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"Mr. Kumar said he was contemplating checking with a lawyer to see if there might be a city law that somehow prohibits a business from selling pizza at outlandi

"Mr. Kumar said he was contemplating checking with a lawyer to see if there might be a city law that somehow prohibits a business from selling pizza at outlandishly cheap prices." This thought is sickening.

kalleboo 14y ago
Predatory Pricing is illegal in many countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing
- olalonde 14y ago
  There are notable opponents of predatory pricing regulation as well. (e.g. Milton Friedman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0pl_FXt0eM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0pl_FXt0eM)
  - ubernostrum 14y ago
    Well, that's to be expected; Friedman's philosophy basically consisted of "If an action is taken by a government, then that action is morally evil".
    - olalonde 14y ago
      He was indeed in favor of free markets. However, your statement is factually wrong on two counts. 1) He was in favor of some government action, most notably monetary policy.[0] 2) His arguments were consequentialist and had little to do with morality. For instance, he once described Ayn Rand as "an utterly intolerant and dogmatic person who did a great deal of good.".[1] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism
      - luriel 14y ago
        > 1) He was in favor of some government action, most notably monetary policy.[0] Not really, he actually was in favor of privately issued competing currencies, but he was a realist and realized this was not politically possible, so he advocated monetary policies that did the least harm given the current system. But always stressed he didn't believe all government actions were evil, he thought national defense and law enforcement for example were best accomplished by government. On the other hand his son David Friedman is a well known anarcho-capitalist that considered the privatization of all government functions.
    - scarmig 14y ago
      That's not exactly fair of Friedman; though he was definitely pretty conservative in his views, he was overall quite the empiricist and not much a radical ideologue. There are numerous instances of him thinking government action is a good idea. For instance, back in the 90s he argued that the ideal health care policy would be one "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy," instituted by the federal government (in place of Medicare).
      - luriel 14y ago
        Friedman was not a conservative, he was a liberal (in the original sense of the word, and the sense still used everywhere outside the US): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNc2vzVsIM4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNc2vzVsIM4
        jbellis 14y ago
        Not sure why this is getting downvoted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
- larrys 14y ago
  Doesn't apply to the circumstances here. And even Walmart is well know for actually putting people out of business with their low prices. Some States have minimum selling prices for some restricted products (cigarettes for example). Pizza isn't on any list that I know of.
bitops 14y ago
Why is it sickening to you? It can be interpreted many different ways.
- travisglines 14y ago
  Well it's somewhere between predatory pricing (essentially overcapitalist ... as kalleboo mentioned) and socialistic. This is one of the cases where a larger player is trying to push a smaller player out of the market via taking a loss on lower prices at a certain location. I do realize this can be an anti-competitive tactic ... however, bringing government into the mix is a very scary proposition. It's one of the aspects of a capitalistic society that's always a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. There is no perfect solution to the problem and as a whole it's sickening.
ericd 14y ago
The quote from 2 bros "We have enough power to wait them out. They’re not going to make a fool of us." when they have 11 other stores charging a higher rate to make up for the loss of this one that's fighting with another store makes this seem like textbook predatory pricing, which is illegal, for very good reasons.
- baddox 14y ago
  I assume your "very good reason" is that the law will help an inferior business compete with a superior business.
  - ericd 14y ago
    No, it's because it's a common monopoly building tactic which is bad for the economy. It's because a larger and/or diversified business can mercilessly destroy all competition in a market by selling under cost and offsetting their losses with price hikes in areas where they face no competition until the competition in the new area gets wiped out from having to sell at or below cost. Once the new area is secure, the predatory company can then charge monopoly prices in that area as well and move on to sweeping a new area. Historically this was a common business tactic and was used to create some fairly large monopolies before it was outlawed.
  - rbarooah 14y ago
    The basic idea of these laws, is to help a superior but less well financed business to compete with an inferior business with larger coffers. You may be right that this is flawed, but I don't think you can dismiss it without a little more reasoning.
    - baddox 14y ago
      I guess the difference is in how you judge which of two companies is superior. I tend to think that the one that gets more/better business (from selling more, making higher margins, etc.) from voluntary customers is superior.
yaix 14y ago
Its only if you don't take the time to think about it for a minute. After thinking about it, I may become more reasonable. Especially in food, too cheap prices are not a good idea, because they will cause all kinds of problems, especially with quality, and may cost society a lot of money in the long run. "Free market" might be a nice marketing slogan, but it world "ain't that easy".

