capitalism

[Ken Ketner]

Greetings friends, I also am a greedy, money grubber, other wise known
as a capitalist. Some years ago  I joined the US Infantry to help keep
our country capitalist, as I am sure many of you also did in similar
ways. 
        It seems to me that ebay has done a good thing for amateur equipment,
on the whole. The older stuff is circulating, things are being sold by
willing sellers to willing buyers. That’s how the free enterprise system
works. The reflectors on the other hand, are not a good reflection of
market value, because one is restricted to only giving an asking price.
As soon as that is met, the item sells, and there is no chance for buyer
number two (who, thru the accidents of time and message distribution
didn’t see the ad until 1 hour after the first guy saw the ad) to say
“Well, I will give $10 more than the previous price.” So the reflectors
are not a good indication of market value.
        One might also want to consider some aspects of these points. 1) the
reflectors might not want to advertise individual ebay auctions, but on
the other hand, that may be simply a bandwidth matter. So from that
alone, it doesn’t seem to follow that the ebay world or method is to be
condemned. After all here we 2) also offer our technical experience.
Getting an older piece of equipment is sometimes only half the battle,
because then we want to put it back to work or restore it for display.
So 3) here we often offer connectors or 117P6 tubes or paper items or
other small or scarce items too insignificant to go on ebay, but yet
which are vital for some project.
        From all this it seems to me that reflectors are like computer user
groups, mutual support activities. We shouldn’t worry how a member
obtains their rig as long as it was done legally and morally. Our
interest should be to offer what support and help we can.
        And if someone sells something on a reflector, the present system seems
a viable option. But why not add an option to let a seller receive
direct bids for a few days? One could post a message something like the
following: “Hallicrafters Dual Diversity Receiver open for bids until x
day, reply directly to Jack Armstrong at Breakfastcereal.net.” This would
take the same amount of bandwidth for the reflector as the present
system (all bids would be off-reflector). And in this way, because a
market is functioning, capitalism would ultimately guide the reflector
auctions to show the market value of items. This could be in addition to
the present system of one-time offers.
-- 

Ken Ketner
ARS KA5ELD

email:
        home:   ketner at arisbeassociates.com
        office: b9oky at ttacs.ttu.edu

PO Box 65135
Lubbock, TX 79464

Sponsored by the City of Tempe 

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