have a choice: if it's too expensive, don't buy it! And if you want to see the price come down, send a letter (preferrably a handwritten one, unless your writing is illegible) explaining why you didn't buy it, and why you bought their competitor's product.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yet another case of fraud for profit- and I'm sure the libertarians are all for this particular deregulation. It's frauds like these that continue to validate my choice of being against any economic system larger than a small town- at least in the small town, if a product endangers your child, you've got the ability to track down the manufacturer and shoot him.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I thought companies like Apple or Palm already did this - an iPod shuffle is $79 everywhere for example.
Could somebody elaborate?
So, how did this article get tagged "slownewsday" even before any comments showed up? Does that autoload with kdawson now?
I hope this isn't the end of low prices on ebay. Where else can you buy a cell phone charger or USB cable for $2 shipped?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
There's always a choice to not buy. No firearms are being directed at heads.
This will only effect retailers in the US right? If price floors are still illegal elsewhere, consumers could still tell they were being gouged and be able to purchase offshore.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
Price fixing is illegal. These people should crack open a law book.
I still haven't upgraded the 512mb of ram in my Macbook. I guess this ruling will allow the memory manufacturers to go back to price gauging. To rephrase my previous comment with a more interesting euphemism; The ruling implies that I'll be sticking with 512mb of ram...
two things come immediately to my mind. the first is that bit there about "prices customers have no choice but to pay" I guess that is true if somebody is selling air or something - and there are no others selling it, but otherwise, that language is completely over blown. customers can choose not to buy it and then either it will go away or the price will come down.
second - this ruling seems to allow for more judgment - so that if there is no reason to view that there have been anticompetitive practices, then there is no reason not to let it slide. I think that is good. There should be leeway for reason. Look at what a mess has come from mandatory sentencing. People should be able to look at a situation and let what happens fit a reasonable view of the circumstances - not some inflexible letter of the law approach.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
...all this pro-business, ultra-conservative ruling is quickly eroding the American way as we know it.
"In the interests of free speech" large companies can buy campaign ads on behalf of a candidate of their choice, and immediately after that, a boy can't hold up a sign that he thinks is humorous simply because there's a potentially underlying endorsement of illegal drug culture? "Free speech as long as it's morally approved" isn't free speech.
As if we aren't there already, but things have really gone wrong when you have to be afraid of your own thoughts. And when one group of people feel the need to control the thoughts of another group of people, guess which group of people ACTUALLY has a problem.
That the U.S. used to be a liberal democracy. Hell, some people told me that they invented the first workable one. When large and powerfull groups get to set most policy regardless of the negative aspects of it to the general population, then I wonder if it can still be called a democracy.
At least not in spirit, I'd say. Because if the basic block of democracy is the representatives of the people that are elected by vote, and if not the majority, but a minority ends setting policy, then the setting of policy is not a democratic process.
If we consider that the "groups" Im talking about here, are a very easyly identifiable elite, then the correct name would be a plutocracy. Perhaps not in the whole extent of the term, but at least in small instances of important decitions that will affect not only americans, but the rest of the world as well.
So countries like mine, that are not really a democracy -weve never been one and we are not one now- but that have searched to mimic some of the better proceses of the american liberal democracy will be turned into plutocracies -just like the U.S.- even before we started.
That and of course, the fact that the world is comming finally to an end, makes my day. We all head to a dark future and Gibson, Sterling and Stephenson really didnt get gory enough: it will be much worse.
NO SIG
It doesn't really matter. Retail price maintenance was an issue when manufacturers were big and retailers were little. Today, it's the other way round. Wal-Mart can dictate prices to manufacturers.
Might matter for some luxury goods, like the iPhone, but that's about it.
The argument against the ruling is:
If the rest of the world can't compete with the low end seller, they SHOULD get out of the business. Otherwise we leave crappy, foolish business men in charge and surprise surprise, we can't compete with China's low prices. Of course we can't, we let idiots that have no idea how to run a low priced business run our corporations.
Me, I am against the ruling. There is no reason ever to have a price floor. If you can't compete with Walmart, then find another business.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
prices that consumers have no choice but to pay
Unless someone has suddenly drafted a law to force us to buy things, I always have the choice to NOT BUY something. How is that not a choice? A producer wants to set a price floor? Fine by me, he can sit there with his "floor" stacked full of goods that no-one will buy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"....prices that consumers have no choice but to pay...."
No choice but to pay? No way! We also have a choice NOT TO PAY! Unless you can't SURVIVE without a video card, then you do have a choice. And because we have a choice, we can start a massive boycott. But because we lack the organizational skills of ants, WE LOSE.
The truth is, price floors are almost meaningless in a world in which Walmart can break any manufacturer's back. I'm sure that every person holding shares of INTC and AMD wish their companies knew how the hell to implement a price floor.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
There's an argument that this is actually PRO-consumer since it makes it possible for businesses to compete on the basis of quality and service instead of being forced to compete on price alone. Price-only competition is surprisingly corrosive since there really is no middle ground on many things -- even if you're willing to pay a 50% markup for quality (and it really is cheaper to pay 50% more if the product lasts twice as long) there's not enough other people to make it economically viable in most cases. Look at t-shirts. You have really cheap junk at Walmart, shirts from other stores that can't charge much more than Walmart so their quality has also suffered, and the $100 designer shirts. No middle ground with good fabric but no handstitching.
I'm not sure I buy this argument, no pun intended, but the race to the bottom has got to stop. I know it's in Walmart's interest that I need to buy a new tv every two years, but it's not in mine.
(Sidenote: I've never entered Walmart/Sam's Club due to this policy and the way they mistreat their employees. Costco, baby, Costco!)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Since the "party" lines would dictate 7-2 splits instead of merely 5-4 splits.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you RTFA, this is from a case about small leather goods. American companies can start charging whatever inflated minimum prices they want -- it's just going to translate into more sales for the Chinese counterfeits. America is doing a great job of putting itself out of business.
"[Justice Kennedy] Vertical agreements establishing minimum resale prices can have either pro-competitive or anticompetitive effects, depending upon the circumstances in which they are formed."
Yeah. And take a guess which circumstance companies will do their best to arrange.
The religious conservatives have made a deal with the corporate devils to get abortion rulings.
I hope all the other areas where freedom of speech, workers rights, corporate political advertising (basically outshouting any normal persons ability to participate in politics), and now crap like this.
And it is going to continue for the next 8 to 10 years.
And if another 'conservative' president gets in then it will be this way the rest of our lives.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
consumers have no choice but to pay
Yes you do, you have a choice, you always have a choice. If you feel the price is unfair then DONT BUY THE PRODUCT!!!!! Buy a Used/Refurbished/Experienced Versions of the product, go without find alternative substitutes. Price Floors will only lead to the company selling less units so in order for them to maximize their profit they will need to lower their prices at the market rate. The problem is that consumers are getting very STUPID lately and go crying oh they price fixed the cost of Memory so I am forced to pay extra for memory, Go without society has seemed to function with less then 2 Gigs of ram in the past. If you don't like the price then don't get one. That is why I am not planning on getting an iPhone any time soon, sure it is cool and all, and I would love to get one. But it is to much then what I want to pay for so I won't get one until I could get one at the price I feel is fair. If I don't think the price is fair then I won't get one. But as a Consumer I have a choice. The choice is always don't get it. Except for Food, Shelter, Heat, Water, and Transportation everything else you really have a choice to go without. If to many people go without then the price will go down to the Market point.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If he doesn't you shoot first, you'd best be his journeyman...
