capitalism

[swlistener@bigfoot.com]

I guess wanting the masses to get good deals and low prices
and not have the seller get his true value sounds like
communism, right steve....are you?


At 09:42 AM 01/08/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>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
>
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