The Free Market Center Journal
The voice of Free Markets
I began, several weeks back, by stating that minimum wage laws are a terrible idea. I made several posts laying the ground for the idea that minimum wage laws represent only a small part of the problem of government intervention, which upsets the balance in markets established through unfettered exchange. I now return to the … Continue reading Minimum Wage vs. Balance
In free markets, we have what I have dubbed balance. I use the term balance advisedly because I want to connote the idea that the market always adjusts to the changes in the behavior of buyers and sellers. I want to distinguish between balance, which I used to note dynamic adjustment, and the frequently used … Continue reading Intervention vs. Balance
Balancing Production and Consumption Before I continue discussing the allocation of resources in a free market, I would like to recap some of the points that I have made in the last few blog posts. I started by explaining the concept of consumer sovereignty, which means that the whole purpose of production and markets consists … Continue reading Resource Allocation
In previous posts, I introduced the importance of consumers in a well-functioning market. I also introduced the fact that consumers consisted of a byproduct of production. Consumers can neither consume nor acquire things to consume without first producing. These facts might lead one to assume that some sort of centralized control might make a more … Continue reading Market Complexity
I have described the importance of consumers in the operation of free markets. All production and distribution exist to serve consumers. Consumers ultimately determine all market pricing. But, from where do these all-important consumers come? How do consumers get "created?" According to common usage, we call people who spend money in the economy "consumers." Consumers, … Continue reading Creating Consumers
Now that we have a precise definition of the word “price,” we can discuss price determination (or priced discovery) of what we refer to as “market price.” We can understand the determination of an individual price by understanding the previously discussed definition of “price.” The individual price results simply from the agreement between buyer and … Continue reading Price Determination—Part Two
The determination of prices represents another piece in the free market puzzle. As frequently as you hear people refer to prices, I find it surprising how many misconceptions people have about prices. How do you define “price.” What factors determine price? What role do prices have in resource allocation? In this article, I will address … Continue reading Price Determination—Part One
The importance of consumer satisfaction—which I have referred to as Consumer Sovereignty—plays a critical role in the behavior of all actors involved in the structure of production. Miners, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers will all try to lower their costs so they can pass the saving on to consumers. To understand this tendency, let's examine the … Continue reading Lower Producer Costs
Legislating minimum wages, at any level, is a dumb idea. It fits a pattern of dumb ideas suggested by the interventionists in governments. Many of the critics say that minimum wage laws lead to more unemployment. That statement turns out to be accurate, but I want to begin this discussion on a much more fundamental … Continue reading Consumer Sovereignty
In my post titled “Money Tree,” I explained in a general way how the addition of “non-market money[1]” distorts market prices, which in turn leads to a misallocation of resources. In this post, I will build a hypothetical model to show how that process works in more specific conditions. I will follow two different market … Continue reading Crazy Markets