So, presumably, how it would work is:
/.'ers.
1. Internet seller sells Item by Manufacturer below MDBP (Manufacturer Demanded Base Price).
2. Manufacturer "bans" this. Since they do not have legal power, they'd ask distributors to stop distributing to that silly sod.
3. Distributors that disobey risk never getting shipments of Item anymore, so they comply.
4. Internet seller doesn't get Item anymore and can't sell them at Low Low Prices (tm).
Hmm... assuming that's how it'd work...
5. Progressive Manufacturer Alpha makes a competing product for Item: Item Alpha. They don't have an MDBP.
6. Distributors carry Item Alpha.
7. Internet seller gets a few lots of Item Alpha.
8. Item Alpha now gets sold at Low Low Prices.
9. Item loses market share to Item Alpha.
If you accept the above as not being very farfetched, then you accept that manufacturers act in their own disinterest by colluding for minimum prices. And that by lifting the ban it doesn't automatically follow that everyone's going to do it.
Even if I'm completely wrong about this, that's still always going to be the grey market from overseas, so, don't get your cheetos in a huddle,
More Twoson than Cupertino
All humans have opinions, and for any opinion it's possible to find someone who disagrees with it, no matter how wrong they are. Thus, even a perfectly impartial, reasonable, intelligent and just Person serving in office would have thousands (perhaps even millions) of people who thought they were biased, unreasonable, stupid, and unfair. Since neither of us are perfect, we'd also sometimes disagree with a perfect individual (though hopefully we'd agree with them more often than not).
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I think not. You can always choose to not purchase a product if you don't like the price. Seriously, if you numb nuts would stop buying overpriced shit. There wouldn't so much overpriced shit.
Although price floors seem like a way to preserve the profits of inefficient retailers, I'm sure that the better retailers will figure out a way around any sort of binding MSRP. These might include:
1. Good service: extended hours, trained employees, better inventories, free shipping, free installation, etc.
2. Bundled goodies: accessories, logoed T-shirts, media, etc.
3. Extended 3rd party warrantees
And if the manufacturer says "thou shalt not bundle free stuff," then the retailer only needs to charge a nominal charge for the "separate" item -- say $0.50 for free delivery, installation, and 5 years of 24 hr in-home repair service.
Price is not the only dimension of competition and some would argue that the internet's focus on price competition is one reason retail service has come to suck so bad. The same transparency that lets current web users find the lowest price will let them find the best retailer in a fixed-price environment.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This probably won't change much of the way retailers such as Amazon.com operate or big box stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy operate. They are large enough to demand and get the discounts they already get PLUS not sign the contracts that were until recently illegal to sign. It will hurt the small retailers and the "boutiques". Indeed, it was one of these small retailers that sold a limited kind of expensive merchandise that was the plaintiff in this suit. Besides, the little guys could group together and gang up on the companies that are trying to force them to sign the minimum pricing contracts by forming a cartel. It might be considered illegal for them to do it because of anti-trust laws but the Supreme Court seems to be in an pro-trust mood these days. Who says the RIAA is the only evil cartel in this country?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
You mean that now Nintendo can make all their retailers sell the Wii for the same price? Or Sony, or Microsoft, or even Apple?
whatever will we do?
If US retailers can set price floors, this opens the floodgates even wider for imported products. Except that now, we consumers might not feel compelled to buy domestic -- if artificial price floors are in place for domestic products.
I would think that forward-thinking domestic manufacturers would actually oppose this one. The real winner here is China!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
There's always a choice to not buy. No firearms are being directed at heads.
You like to eat don't you? Want to grow all of your food?
Legalizing price fixing is the most shocking piece of US law since Congress passed the torture is AOK bill. It's going to be abused by distributors and manufacturers to screw their smaller competition and you. If you think things are consolidated today, just wait until you see the effects of industry dancing with price floors to eliminate their competition. The results are cascading and multiplicative rather than a simple sum of their parts. It is impossible to imagine any way this will actually create more competition, despite the glib logic given by Kenedy.
First retailers and you will be squeezed. By setting a price floor, distributors can charge retailers more for their goods. Retailers will have to pass the difference on to you and will also have to bear the cost of not being able to dump goods that don't sell. When a retailer makes a mistake now, they are stuck with it and can't sell the goods off at or below cost.
More risks for retailers means a smaller market overall, because they will buy less, but that's just the beginning of a new manufacturer's problems. Price floor distort prices in a way that make monopoly rents easier. Imagine you find a process to make something better than everyone else. When you start making it, the monopolist can drop the floor on your one good while raising it just a little on everything else. New entrants always have less to offer than established businesses, so they won't be able to move their pricing around as well and will be crushed.
The majority thinks the courts can weed this kind of behavior out, but what they are really saying is that they don't care about startups that can't withstand the pressure for as long as an uncertain lawsuit takes. Shame on them!
Price floors create nothing but friction and economic friction is always harmful.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So, I make something that I want to sell to retailers for $15 a piece. CheapSellers, Inc., come in and buy my stuff at $15 a piece, and so do PoshShop, Inc. CheapSellers sell my stuff for $8 a piece, and PoshShop for $16 a piece. PoshShop go out of business due to CheapSellers undercutting their prices, and then I'm only left with CheapSellers buying my stuff. Then they come over and say "From now on, we'll only be paying you $5 a piece, take it or leave it." I can see why that could be a problem for some manufacturers...
Why are the conservatives CHANGING things?!?! I mean, the whole point of being a conservative is to attempt to PREVENT change, to promote stability, and stop the slow march of the liberal/progressive movement. Instead we have wound up with a conservative party that has been pushing radical changes and altering the status quo while the Liberal party is fighting for our age old core beliefs.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Conservatives want courts to base things on the law and the Constitution. So unless you have a specific legal gripe, I don't mind that you dislike this court.
I don't like outcome X, therefore the Court should have decided Y.
There is no reference in your complaint to the law, the Constitution, or improper legal reasoning. And that is the general difference between liberals and conservatives regarding the Court. That's why conservatives hated the Kelo decision.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
First of all, this only said that there are some cases where vertical price restraints are legal. It did not say that they're all legal. In fact, the opinion listed several situations where they're almost certainly illegal.
For the most part, manufacturers don't want to impose price maintenance -- they BENEFIT when their dealers sell at low prices. Why? Well, here's an example: say Apple sells iPods to dealers for $100, sets a retail price of $200, and 5 people buy it. Apple now has $500. Let's say they don't set a retail price, and (because of competition), the retail price stabilizes at $130, and 7 people buy it at the lower price. Apple now has $700. Which one is better for Apple? Both manufacturers and consumers want dealers to make as little profit as they can.
