[Vision2020] Buildings old and new + taxes

[DonaldH675 at aol.com]

Jeff writes:

>Markets run best when demand is the driving force  for the operation of the 
market.  An unfettered demand (that invisible  hand) will allocate goods and 
services to their appropriate values.  For  those that fear the appearance of 
"new" box stores, they should put their fears  at rest.  If the box store is 
serving the needs of the market, it will  survive.  If it doesn't serve 
>the interests of the consumer, it  won't.  Even in Moscow, we have had the 
box stores come and go - Ernst,  K-Mart, Lamont's, "big" style Sears, even 
Tidyman's.

I think Jeff and many other economists, accountants,  business advocates keep 
forgetting to remind the rest of us that Adam Smith's  original definition of 
a "free market" included two precedent conditions that  big box stores almost 
never meet--that the government, through appropriate  regulation provided:
1. A level playing field for businesses of all sizes
and
2. Monopoly and oligopoly regulation that provided enough competition  to 
ensure that the consumer had enough clout by choosing where to spend his  money 
to influence the pricing power of that business. Specifically he decried  
monopoly and oligopoly power as being detrimental to  free markets.
He specifically advocated government regulations to ensure that large  
businesses did not achieve "pricing power" i.e. the ability to ignore the  effects 
of consumers and set prices at whatever the market would bear.  
In my opinion we are about as far from a free market here in the U.S. as we  
can get and still legitimately call ourselves a free market. Most regulations  
which ensured a closer adherence to that ideal have been gutted in the last 
few  decades to the level where they are almost totally ineffective in checking 
the  excesses of large corporations. The close tie between corporate PAC's 
and our  legislatures have corrupted the system even further.
The solution to the situation is so complex and so intertwined with our  
national identity that it may never be fixed but I remain hopeful that  
rationality and pragmatism will eventually re tilt the scale in the other  direction.
One cannot  level one's moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are 
just too many  of them. But you can do something, and the difference between 
doing something  and doing nothing is everything." Daniel Berrigan


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