On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Nomen Nescio wrote:
In a competitive market, prices will tend to stabilize at the cost to the supplier, plus profit.
This means nothing, it is self-referential. As a result the rest of the points you make suffer. One can define the 'price' and how it gets there from two perspectives. The first is the seller, the second in the buyer. The sellers position as to why they accepted a particular prices is actually much easier to analyze then the purchasers rationale (the reason is there are non-economic issues involved). -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------