Here's an example why vertical price restraints should not all be illegal: Suppose that you build sailboats, which are somewhat complicated, not many people know a lot about them, and there are a lot of first-time buyers. Your dealers, then, spend a lot of time and money educating the customers, maintaining showrooms, teaching "what to know before you buy your boat" classes, and so on. These things are very expensive, and consumers benefit by having them. The problem, though, is that if one of your dealers does all the education, and another doesn't, the second one will undercut the first one's prices. As a result, customers will go to the first dealer, look at the boats and take the classes, then go buy the cheap boat from the second dealer. Eventually, the first dealer either goes out of business or just stops offering all those extra services. If the manufacturer can set a minimum retail price, he can stop the second dealer from doing this free-riding. Now, the two dealers are still competing with each other, but they're doing it on something other than price -- they're doing it on service. So, consumers may get longer dealer warranties, or dealers may offer free storage or maintenance.
That's all well and good if there are a lot of products on the market that meet your demands, but if your demands are enough that you already know which product you want, this seriously undercuts your ability to save money.
For example, a few years ago, I decided on a specific LCD HDTV (an extravagant purchase that I still regret to this day). At the time, MSRP for the set was $8999. All retail outlets sold it for that price. However, I was able to go online and buy it for only $5499. Had the price floor been set at MSRP or something else favorable to the big retailers, I could've lost thousands of dollars in the purchase.
As an internet shopper, I am pleased by this decision because this will also mean the end of the stupid bargain/rebate/shoparound/missed discount remorse routine.
Yeah, well to nuts to that, my friend. I'd rather know that I missed out on the best deal possible than to know that I never had the opportunity to avoid getting gouged because of legalized price fixing. Besides, price comparison search engines will let you easily get pretty close to the best possible prices out there if you look right. Froogle exists for a reason.
Also, if you're going to argue that the existence of alternate products makes this irrelevant, then you should consider that having to compare alternate products negates the advantage of not having to look around for the best discount. I seriously can't believe, though, that you'd rather everyone be gouged than you feel the remorse of missing out on a sale.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The SCOTUS ruling applied to a retail store, not the end consumer. The manufacturer made them sign a contract with a minumum price.
When the products wouldn't sell (i.e. was a bad product!), the store wanted to mark it down. This ruling may prevent the store owners from limiting their losses on the products.
As consumers, we lose several ways. We have minumum price floors. Bad products survive because the manufacturer doesn't lose money. Finally, the retail store goes bankrupt, reducing competition.
So how long until I can get Windows for free? And who wants to guess what that'll do to the *nix and Mac market share?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
And why would this be depressing to any American who believes in equal protection of the law, and fairness to everybody?
Why should the color of my skin, or "race" have any bearing on the factors of school admissions? Doesn't that sound like reverse racism, oh sorry, "affirmative action" to you?
As a conservative American, I applaud these decisions by the Supreme Court in reversing the tide of the liberal activism that's been going on the last 30+ years.
Watch me get modded down for simply stating conservative opinions.
I know this comes as a shock for people who have no concept of civics or formal logic but...
If A is "No producer can set a minimum retail value for a particular product"
Not A is NOT "A producer MUST set a minimum retail value for a particular product"
All this means is that at the Federal level there is no prohibition against selling goods at a specific price (which incidentally, does not allow for "collusion" between companies; that is still illegal). The State of New York can easily write a law to establish what the Supreme Court struck down.
--Joey
I've believed ever since Samuel Alito was nominated that the single worst legacy of the Bush administration will be nomination of Judges Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court, and that those nominations will go down as the worst failures of the Democratic Party to display a spine and stand against Bush's radical ideology.
Roberts is a pretty traditional conservative in most (but not all) ways, which can be bad enough, but Alito is just an out and out fascist who believes strongly in no restraints on executive or corporate power. We're going to be feeling the aftershocks of this administration for decades thanks to the both of them.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Kthx,
Ric R.
We can all read the SCOTUS decision: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-48 0.pdf
What it says is not all price flooring is automatically illegal (per se). If the pricing is used to generate services or differentiate the product within a market to be competitive then why not.
What SCOTUS is arguing is that price flooring needs to be decided on it's merits (rule of reason). They say, it is still illegal to have price flooring within a manufacturing cabal. It is also illegal to have price flooring for a monopoly (as if that makes any difference). Generally price flooring is illegal if it is anticompetitive and legal of it is pro-competive.
As to the sale of handbags, anyone can make a handbag and thousands do. In this case the manufacturer had floor pricing to maintain marketing material and consumer cache. This manufacturer wanted a small botique feel to the sale of their products and not a Walmart experience. The retailer in question just wanted to boost sales by under cutting smaller shops and make their margin on volume. The retailer had signed agreements to price floors.
In this case, I too favor the manufacturer. SCOTUS has not thrown out the Sherman act, but merely noted that price flooring in certain circumstances can be OK. I'll still buy handbags at WallyWorld.
Granular decision making: Good
machinator omnis sine licentia
As I see it, the problem underlying this whole thing is the very concept of "wholesale".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this ruling wouldn't stop me from buying a whole bunch of something at retail from the manufacturer's retail outlet, and then reselling them below retail (at a loss) over the internet, right? This just means that manufacturers can say that they won't sell me something at a discounted (less than retail, i.e. wholesale) price unless I agree not to resell it below a certain price. While I certainly agree that they oughtn't be allowed to do that (any more than, say, a lawnmower manufacture should be able to stipulate what sort of grass I can cut with lawnmowers I buy from them), I think this whole problem stems from this odd notion of wholesale.
Let manufacturers make their things and sell them for whatever price they want. They can give volume discounts, discounts for buying via certain channels (e.g. sell cheaper via phone/internet/mail order than in their brick-and-mortar store), even discounts for membership in a certain club (ala Costco), or combinations thereof, and let that do the work of giving discounts to retailers ("wholesale prices)", who make frequent orders (justifying club membership) in large volumes direct from warehouses (rather than in storefronts). But once someone ("reseller" or not - lets not make arbitrary distinctions between privileged businesspeople and ordinary consumers) has bought it at that price, its theirs and they can do whatever the hell they want with it, including reselling it at any damn price they want. If they can manage to resell cheaper than the manufacturer's retail outlets and still make a profit, tough - that's competition for you. Why do you hate capitalism?
On that note, I see a lot of people calling this "conservative" ruling, and while it may be a very modern-Republican thing to do, it is certainly not conservative in the usual economic sense of pro-capitalism. Though I suppose, if you go back far enough in time, conservative means merchantilist and liberal means capitalist, and this is certainly a very merchantilist ruling here...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
This simply reeks of protectionism for big US manufacturers...
l asticity) will determine what happens as prices rise. In fact artificially high prices may cause additional suppliers to enter the market to compete (an increase in supply) which will cause a surplus of the product which in turn will lead to lower prices as manufactures try to entice consumers to buy. Ultimately unless you impose tariffs or other trade barriers, or all manufacturers collude (and fix prices) the market will solve the problem.
But as any economist will tell you price fixing generally doesn't work well for the economy or consumers as a whole. It may temporarily benefit one industry or sector but is generally undesirable. It is better to let uncompetitive companies face the pressure of competition and either become competitive or go out of business.
If people have a finite amount of money to spend and prices are higher they simply buy less.
They may buy less of different products, for example if the price of gas goes up and people still need to buy the same amount gas, but may not go on vacation or buy a new TV (this is why the price of oil is so important).
