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462 points JumpCrisscross | 21 comments | | HN request time: 0.2s | source | bottom
1. casey2 ◴[] No.45078043[source]
This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss. Is that cause copper bathtubs are a special item or are you just making up more rules after the fact to patch holes in your leaky theory.
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2. trehans ◴[] No.45078072[source]
Or... there is some elasticity with price and supply/demand, which falls totally within microeconomics
3. more_corn ◴[] No.45078084[source]
Economic theory covers what happens when the cost of goods goes up for suppliers. Prices go up for consumers. But the costs haven’t stopped fluctuating.
4. detourdog ◴[] No.45078092[source]
.I’m not sure about economics Our complex supply chain has created an environment where the cost of something is tied to externalities. I think not knowing the cost of the various steps of production is a problem.
5. thayne ◴[] No.45078099[source]
It's because basic economic theory makes some really bad assumptions. It assumes everyone has the information they need, and sellers can instantaneously change prices in response to changes in demand or cost of production.

Neither of which is true in the real world.

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6. wtallis ◴[] No.45078188[source]
I don't think you've successfully demonstrated that those assumptions are bad. They're simplifying assumptions that are necessary to have a "basic" economic theory in the first place—one with tractable and understandable mathematics that can produce an answer without immediately dumping you into partial differential equations or requiring impossibly detailed input data.

The assumptions are only bad if they prevent the simple models from being useful, and the existence of a scenario where a model's simplifying assumptions prevent it from being useful does not prove that the model is worthless.

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7. JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.45078228[source]
> basic economic theory makes some really bad assumptions. It assumes everyone has the information they need, and sellers can instantaneously change prices in response to changes in demand or cost of production

This…is not true. What theory are you referring to?

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8. watwut ◴[] No.45078272[source]
> if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss

Classical economic theory predicts literally the opposite. It predicts the prices will go up exactly as if the base materials became more expensive. Classical economic theory predicts that free market produces lowest possible prices and thus any tarif means price up.

9. throwawayqqq11 ◴[] No.45078348{3}[source]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus

Its a long time known flaw in economics. Im sure there are better models but i still agree with GP, the scientific field of economics is still a joke on par with psychology.

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10. thayne ◴[] No.45078421{3}[source]
I don't think the model is worthless. But there also going to be many real world scenarios where they aren't good enough.

It's like doing physics where you assume perfectly uniform spherical objects in a vacuum. It isn't worthless just because that isn't how the real world works, but depending on the circumstance it can also give you incorrect results, and sometimes even be way off.

11. ◴[] No.45078441{4}[source]
12. SpicyLemonZest ◴[] No.45078453{4}[source]
There's nothing in this article about an assumption of perfect information or of instantaneous price changes.
13. coliveira ◴[] No.45078591[source]
Economic theory makes some unsubstantiated assumptions, like consumers have information needed to make decisions, and those decisions are rational. In the real world the market is determined by external events that consumers have no way to know.
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14. anigbrowl ◴[] No.45078626[source]
Most economic theory is good, but most theory salespeople are flogging a simplistic version of it. 'Pure' price theory demands perfect market information and zero costs to enter/exit the market - that's why it's easiest to study on extremely fungible commodities.

In real world markets economics considers elasticity, arbitrage, and distribution of market information between producers, wholesalers, retailers, buyers etc. But very little of that finds its way into op-eds or blogs aimed at a non-academic audience.

15. anigbrowl ◴[] No.45078656[source]
It's not so much that theory makes these assumptions, as that they describe the simplest economic models. You can make your models as detailed or not as you'd like, but the more work to construct/operate/understand them, the lower your likely return on that effort. It's just like how some people want simplistic games like Candy Crush, others want high investment ones like Dwarf Fortress.
16. WalterBright ◴[] No.45078787[source]
> It assumes everyone has the information they need

This is incorrect. Lack of information is priced in as "risk".

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17. WalterBright ◴[] No.45078796[source]
"Risk" is the term for unknown information, and is priced in.
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18. sethammons ◴[] No.45081068{3}[source]
This is satisfying similar to the ai response in Hyperion as (spoilers) the entire system collapses.
19. rsynnott ◴[] No.45081428[source]
> This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss

... Wait, why on earth would businesses do that? "Yeah, we're in the business of buying X for a dollar and selling it for 90 cents". What economic theory are you referring to that makes that in any way plausible?

When input prices go up, output prices go up, and usually consumption falls.

20. coliveira ◴[] No.45083042{3}[source]
How can they even price it if there is no model for (true instead of theoretical) risk?
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21. WalterBright ◴[] No.45088252{4}[source]
Things like credit scores, which are a systematic way to evaluate risk. The higher the credit score, the lower the interest rate you get charged. It's all about the risk.

Insurance companies totally operate on evaluating and quantifying risk.