• @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    You were saying that price caps ARE shortages.

    I said no such thing.

    You said:

    The formal definition of shortage is: A situation where an external mechanism, such as government intervention, prevents price from rising.

    That’s what those words mean. Read what you wrote carefully.

    The formal definition of shortage is: A situation where…

    “A shortage is when…”

    …an external mechanism, such as government intervention prevents price from rising.

    “…there are price caps (or something similar)”

    Therfore you said:

    “A shortage is when there are price caps (or something similar)”

    That’s what you said.

    but when something doesn’t seem quite right, one interested in the topic will ask questions to try and resolve the discrepancies

    Yeah, that’s why I asked who is using that definition, and proposed one I liked.

    [A shortage is when] …buyers want to purchase more at the market price than the quantity of the good or service that is available.

    Does not need additional context to be understandable. It’s what a shortage is. It may mostly be caused by price rigidity, but the price rigidity isn’t the shortage (which IS what you said).

    My best take is that you are trying to say is that I was being too technical for an audience not familiar with economics and that I should not have left them needing to do some research of their own to understand the bigger picture the original definition exists in. Am I close?

    I’m saying that if someone objects to the way you’re defining something show them where you got the definition. And if you insist that your definition is correct make sure you said what you think you said.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      That’s what those words mean. Read what you wrote carefully.

      I’m afraid I don’t follow. “Price caps” isn’t even mentioned in the definition. Indeed, price caps are one possible external mechanism, but hardly the only possibility. Perhaps you can explain how you see “external mechanism” equating to price caps and price caps alone?

      but the price rigidity isn’t the shortage (which IS what you said).

      Again, I don’t follow. There was nothing said about price being unable to fall. Where do you see rigidity coming into play?

      Also, it says that a shortage is a situation where price is unable to rise, not a shortage is when price is unable to rise. This situation is that, with loss of the default scarcity control mechanism (price not being able to rise) during periods of rising demand or declining supply, demand is able to exceed supply. Exactly what you also say a shortage is. For the sake of improving communication in the future, can you explain to me how this was not clear?

      The definition is technical. It requires some understanding of economics to grasp. Your entire paragraph definition is more approachable – but also excruciatingly long for a formal definition. As the grander discussion is about economics, we’re not talking to people who don’t have some understanding of economics, so we can safely use technical terms. Anyone here in good faith that does not have such understanding is going to develop that understanding before going any further.

      I’m saying that if someone objects to the way you’re defining something show them where you got the definition.

      While “formally” already indicates where the definition comes from, logically where the definition comes from is irrelevant. I can speak to it myself to anyone who wants to have a conversation and not go down some totally bizarre “Neo-liberal” road. If you would rather read someone else’s work, why be here?

      And if repetitive miscommunication means that I fail to speak to it, oh well? It makes no difference to me if someone does not take anything from it. Who cares what someone else thinks? That’s their problem. It is not my job to educate them and I have absolutely no desire to become a teacher – especially for free. Do you really believe that I need to work as someone else’s teacher for free or have we miscommunicated again?