Basic concepts of supply and demand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand)
drive pricing. Price elasticity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand#E
Tariffs and other trade barriers are coming down with globalization, and price fixing involving collusion is highly unlikely between a competitive manufacturer, and an uncompetitive one. The competitive (ie lower cost) manufacture is better off selling at a lower price and taking the business for themselves and putting their competition out of business.
Besides the internet puts global manufacturers within reach of US customers. If prices go up in retail stores in the US because of all US manufacturers setting bottom prices, people will simply buy from outside of the US, and a huge gray import market will open up. At least for high value items, where the difference in price is significant.
If anything this is just one more nail in the coffin of US manufacturing. The legal changes may give them a temporary false sense of security, but realistically companies that fail to please the market (ie consumer) by providing good value simply don't last.
Just think what artificially high CD prices have caused people to do. They've found their music online (legal or otherwise).
Or think region codes and DVDs. Many Europeans buy their DVDs online from the US because they don't want to wait for the European release.
This is no different. Shipping costs are not that high (especially not for large volume gray market imports).
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
This is a good ruling. The constitution gives Congress not the courts the authority and responsibility of regulationg interstate commerce. Now let Congress do it's job. Congress can ban price support agreements any time it wants. The ban on price support agreements was created by judicial fiat not by Congress with approval of the president.
Personally I think Congress needs to get off it's fat butt and do it's job on this one.
That said, the Court is right but for the wrong reason. In 1911, the court made a ruling that wasn't within their authority to make. Let Congress fix this problem not the court.
This will have very little practical effect. Manufacturers who want to set minimum retail prices have always had tools that have the same end result. The most used one is MAP - Minimum Advertised Price. Which is to say, "You can sell our stuff for any price you choose. BUT, if you meet our MAP, we will contribute $x,xxx (where x = most of the cost of an an campaign) towards your advertising costs. If you sell below our MAP, we contribute nothing at all."
This is been standard business practice for decades.
This won't hurt small retailers, who generally have too much overhead (as a percentage of their total revenue) to do much discounting. It won't hurt large retailers, who generally have enough buying power to negotiate whatever deal they want (Walmart: Let us sell stuff for whatever price we want, or we'll carry your competitor's products, and you'll lose 50% of your total business immediately.) The only retailers this will hurt are discounters who are smaller than their suppliers, and thus, not important enough to negotiate special deals.
Nothing personal, but your examples are horrible. For example, there are so many producers of milk that price fixing is basically impossible. Worse, milk spoils, and so no retailer would ever agree to a fixed retail price. If the milk wasn't selling they would definitely rather drop the price than take a loss.
Automobiles are an even worse example, as there is a huge used market. It's possible that a manufacturer might be able to fix the prices of its *new* vehicles, the used vehicle market is basically impossible to fix. Of course if Toyota started fixing prices on new Toyotas you would simply expect more people to buy Hondas.
Technology is perhaps the worst example yet. No computer parts vendor would ever agree to a "no discounts" policy unless they didn't have to carry any inventory at all. Otherwise you'd see technology vendors with brand new 386s that they could only sell for $3500.
In fact, the only case in which this sort of thing actually applies in the modern economy are in situations are very similar to the case in question. A particular leather goods company has carved out a niche for its products in exclusive boutiques. Part of the commitment that these boutiques have to make to carry the line is that they cannot offer them at a discounted price. This particular company does *not* want to see its merchandise online for 25% off. Basically these items are high priced fashion items that other snob types are supposed to care about. Instead of competing on price the retailers are supposed to compete on service. The retailers purchase the inventory knowing that if they can't sell it at the asking price, then there's no way to discount it and get rid of it. Personally, I don't know why retailers would take that from a vendor, but apparently this particular vendor is hot enough that people are willing to stock its merchandise.
In other words the only items that are you are likely to be able to price fix in this matter are items that are so trendy that being the "exclusive dealer" matters. You'd probably be better off just looking for knock offs if you don't have neighbors to impress with your snootiness.
This isn't quite exactly perfectly MY idea, but here is what I think...
There's an argument that this is actually PRO-consumer since it makes it possible for businesses to compete on the basis of quality and service instead of being forced to compete on price alone. Price-only competition is surprisingly corrosive since there really is no middle ground on many things -- even if you're willing to pay a 50% markup for quality (and it really is cheaper to pay 50% more if the product lasts twice as long) there's not enough other people to make it economically viable in most cases. Look at t-shirts. You have really cheap junk at Walmart, shirts from other stores that can't charge much more than Walmart so their quality has also suffered, and the $100 designer shirts. No middle ground with good fabric but no handstitching.
I'm not sure I buy this argument, no pun intended, but the race to the bottom has got to stop. I know it's in Walmart's interest that I need to buy a new tv every two years, but it's not in mine.
(Sidenote: I've never entered Walmart/Sam's Club due to this policy and the way they mistreat their employees. Costco, baby, Costco!)
One should acknowledge that the decision does not allow a price floor to be set amongst competitors in the same market. From the article, the decision allows prices floors to be set as part of the agreement between manufacturers and distributors. The impact may be visible in scenarios where a manufacturer sells its wares though its own direct sales channel and a retail channel. Prices for a specific product will reach parity amoungst all possible sellers. A retailer like Newegg may have to sell some of its wares at higher prices. However, those prices are still regulated by market pressures. If the price floor is above the equilibrium price, the manufacturer stocks are going to go up. In addition, the decision does allow the lower courts to hear complaints about price flooring on a case by case basis. So, the decision is not as damaging as it might seem at first.
I am a little uncomfortable with government policy leaning too pro business especially in the courts. Even the decision on campaign finance reform is a little disconcerting. That couple with the Republican block on pro labor laws shows a conservative disregard of the majority will in favor of businesses.
.You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Not to worry. They will soon buy a law that states that you are not allowed to by an item offshore if an item of equal value can be purchased in the United States. Like the law the bricks and morter casinos bought.
Either that or there will be a special inport duty collected at the border that will be equal to the difference in price and then the monies collected will be given to the US merchants you did not buy from. Sort of like what the US Softwood lumber lobby purchased.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Normally I wouldn't wish harm on another human being, but given the last week, I'm rooting for an early demise for Roberts or Alito shortly after Bush leaves office... either that or some kind of miracle that causes one of them to retire early.
There's a solution for the cheap internet sales companies - just pretend it's a refurb, or OEM, or scratch a box of a product and then they can sell it cheaper. I'd still buy a cheaper TV if the box was nothing more than scratched, etc.
Microsoft may not benefit, but Wal-Mart certainly will.
I don't think you're understanding the decision.
Right now, and for the past 90-odd years, it was illegal for a manufacturer to demand or enforce a price floor on its retail distributors.
The USSC said that now, manufacturers can do this. That's the change.
If anything, this is going to hurt Wal-Mart, because it prevents them from using their distribution network and huge size to drive out competition, at least not on brand-name goods.
Example: right now, Wal-Mart carries Sony cameras. Sony can't enforce a price floor, so they sell the cameras to everyone at the wholesale price -- say $250. Because Wal-Mart is so big, they only need to charge a small markup, or maybe not even any markup at all. So they price the camera at $249 or $255. A smaller camera store somewhere can't exist on those margins, in order to meet overhead it needs to sell the camera at $275. Until now, this would have been how the prices would have fallen. (And it's incidentally why you can go to one store, like Best Buy or Wal-Mart, and find a camera for less than you can find it for at Ritz Camera -- which has much more overhead -- or go to an online store with virtually no overhead and find it cheaper than any B&M store.)
