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Tuco, I'm not saying economics aren't political; I'm just saying that free markets don't neatly correlate to greater civil liberty. and that Nazism wasn't Leftist.

I totally agree with that lonibelle.

Ionobelle: Singapore (or even China) is not an exception. As stated before, you may find examples of economic freedom without political freedom, but you cannot find an example of political freedom without economic freedom.

In a way the greed you mentioned earlier is definitely there. We heard today you have a lottery jackpot in the US of around $600 million (might be the equivalent in Aussie dollars). Begs the question. If your lottery is like ours in that the profits go to good causes, charities, lids sport clubs, new centres for the disabled etc, would it not seem excessive? Would it not be appropriate to say the winning tickets share in a max of say $50million and the rest, as a privilege to the winner,they are invited to sit on the board and assist in deciding what good deeds the money goes towards.

Tuco: if you are talking about monopolies, be assured, monopolies can only exist at the sufferance of the market (e.g. the consumers). If a monopoly raises prices because it has no competition that creates a business opportunity for some entrepreneur, and competition will materialize.

Looks like I need to do todays again

Monopolies need government regulation to sustain themselves. For instance big taxi companies have a virtual monopoly in big cities because of high licensing fee and limited number of licenses available. They buy up all the licenses so that just anybody with a car can't compete with them. That is why Uber is such a success. They have found a way around the licensing issue.

Difficulty score 23.

Problem is that now uber has got around licensing regulations you have far too many taxis, the existing taxis that have paid a lot of money for the licences now have their investments wiped out and they can't make enough money to survive. Uber drivers can't make enough money because there are now too many taxis and the public and particularly emergency services are fed up with both of them because the roads are clogged and they can't get to save lives. How is this a success?

The only success is the guys who invented uber who will cash out and become multimillionaires because someone has grossly overinflated the value of the long term business.

In many ways it proves the point that you actually do need regulation. Far better to have a balance of everyone being able to make a decent living but nobody getting massively rich. After all it's not a rocket scientist but a whole lot of decent individuals with similar skillets.

The goats got greedy because they set the licences too high with too few. Then the guys made a killing by employing largely non English speaking migrants who could not find other employment and had to work for very little.

ee a familiar pattern? And I mean Govts not goats!

drwho you are still operating on the assumption that the monopoly would not squash the competition. That without government intervention to break them up they will either buy out the competition or destroy it.

monopolies do not exist at the sufferance of the market they set the market. Much like DeBeers and diamonds.

It is the same Ayn Rand rhetoric. Greed will control itself. Unfortunately if that were true then it wouldn't be Greed.

And as Alan Greenspan (A personal friend of Rand) has admitted.... Greenspan Admits Free Market Ideology Flawed http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?\nstoryId=96070766

Phil the lottery here is something that baffles me. Why don't people who play it (myself included) get it? If we can collectively raise $600 million in 3 months for a Powerball jackpot which actually probably has close to a $1 billion in the whole pot, then why is anyone trying to say we are in tough economic times? This is the richest country in the history of the planet.

dr who, I agree with your last statement; I think political freedom will directly lead to some sort of economic freedom. But all societies are based on the idea that individuals surrender some freedom for the rule of law and benefits to society as a whole. The trick is finding where to draw those lines. No freedom is absolute. The free-ish market can accomplish many things, but good laws and moral people make it function for the benefit of all. Bad laws and immoral people.....

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EZPZ, clicking as regular as a pendulum. 8.

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Phil, your Uber analysis sounds like Yogi Berra. "It's become too popular; nobody goes there anymore."

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This puzzle (hey, remember when this site was about puzzles?) was surprisingly hard for an easy. Got it with no greens but it was a slog. Much like the chat section.