RE: Kazaa and hybrid soybeans

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jose generously comments on my imprecise statement that "the reasons
[independent record and book stores are going out of business] have to do
with big business crowding out small (the usual economies of scale)" by
saying I'm "Wrong." Even "Wrong Wrong Wrong." Why, because "The MAIN reason
is predatory pricing by the monopolies" Which is precisely one of the things
I was including in the elliptical statement "the usual economies of scale"
because I didn't want to elaborate since I assumed everyone was more or less
familiar with the details that Jose describes of exactly how the "economies
of scale" work in the record and book business. I realize that may not be a
classic economic definition of the phrase "economies  of scale," and perhaps
I should have used a better phrase like "the advantages of being big"
(incidentally, large book and record chain stores are not "monopolies," as I
understand the term, just large chains).

I do question Jose's closing statement:  "There is precious little evidence
that monopolies are economically more efficient, on the contrary, the
evidence against the proposition is overwhelming." With book and record
stores, for example, they are able to place an ad in a large metropolitan
newspaper advertising a big sale and listing their ten area stores. An
independent, one-off book or record store would, in placing that same ad for
the same amount of money, need to generate ten times the sales from the ad
in order to justify it. So there's "some" of the "precious little evidence."
Centralized buying, centralized development of programs for inventory
management, etc., etc. These may or may not be LARGE advantages, but I find
it rather hard to believe that the evidence AGAINST the proposition (at
least in the case of book and record stores, I really don't want to think
about the broader proposition) is "overwhelming."

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