With the ruling, Sony can -- if it chooses -- require its distributors to agree to a price floor on its products. It still sells them cameras at the wholesale price of $250 each, but they're contractually obligated not to sell them to customers for less than $275. Sony doesn't make any more money (at least not directly), but it forces the playing field to be artificially 'level' between distributors. To the consumer, the prices get higher. Wal-Mart suddenly has the same prices as every other store, at least on the same products. (Wal-Mart makes more profit on each unit sold, because its overhead is lower, but this isn't obvious to the consumer.)
If anything this is very bad for big-box stores, because it's harder for them to use big name-brand items as loss leaders to bring in business. The people it's worst for are the deep-discount internet retailers, since they effectively have to compete against a local B&M, while still charging the same prices.
In reality I doubt it'll really affect Wal-Mart that much, because WM is big enough that they can go to almost any manufacturer in the world who might be thinking of demanding a price floor, and tell them to drop dead.
Where I really see this having a lot of effect is in markets where there's still a large independent VAR network, little product placement in big-box stores, and a lot of deep-discount internet retailers. Musical instruments and pro audio equipment comes to mind. Every city has a musical-instrument store or two in it somewhere, and they generally charge a lot more than internet retailers; I can imagine that in the near future, companies like Yamaha and Roland are going to be under a lot of pressure from their VAR networks to institute price floors and force the internet retailers to sell products at the same prices that they go for in the B&M stores.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Sometimes I know what product I want, and I just want to buy that product at the lowest price. I don't need service from the retailer, and I don't want to pay for it.
Minimum prices would only seem to affect competition between retailers, not competition between manufacturers, so this decision should have no effect on product quality: manufacturers will still compete against each other based on price as vigorously as before.
It was already true that a producer could fix a maximum price at which his goods can be sold by the eventual vendor. Rather than being automatically (per se) considered anticompetitive, each situation has to be examined on its own merits to see whether consumers are harmed. The /. crowd should be fervent admirers of allowing maximum prices to be fixed, because that is what allows the GPL to operate.
Whatsisface (Wallace?) claimed that the GPL was per se illegal price fixing. Part of the reason he lost is because fixing a maximum price (in the case of the GPL, zero*) was not per se illegal as he claimed.
So if we all think fixing a maximum price can be good for consumers, is fixing a minimum price always bad?
*The price of the license is zero. You can charge for physical distribution, support, etc.
Ok, I am an internet retailer. I will start selling all products as 'used' and then charge whatever low price I want. I guarantee it was just 'used for 5 min' and will be as good as new.
this could potentially be a good thing.
if there is no MSRP, then retailers could be driven by insane competition.
The consumers could drive prices down even lower.
If you search on the internet, there's always going to be someone charging less than the other guy.
then again, it could lead to a "faster than the lion" scenario.
if you and a friend are running from a lion, you don't have to outrun the lion, you just have to outrun your friend.
would this be the case though?
I think car prices are going to skyrocket.
I don't think computer hardware will be hit too hard.
They're using their grammar skills there.
This is probably great news for eBay, where most of the sellers are not authorized dealers.
Lately this "no choice" meme is showing up on Slashdot on a weekly basis. But there is a certain logic to it, since if a consumer doesn't consume, they aren't a consumer any more, so any consumer who wishes to remain a consumer must consume--at any price. Maybe the real problem here is defining the general public as consumers in the first place. I'm aghast at how easy it has become to casually pass off consumerhood as a non-volitional condition. On the plus side, a lot of the cheapest stuff presently sold on the internet has an astronomical landfill index. My GP has a cartoon on his office door showing several chubby limbs sticking out of a large pile near an open closet door with the caption "Apparently he was crushed to death by his unused exercise equipment". Pity it won't be so cheap any more.
OTOH, without corresponding reform in the patent system, this development might ultimately outgrow my crocodile tears.
Because a Supreme Court decision that will completely alter how retailing works in the U.S. is so lame.
So, basically, five justices decided that the meaning of a 100-year-old law had magically changed, even though no new legislation had passed? And the reason it changed: because it's a good idea to change it.
If it's a good idea to change the law, then have Congress amend the damned law.
The merits or risks of price-fixing aside, this is a cruddy way to run government. It also stinks of .. (what's the term?) .. "judicial activism." SCOTUS is not resolving ambiguities in the law; they are simply making it up.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The word fascist has lost all it's meaning because of people like you.
As one of the Nader voters, I wonder how many recall all the people who said they were going to move to Canada if Bush got elected and are still sitting around here bitching about it 8 years later? Why don't you blame your own party for not being willing to put forward a candidate that can appeal to the apathetic voters who think both the Republicans and Democrats are full of it? Instead you're trying to attack the people who actually dare to challenge the status quo and vote for a 3rd party... who's votes you desperately need!
The world isn't black and white. 3rd party votes say that if you want our vote stop pushing the same old agenda. It's too bad Obama is losing popularity to the old guard candidates... he looked appealing from this 3rd party standpoint.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Come on folks, get real. Minimum Advertised Price has been around a long time. This doesn't allow Ford and GM to get together and set a minimum price on cars. It allows Ford to tell dealers what the minimum price on Fords will be. As long as the dealers sign the contracts, they're participating willingly. If they don't, Ford may willingly chose not to participate with the dealer. Before typing, please invest in a clue, even a cheap one.
Try buying a digital SLR camera online. You'll find lots of rock-bottom deals, but when you start to Google search the retailers who are advertising them, you will find countless tales of bait-and-switch, orders never shipped, orders fulfilled with overseas product with nonstandard firmware and no warranty, high-pressure sales tactics bullying you into buying more than you initially ordered, etc. Most people I know who are in the market for professional camera equipment don't even bother to go bargain hunting; they stick to a few well-known and widely respected retailers (a certain large retailer in NYC comes to mind). They get some discount, but more importantly they get what they ask/pay for.
If the camera manufacturers were allowed to enforce a minimum price floor, on the other hand, the well-known retailers who offer modest discounts would not be affected, but all these "deals" might disappear. Camera retailers would be forced to compete on service and would be more accountable to the manufacturer for the product they shipped -- so it seems to me, at least. This seems like an improvement on the current state of the market, where customers who expect online deals to work just like buying cheap computer equipment are getting burned.
I like a good deal as much as the next guy, but you'll always find some outside cases where the customer is losing out.
Breakfast served all day!
Two issues: First, Walmart can't dictate prices if the manufacturers ALL set price floors. The manufacturers can do this now, as long as they don't explicitly collude in doing so. This is the effective practice of the airline industry.
Second, we shouldn't try to compete with China on price. The Chinese are already so cut-throat on price they've caught farmers force-feeding hogs wastewater in order to boost their slaughter weight: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_re_as/ch ina_tainted_food_4;_ylt=ApRK2t0xDcTW7iWXDmb.lL9PzW QA(about 1/2 way through the article). Such water is also used for irrigating crops such as garlic.
