I love looking for good deals
If you ever read my blogs you will know that I love trying to find the best price on the best product. It is second nature to me. As an example: In the Philippines I quite happily buy Coke Mismo (soda only I don't get to keep the glass bottle) for P9 vs Coke in a bottle for P15. I save 40% and don't make plastic waste. @ecohive would be proud 🤣 I also know that I should look around for the best deal. In Japan the very same Pepsi 500ml was 100 Yen in one vending machine VS 200 Yen in another vending machine less than 100m away.
I absolutely support a vendors ability to decide on their market price....except when it is unethical.
Now usually I would go into a deep dive but today I'm going to try and keep this article short (I know it is so unlike me). For that reason I'll only go into two reasons when I absolutely am against a free market economy.
Your money or your life
A bank robber walks into a bank, fires a round and tells everyone to get down, give us the money and no-one gets hurt
I can't support that kind of behavior. In my eyes it is unethical. However, I've seen drug companies do exactly that. Back in 2001 I worked as a Pharmacist in Canada and a month supply of the cancer drug Letrozole was about $20. I went to work in the United States and I got a prescription for Letrozole. The patient asked how much? I quipped "not that much. I'm guessing $20 or so". Then I entered the prescription and checked the price. It was well over $300.
I was horrified. Then I quickly learned. In the USA drug companies could charge whatever they wanted. No price controls like Canada had. You don't want to die of cancer? Pay up. Your money or your life.
Perhaps they are not exactly murderers but they are close enough that it really irritated me.
We are going to muscle out the competition
Why did I move to work in the USA? Well, I was working for a major corporate chain in Canada and when my District manager told me how they do business I was appalled. What were they going to do? They were going to go to a small town and give all medications out at 10% less than what they paid for them. If it cost us $100 we would sell for $90. Lose $10 on every prescription. Also there was one major employer and we would give them 20% off cost to their insurance company if they would make us their preferred pharmacy.
When the insurance switched the majority of families switched. When the regular people saw we were 10% cheaper many more switched. I asked my manager how we would make money he simply said "The local pharmacies will go out of business in a year or two...then we increase the prices and we are the only one left so everyone has to come to us".
The big company would take big losses for a year or two to make big profits for decades after that. The strong picking on the weak.
I hate hate bullies who pick on the little guy.
Keeping things fair
As I said, I love getting a good deal. If a company wants to give me a special deal to win my business, I'll take it. However, I want a level playing field. I don't like bullies. I don't like corporations gouging for everything they can off desperate people. If I was a business person I would be very unhappy to have a watchdog telling me how much I can charge. My business model, my decision.
But
When people's lives are at stake? When people starve while grocery stores make big profits? When small local businesses are muscled out by unscrupulous large corporations I think there is a place for the government to level the playing field for everyone.
Something to think about
Here's something interesting. Right now the cost of Soy Beans for a corporation who can afford to buy it in bulk?
Here is a listing from the futures market:
Now to most people that table means nothing. Speculative traders might understand that it's $9.80/bu but only a major buyer would be able to tell you that.
- You buy in lots of 5000 bushels
- A bushel actually is a 60lb sack
That works out to about 16.3 cents a pound or about 240 Naira or about 23 Canadian cents.
How many calories is that?
About 2000 calories.
Enough food for a day
Wheat is about half as much at $5.05/bushel with sugar being about the same price.
.... and the thing that makes me really sad? The consumers are paying a premium for food but the farmers are getting so little there is no profit to be had for them.
Think about that.
Can you think of any possible way to get your daily nutrition for 120-240 Naira ($0.10 - $0.16)? Simply not possible...because a company buys cheap, ships, packages, and makes lots of money....from people trying to feed themselves
I'll say it again. I'm all for free enterprise and making a fair profit.
But if people can't keep it fair? Well, that's when the discussion should start.
At least that's my opinion. I'd love to get another idea or two or three. Also, I wrote much much less than I usually would. What do you think? Keep doing a deeper dive next time or keep it shorter to avoid the "Too long, didn't read syndrome".
...and thanks for making it this far :)
Final note. All images are from Dall-E except the commodity trading data which I pulled up from a random Google search. Guaranteed outdated after 5 minutes