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Originally Posted by liberty1776
You're right, wells can't be dug everywhere. If someone lives in an area where a well can't be dug, or remote area where water cannot be deliverd cheaply, I say "tough cookies." I don't live in a place like that, and there is no reason I should have to pay with a decreased water supply because someone is bitching about having to pay too much for water.
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Cities
could not exist under such a circumstance.
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And why is $1 a litre gouging? This seems to be the market-clearing price. If people thought it was too high, they would not buy it, the supplier would have a surplus and either go out of business or lower his prices. You might think that $1 a litre is gouging, but your oppinion is of no relevance in an exchange between two people.
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You realize that the most efficient pricing is when supply equals demand correct?
$1 isn't where supply equals demand but because a person needs water to live they'll be forced to pay it. When you hold the only means of the survival of the citizens of a city, it should be charged as if there was a competitive market, as a result of being allowed by the people to hold such a position.
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No, those economists are not hacks. They are tenured economists at four year schools. Block even has an endowed chair. These are not hacks.
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Tenure doesn't mean the guy isn't a hack. Many times hacks congregate together, surrounding themselves with more hacks so they can claim to be "economists" without having to be challenged on it.
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You are right about their methodology. While other economists look at data and expect a theory to pop up, Austrians use logic. As you have argued, people behave outside of nice neat equations. Austrians don't pretend to be able to predict the exact future of an economy.
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Economics, while is may be a dismal science, is still a science. With no testing you don't have science you have theology. Which is
useless for public policy.
Real economists can and do predict the future fairly accurately, and when they fail they reanalyze and fix there theory. the Mises Institute and the Austrian School of Economics simply repeat the same mantra regardless of the results.
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When has a monopoly arisen in the way you desribe.
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Any water firm is a natural monopoly in the long run. It's simply not profitable to compete.