This DOES open an opportunity to compete on quality. After toothpaste, petfood, toy trains and god knows what else that hasn't been reported http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_he_me/ch ina_tainted_products;_ylt=ApcHoI_80H3MHW8LRmCRXlXM WM0F, there is going to be a quality backlash that results in even greater growth of things like 100-mile radius food shopping.
The bottom line on this legalized price fixing is that it's the equivalent of a tariff or subsidy in making consumer prices go up, but the money goes to manufacturers instead of government.
We are the 198 proof..
Price floors killed IoMega and almost killed Wacom. This is a speed bump, nothing more.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
First, Americans can't vote on federal legislation.
Oh really? That's why you have a ***representative*** in DC. To represent her constituents opinions. Just because the only constituents she hears from are more well organized than you are doesn't mean the process doesn't work.
Second, Americans can't vote on supreme court members.
It's called **voting** for a President. You clearly weren't aware going into the last TWO presidential elections that the balance of the courts would be decided. Oh, and before you tell me the popular election means nothing, every state has a political caucus that welcome participants. It's free too.
Third, Americans can't control the political parties.
How many mods read down this far?? Political parties are made up of people. Voters in fact.
How about, instead of blowing off steam, you and the other mods promoting your rant get involved in local politics. Look at how well it's worked out for big business and the Christian right. It could work out that well for you if you got involved.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
All this type of price fixing does is make it difficult/impossible to find a deal on them.
Almost every warranty says it applies only for the original owner. So, unless you want your "store" to provide the warranty in place of the manufacturer, your product is not "as good as new".
This combination squeezes excess profits and inefficiencies out of product prices. Retail price maintenance seeks to short circuit this extremely consumer friendly process. By setting minimum prices, manufacturers can build in excess margins for themselves and for their favored retailers -- prices that consumers have no choice but to pay." There may be no more nebulous a concept than "excess profits." I realize economic literacy is at an all-time low, but prices are not set arbitrarily. A price is at once the most a seller can get and the most a buyer is comfortable paying. Any and all sales that take place are voluntary arrangements. Both parties percieve themselves to be better off for doing so. So as you can see there is no such thing as "excess" profit; only profit that is earned.
You have hit upon the fundamental truth of conservatives: their credo is "freedom for me, not for thee", and ruling after ruling from this court has shown their belief that the rights of organizations always trump the rights of citizens or consumers. Not only that, but they believe rights and freedoms are ONLY for organizations or the select elite who control such organizations (and their own friends and families, of course): citizens under a conservative junta have no rights, except those the "unitary executive" (German translation is Reichfurher) explicitly specifies.
Fascism was a conservative movement, and the "Conservative Movement" is fascism.
Who says I bought in on credit? I may kick myself for buying it, but I wasn't a *total* idiot.
I regret the purchase because the contrast ratio was worse than I expected in a darkened room, and the DLP set that I really wanted and was told was going to be delayed 6 months to come out at $11,999 came out 3 months later at $6,399. Oh, and the dang thing doesn't work well for what I bought it for -- the DVI input won't take full 1080p resolution. This fact is not mentioned on any website that I researched the set on for the month before I bought it. Basically, it sits unused for weeks at a time until I decide to play a last-gen, non-HDTV console game. If I were to try to resell it, there are current sets of its type on the market that perform better that retail for $1500 or less.
The financially stupid part of the purchase was that I lost my car in an accident a few weeks later and was $2k short of a down payment on a car I really wanted, leaving me stuck with a car that gets worse mileage. I've never EVER let my account go below a certain amount since then. Lesson learned -- always keep emergency savings. Mine is now the cost of a down payment on a new car plus the full deductible on my health insurance; it's my "get put in the hospital in a car accident and not go bankrupt" money.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The major differences between modern neoconservative Republicans and fascists of old are:
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Pleased at the monopoly they have on law, the power justices, unmoved by law, unconvinced by reason, unconcerned about history repeating itself, have sanctioned antitrust in its most sinister form: vertical price fixing.
Vertical control is at the utmost core of antitrust law. We can now wonder whether there even is such a thing as antitrust law.
The restriction of goods from the market by producers through a price fixed set of distributors and retailers can NEVER help consumers. And it cannot promote competition. Its the restriction of competition, the exclusion of competitive sales channels (which have their own costs and overhead to consider), and the crowning of producers to move the market in ways that have nothing to do with market value of the product or consumer desires.
One need only imagine this provision being applied on raw materials. I, a producer of raw materials for circuit boards will only sell them through distributors who guarantee a certain price. I and those I collude with will surely set the market price rather than the price being set by the market. Multiply this vertical power by the number of companies who make components for end user devices and you can see that the price paid by the consumer will be more than a little bit higher. It will be A LOT higher. And the availability of a range of products will be reduced.
This ruling is a coup, nay, a revolution for Corporate America. Without this provision, no possible antitrust enforcement will ever be pursued again. Thanks guys for declaring open season on the law of the land, small business, the Internet and the American people.
I am involved in local politics, and yes, that works fine. But we're not talking about local politics. We're talking about federal politics, and you have no idea what you're talking about there.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Second, we live in a competitive country and world. Paying twice as much as other countries for medical care doesn't surprise me in the least, since we typically pay more than that for just about everything else. Do you think people in Cuba all buy $200,000 houses? I don't think so. Yet that's common here.
I think normalizing prices for services against cost of living is an interesting idea, but I don't think that's what the GP meant when he said we pay twice as much. I think he meant the anual per capita spending of *our government* is twice that of any other nation's. If this is the same figure I've seen before, the actual fees for services and insurance premiums paid by consumers aren't even figured in.
Tweet, tweet.
I make software and sell it from my website for twenty bucks. Every once in a while somebody with a different website approaches me and offers to sell the same software on their website and give me a cut of every sale. Since getting people's attention on the internet is a hard thing to do, I often have an interest in letting these people put my product in front of their site visitors that wouldn't normally find their way to me.
Now, what pains me terribly is when this distributor discounts my product beneath the twenty bucks. Then people who would normally buy my software from my site will instead go to the outside distributor's site and buy the exact same software I wrote for less. I have *NO* incentive to allow these distributors to sell my software for less than me. If I knew in advance that they were going to undercut my price, I wouldn't make an agreement to let them sell my software. That would be like cutting myself and watching the blood run out.
A strict interpretation of anti-trust law says that I shouldn't set prices in contracts or even bring up the concern informally. So at the moment, I'm at risk to even hint to the distributor about the price problem. The only safe thing to do is to specify a MSRP ("s" stands for "suggested") and if somebody drops below it, quietly avoid them in the future without saying why. I can't complain about being undercut.
Note that in my situation, the people undercutting me aren't running a tighter ship or being cleverly competitive. They are just dumping my product cheap without incurring any extra costs to themselves. I have no problem with discounters as long as I, as the manufacturer, can choose whether or not I wish to deal with them upfront. I have a great relationship with a discounter that sells a Russian-localized version of my product for ten cents on the dollar. By having the freedom to simply discuss and legally agree upon how my product will be distributed, it is possible to find good solutions where everyone wins and nobody gets exploited.
If you think all software should be free and the people that write it shouldn't be paid, then I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears. But some of us are trying to earn a living, and it feels terrible to have your business eroded by exploitive discounters. I want to set price floors, dammit!