kalleboo 14y ago

Predatory Pricing is illegal in many countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

olalonde 14y ago
There are notable opponents of predatory pricing regulation as well. (e.g. Milton Friedman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0pl_FXt0eM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0pl_FXt0eM)
- ubernostrum 14y ago
  Well, that's to be expected; Friedman's philosophy basically consisted of "If an action is taken by a government, then that action is morally evil".
  - olalonde 14y ago
    He was indeed in favor of free markets. However, your statement is factually wrong on two counts. 1) He was in favor of some government action, most notably monetary policy.[0] 2) His arguments were consequentialist and had little to do with morality. For instance, he once described Ayn Rand as "an utterly intolerant and dogmatic person who did a great deal of good.".[1] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism
    - luriel 14y ago
      > 1) He was in favor of some government action, most notably monetary policy.[0] Not really, he actually was in favor of privately issued competing currencies, but he was a realist and realized this was not politically possible, so he advocated monetary policies that did the least harm given the current system. But always stressed he didn't believe all government actions were evil, he thought national defense and law enforcement for example were best accomplished by government. On the other hand his son David Friedman is a well known anarcho-capitalist that considered the privatization of all government functions.
  - scarmig 14y ago
    That's not exactly fair of Friedman; though he was definitely pretty conservative in his views, he was overall quite the empiricist and not much a radical ideologue. There are numerous instances of him thinking government action is a good idea. For instance, back in the 90s he argued that the ideal health care policy would be one "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy," instituted by the federal government (in place of Medicare).
    - luriel 14y ago
      Friedman was not a conservative, he was a liberal (in the original sense of the word, and the sense still used everywhere outside the US): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNc2vzVsIM4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNc2vzVsIM4
      - jbellis 14y ago
        Not sure why this is getting downvoted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
larrys 14y ago
Doesn't apply to the circumstances here. And even Walmart is well know for actually putting people out of business with their low prices. Some States have minimum selling prices for some restricted products (cigarettes for example). Pizza isn't on any list that I know of.

bitops 14y ago

Why is it sickening to you? It can be interpreted many different ways.

travisglines 14y ago
Well it's somewhere between predatory pricing (essentially overcapitalist ... as kalleboo mentioned) and socialistic. This is one of the cases where a larger player is trying to push a smaller player out of the market via taking a loss on lower prices at a certain location. I do realize this can be an anti-competitive tactic ... however, bringing government into the mix is a very scary proposition. It's one of the aspects of a capitalistic society that's always a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. There is no perfect solution to the problem and as a whole it's sickening.

ericd 14y ago

The quote from 2 bros "We have enough power to wait them out. They’re not going to make a fool of us." when they have 11 other stores charging a higher rate to make up for the loss of this one that's fighting with another store makes this seem like textbook predatory pricing, which is illegal, for very good reasons.

baddox 14y ago
I assume your "very good reason" is that the law will help an inferior business compete with a superior business.
- ericd 14y ago
  No, it's because it's a common monopoly building tactic which is bad for the economy. It's because a larger and/or diversified business can mercilessly destroy all competition in a market by selling under cost and offsetting their losses with price hikes in areas where they face no competition until the competition in the new area gets wiped out from having to sell at or below cost. Once the new area is secure, the predatory company can then charge monopoly prices in that area as well and move on to sweeping a new area. Historically this was a common business tactic and was used to create some fairly large monopolies before it was outlawed.
- rbarooah 14y ago
  The basic idea of these laws, is to help a superior but less well financed business to compete with an inferior business with larger coffers. You may be right that this is flawed, but I don't think you can dismiss it without a little more reasoning.
  - baddox 14y ago
    I guess the difference is in how you judge which of two companies is superior. I tend to think that the one that gets more/better business (from selling more, making higher margins, etc.) from voluntary customers is superior.

yaix 14y ago

Its only if you don't take the time to think about it for a minute. After thinking about it, I may become more reasonable. Especially in food, too cheap prices are not a good idea, because they will cause all kinds of problems, especially with quality, and may cost society a lot of money in the long run. "Free market" might be a nice marketing slogan, but it world "ain't that easy".