How to Read a Graph
Where: pu = Number of pages of Econ text devoted to graphic analysis du’h = Number of Econ students awake in lecture hall Also, a thing may be “priceless.” You’d rather die than trade your Macintosh for an IBM. But that’s still a price, albeit a very high one. 2. So You Die. Things Still Cost What They Cost. It’s no use trying to fix prices. To do so, you must have a product that can’t be replaced, and you must have complete agreement among all the people who control that product. They’re greedy or they wouldn’t have gotten into the agreement, and they’re greedy so they sneak out of it. This is what was wrong with Paul Samuelson’s idea about crop restrictions in Chapter I, and this is why the members of OPEC are still wandering around in their bathrobes, pestering camels. Any good drug dealer can tell you that to ensure a monopoly, you need force. To ensure a large monopoly, you need the kind of force only a government usually has. And it still doesn’t work.‡‡‡ The government of Cuba, with force aplenty at its disposal, decided that beef cost too much. The price of beef was fixed at a very low level, and all the beef disappeared from the government ration stores. The people of Cuba had to hassle tourists to get dollars to buy beef on the black market, where the price of beef turned out to be what beef costs. When the price of something is fixed below market level, that something disappears from the legal market. And when the price of something is fixed above market level, the opposite occurs. Say the customers at suburban Wheat
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online