Maybe you are in one of those states and districts which isn't as gerrymandered as mine.
I have had one vote that mattered in 8 years. Every other vote, it would not have mattered if I voted for or against.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Are you kidding? I've still got a copy of Windows Vista that I can't even PAY anyone to take from me. No one's dared touch it even to just take the money!
I've been trying to get rid of it since February 18th, but everyone's avoiding it like it was the plague in a box or something. I'm scared to just throw it away because it might be considered an EPA landfill hazard or something.
Now that collusion in the form of price-fixing is basically legal, let me ask: Are there any other pro photographers in the room?
I'm kinda tired of having to compete. Why don't we all just sign contracts with each other indicating that the smallest hourly rate we accept is $200?
Let me say this loud and proud, again. I am sick and fucking tired of this shitbox government. Nothing more than the whores to Big Business' pimp.
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The interesting thing about the YRO section is all the boxes people are willing to put those they disagree with into. Count how many times "fascist","liberalism","cartel", etc are used in posts to this story. Apparently there's gray when discussing the posters behavior, but watch the boxes come out when discussing others.
... just about EVERYTHING technology related IS a specific item. What will happen now will be that Sony will say to their retailers, "Even though we only charge you $10 for this CD player, you MUST sell it for $45.".
Or more likely it will be someone like Sharp saying, "No one can sell the new 65 inch LCD TV for less then $4500 even though it only costs you $2000." I personally bought my 45" Sharp LCD TV for $2700 ($2400+$300 shipping/handling), which was $1200 less then the "retail" price. Now the companies can say, you can't sell for less then retail price, no matter what. This keeps places like the small installers out of the market because they would allow you to barter with them on pricing especially if you were picking up a decent amount of gear from one place. Many places do this when they see a customer on the ropes as to if they will buy the item or not. Best Buy and the other big box stores can't do this, because their sales staff do not have the power to do anything other then sell you an extra protection plan. Wait until every TV, phone, computer part, refrigerator, air conditioner, stove, oven, game console, CD, DVD, washer, dryer, etc., all have a price floor set. These are all specific items. Unique in many cases, which means you can't just go pick up another competing brand, as there is no competing item (sure there may be things which are "simlar", but you won't see a LCD TV that has 120Hz refresh, 5 phase backlight, 3 HDMI inputs, 1 DVI input, 2 component inputs from another company... at least not right now, Sharp is the only one. Samsung is close, but won't be out for another month or two, where-as I was able to enjoy this year's Super Bowl on mine...)
If someone has a business model which allows them to make enough money buying the product at the set wholesale price and selling it to the public, they should be able to price it anyway they like. If this means offering 80% off to clear the items out of their warehouse because someone ordered too many, and didn't realize they took up 2050 square feet of of warehouse floor space, and not 20.50 square feet that the person making the order thought, well, they should be allowed to discount it. The company that sold them the products already made their money on the bargain, the only one who risks lossing cash is the retailer who sells the item less then the suggested price. Maybe they want to have something to draw customers into the store because they just opened, and so they have a big opening week sale to get people to know they are open for business and have all these great products and better service then the big box stores....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
That, or buy it at Wal-Mart, I guess.
There are sizable populations that do not make it a point to contribute to the Communist Party of China moreso than they already are.
The public has already spoken; they prefer low prices to good service, or not funding pure fucking evil.
When it's the only (practical) option on the plate, people will go towards low quality and low prices.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This ruling is a coup, nay, a revolution for Corporate America. Without this provision, no possible antitrust enforcement will ever be pursued again. Thanks guys for declaring open season on the law of the land, small business, the Internet and the American people.
Thank Reagan for this one, and about everything anti-consumer past 1981 up to today.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, the majority opinion stated that some speech should not be regulated no school time - like taking an actual stance on the marijuana debate. So, y'know, it should be all right that a school can issue disciplinary action for protected speech off of school grounds just as long as it's "disruptive."
In the Hein case, SCOTUS ruled that you could file a lawsuit against the executive branch for misusing funds for religious purposes, but you had to be a group deliberately passed over for funds in favor of a religious group solely on the basis of religious standing (which should be a very easy thing to prove, right?) Y'know, they left that door open.
In Gonzales v. Carhart, the SCOTUS ruled that law can restrict the use of a medical procedure as long as another procedure exists. So, y'know, it's not like you can just ban any medical procedure, just the ones where there's another way to do things.
You're not supposed to run ads that support or oppose a specific candidate right before an election. However, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that if you run an ad that strongly supports a certain agenda, and hint that one politician doesn't support that agenda, that's actually kinda okay. I mean, it's not really about that politician. It's not like we actually gutted McCain-Feingold.
The 5-4 Ledbetter decision wasn't about the ability to sue your employer for sex discrimination. No, it was just about being late on your decision to sue. An employee didn't realize she was being consistently gypped on her pay scale, but when she'd finally realized it, she was told that she had to file a Title IX suit within 180 days of getting her paycheck. So, you know, as long as you figure out that you're getting screwed over fairly quickly, then you still have the right to sue.
And now, SCOTUS is saying, in a 5-4 decision, that there are some price floors that aren't so bad. Oh, sure, many price floors are still bad, and you can go ahead and try to get them ruled against. That option is open. But do you see a pattern here? I don't necessarily disagree with one or two of these decisions, but the reasoning that Chief Justice Roberts is continuing to employ seems very wishy-washy. He recognizes that harm potentially exists, but he doesn't see any problems with continually opening these loopholes. On the other hand, Scalia has no such qualms - he's been using his concurrent opinions to call for direct changes to precendent and to call Roberts a sissy for not having the guts to admit what impact his decisions are going to have.
We have so many "not that big a deal" cases being settled on thin margins. But little-deal cases can easily set precedent for bigger ones, especially in the lower appeals courts that defer to SCOTUS decisions. The question is, can you drive an 18-wheeler through this loophole decision?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
According to http://www.wikipedia.org/: "Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state
How is this different from 'Unitary Executive Privilege', in any real, practical, way? If the Prez thinks that it's necessary, then it's a go.
That's fascism.
I doubt whether either of these points were especially considered under the ruling, but wonder if they will turn out to have a visible effect on the internet market:
1. "Free" physical inspection service
Physical stores pay for floorspace and employee time when offering a 'free service' of customer inspection. Customers who might have physically checked out goods at a physical store and then went home to order one cheaper online now have no incentive to not buy it on the spot if both are selling at the minimum price, one one hand protecting the service, on the other effectively ending the choice to pay for this service or not.
2. End-user price
The actual price which internet buyers pay often is the retail price plus shipping and handling. If internet retailers are not allowed to undercut the floor price by the cost of shipping the product, or similarly sell through "free shipping", then minimum internet prices will necessarily be higher than physical stores.
Supreme court justices are impeachable too.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I think you're half right. Leave Wal-Mart out of it and think economics. Think about it this way (one of my favorite antitrust examples from law and economics). Real case, btw, I think it was in San Francisco.
