Great news! I really hope the 18-30 year olds can still make a difference in an ageing society like Europe. I'm concerned that some decades ago, when the median age was much lower, western democracies were more agile and creative (look for example at the hippies, I'm not sure if that still wouldn't be possible).
The grammar nazi in me wants to tell you: it's "per se", not "per say".
CNN reports that Microsoft Corp. reported quarterly sales that fell for the first time in its 23-year history as a public company. The company has had a difficult time combating slumping demand for its Windows operating system, as the economic slowdown has dragged PC sales down 7% to 9%, according to Microsoft's estimates. The recession has also prompted many consumers to opt for cheaper, scaled-down "netbooks". They typically run a lower-cost version of Windows or an open-source operating system such as Linux.
This is quite a remarkable statement, and you will have to do both of the following for me to be convinced:
I think a can do that for point 1, but not for point 2:
1. Back up your claim with evidence showing that a company would be able to maintain customers despite inflated prices.
If you define 'inflated' as any price level above the level we would have under perfect competition, then this is easy to show:
Many products are sold at different prices in different countries simply because the people in one country have more purchasing power than in the other country. Under perfect competition, this isn't possible. One of the reason there often isn't perfect competition are government granted privileges like patents. So if I want to buy some patent-protected drug, it will often cost me twice as much as in a neighbor country. In a free market, people could start going to the neighbor country and import truckloads of these products, thereby driving the domestic prices down. However, this is forbidden here.
2. Show that the ends justify the means - that it is alright to violate the individual rights of the members of a company to offer their property - their product - at a price they decide, and be held responsible for their actions in the success or failure of those prices.
I'm not sure this is possible to show. It depends on being able to put a number on the effect described in (1). I guess that products in my country (Switzerland) are generally about 10% overpriced, when comparing to Germany, even when taking into account higher wages. Furthermore, this depends on how high you value property rights. This is highly ideological and I could be discussed endlessly. That's why I don't think I can show (2). It's a matter of personal values and ideology.
In any other situation, losing the freedom of action over your property is grounds for police intervention against the perpetrator. What is different here?
One important difference here is that the inflated prices is often only possible because of government granted privileges like patents. In such cases, I don't think we should be too scrupulous in taking something back in return.
A law that forbids price fixing leads to lower prices for the consumer as it allows different vendors of a product to compete against each other. However, this also means that the producer looses some of its control over his products.
Most European countries consider this a small price to pay to get the lower prices. Especially if the profits of overpricing go abroad anyway.
Enforcing braces is a good idea, I've seen the following class of mistakes too often:
if (condition)
statement
is changed to
if (condition)
log("doing x")
statement
which obviously brakes the code. If you don't like the braces, you can often use ? and : instead.
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.