There once was an appliance store that had a showroom, informed sales staff, etc, with prices sufficiently high to pay for that overhead. Next door was a guy in a tiny shop with an appliance catalog. You bought from him, he took down the model number, and had it delivered directly to you. Naturally, his prices were lower. They were the only appliance stores for some suprisingly long distance. So people would go to the full-service store, check out appliances in person, get help from the staff, and then walk next door to buy their stuff. Eventually the full-service store got fed up and offered to place bigger orders with the area distributors if they cut off the other guy. He sued, of course, and won in federal court. Result: both soon went out of business because the bigger store lost too much business and shut down. The little guy then went out of business because he was entirely dependent on the big store for answering product questions, etc. Everyone lost, especially the local consumers.
It was argued (based on the Chicago School's philosophy of law and econ, long may it reign) by my professor that the decision was wrong because the the court should have interpreted the law in such a way so as to maximize economic efficiency. i.e., highest valued use of resources and all that. Consumers were better off with only the big store surviving, with higher prices, than no store surviving, because supply with higher prices is better than no supply at all.
This was before the internet, of course, but let's face it: lots of people still prefer to buy things like refrigerator in person.
By setting minimum prices, manufacturers can build in excess margins for themselves and for their favored retailers -- prices that consumers have no choice but to pay.
Please. Consider the option of not buying anything in the product categories -- handbags, other luxury crap -- that will take advantage of this court ruling. Categories important for life such as rice, beans, medical care, water, and rent, either don't face the issue or are already price-fixed by a (regulated?) monopoly.
Paying twice as much as other countries for medical care doesn't surprise me in the least, since we typically pay more than that for just about everything else.
A friend of mine, a doctor with experience in many health care systems including the US, told me that from a billing point of view, services in the US cost 11 times more than in Canada. That means, treating something like a broken arm or procedural surgery, on average, has 11 times the total cost.
I'm not confident that the free market could even fix it, since it's part of the problem. In Canada, there's $Xbillion per year, and the problem of providing "health-care". This directs a system towards providing services efficiently. A health-care "business" attempts to appropriate resources towards itself. Thus, all of the insurance, lawyering, paperwork and unnecessary procedures are encouraged because they are "economic growth".
I'd say the US health system has a major chronic disorder.
Combined with the massive consumption of sleeping medication, anti-depressants, and the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and cancer, I'd argue that the US population as a whole has a chronic health disorder, and their bloated health industry is a failure in comparison to most of the developed world.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Maybe this will encourage more of us to repair and recycle products from what has become a resource-burning disposables based economy. When you can't count on an automobile or appliance lasting more than the time it takes to pay it off (don't get me started on the credit industry), there is no such thing as 'durable goods'.
Cheers
Bull fucking shit. Here's a choice: don't buy an over-priced product.
I really want to know! Why are the Republicans on the wrong side of *EVERY* *SINGLE* *ISSUE*? Is there NOTHING that they can do right? Good Lord, a 96 year-upheld-ruling now violated by neoconservatives? Really, they are monsters, predators of the most evil kind. I mean, I can see why "conservative" might mean "not wanting to make abortion legal"(Jesus told me the soul is infused at the point of conception), or "home schooling because I don't want them liberal teachers teaching mah' boy Jonny that Darwinian monkey nonsense" (represent the hillbilly populace) or even "Jon Stossel really knows what he's talking about when he talks about the fraud of Global Warming because its a treehugger conspiracy, see some ice is actuallly growing in some places!" or "Affirmative Action is racism because we already freed the darkies two hundred years ago, thanks to Abe Lincoln, the Republican" Sure, we can swallow all this for a number of reasons, we can live with it, we can tolerate the ignorance... but removing the ban on price floors? Folks, price floors is a EUPHEMISM FOR COLLUSION I hate to quote, but from Wikipedia: In the United States, price fixing can be prosecuted as a criminal felony offence under section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In Canada, it is an indictable criminal offence under section 45 of the Competition Act." Now the REPUBLICANS in the Supreme Court PROTECT CORPORATIONS FROM VIOLATION OF U.S. LAW? Alito and Roberts must be prosecuted for FEDERAL CONSPIRACY.. I'm sorry they should be put behind bars, or punished w/ a term of life imprisonment. and I would lead the prosecution.
I think impeachment of Supreme Court justices for pure political disagreement with the whatever the current Congress is would create a horrible backlash. I mean, just consider how unlike it is that Bush will get impeached even though he has committed blatantly criminal acts ranging from the petty (not turning over records) to the severe (spying on Americans), and he has an approval rating in the 20s.
Impeaching Supreme Court justices is never gonna happen in my lifetime. There's too little overt power to abuse, and the Democrats didn't have the spine to block them in the first place when it was easy. They should've filibustered, and "nuclear option" be damned. Voting for cloture and then making a symbolic vote against was the same as voting for their nomination.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Hey that's really smart! Eliminate the competitive forces from a free market economy and yield a license for companies to set prices that do not reflect demand and supply. That way we can have higher inflation, less free income and have a lower quality of life. But hey, at least the really wealthy people will be better off. That's excellent social engineering and deeply reflects the spirit of America [sarcasm]. Oh why does it appear that our World is consistently screwed up by Morons! I give up. I'm saving for a hut in the mountains ;-)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I wonder if this is in responce the the poor dollar value or if it is just another example of corporations guiding the law of the US. Anyhow you can always come to Canada and get stuff cheaper.... unless it comes from the US... or you do not have a passport.
Purchase at wholesale through normal channels, sell it "retail" to a private party, who then sells it at less than retail on their web site "as new". The private party, of course, is your second cousin".
I have a plan. Using mainly spoons, we'll tunnel our way out of the city...
Thank goodness someone else seems to have figured it out! It's a shame though that some things aren't lining up for real change this time around -- 1) this is only George II, and 2) we don't have an elite class that's pissed off enough to galvanize the rest of society into acting. Sure, things in the Americas under George III might not have been golden, but without monied interests pushing for change, I really doubt the sheeple of the time would have had the momentum to carry things through to revolution. And the monied interests now are certainly not pushing for any sort of people empowerment, that's for sure.
<sigh.>
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
How much are you offering? I've always wanted to try shredding a DVD....
Menus: Linux=function, Windows=vendor, OS X=as little as possible. Makes a statement, don't you think?
Anyone remember say around 1994 when Inkjets started to hit the scene en masse, the supplies needed to hook up the printers, stayed around the same price.. But then after a few years and the inkjets started to sell like wildfire and they sold inkjets at a loss, they realized they could make up the loss by doubling or tripling those related peripherals? Nowadays, you go to any CompUSA, OfficeDepot and try to pick up a 10foot USB cable, you will pay $40. That same cable minus the "gold plating" (like selling a car with "designer perfume and promising it will have a higher horsepower", except here they can take advantage of people's technical ignorance in general and of USB specification and what it means to follow any design specification) has a cost of production below a DOLLAR and with more than double-triple retail markup, still be had for under $3. I absolutely guarantee if anyone were to dig into this, they would find a huge ugly scandal. HP, Epson, etc.. for purposely NOT supplying cables and I guarantee there is a trail of money from Belkin to HP/Epson/Canon and a trail of money to and from BestBuy/CircuitCity/OfficeDepot/CompUSA to the Printer Manufacturers and the sole one or two USB suppliers. This is ugly, and with this ruling would only help, not hurt those involved, if anyone ever got too curious!!
Now it will be impossible to get a $2,000 Macintosh discounted to $1,997.97!
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