
Class Action Reveals Widespread Overpricing Scheme of DRAM - pirocks
https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/9e5251c6-7451-4c29-88af-20c360451dde
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mkempe
These lawyers are vile parasites -- they are feeding off disgusting,
subjective regulation [1] that should be abolished [2] so we can all benefit
from the immense advantages of fully free markets. On the one hand, businesses
are held guilty of overcharging if they price their products as high as the
market will bear; on the other hand they are guilty of dumping if they keep
cutting their costs and lower prices below what some busybody feels is right;
and on the third (hand) they are guilty of price-fixing if they charge the
same as their competitors happen to charge. All options are available to the
government, if they decide to manipulate, control, or destroy your business.

[1] Ten Thousand Commandments, by Harold Fleming (1951) \--
[https://archive.org/details/tenthousandcomma00flem](https://archive.org/details/tenthousandcomma00flem)

[2] The Abolition of Antitrust, by Gary Hull (2005) \--
[https://www.c-span.org/video/?186889-1/the-abolition-
antitru...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?186889-1/the-abolition-antitrust)

~~~
JudasGoat
Price fixing is not the same as "businesses are held guilty of overcharging if
they price their products as high as the market will bear". The fact that
lawyers will make exorbitant profit is more palatable to me than 3 mega
corporation's that collude to make X times the lawyers exorbitant profit.

~~~
eecsninja
That's not what he said.

To summarize:

\- "price gouging"/"overpricing" \-- "businesses are held guilty of
overcharging if they price their products as high as the market will bear"

\- "predatory pricing" \-- on the other hand they are guilty of dumping if
they keep cutting their costs and lower prices below what some busybody feels
is right

\- "price-fixing" \-- "they charge the same as their competitors happen to
charge"

~~~
mark212
None of those are actually alleged in the complaint. Price gouging is only
rarely a crime and in most definitions involves taking advantage of things
like natural disasters. Charging what the market will bear isn’t the same
thing at all. And more to the point, isn’t what this complaint is about.

Conspiring to fix prices is indefensible under any economic theory. If three
companies who have 96% of the market agree not to compete with each other and
inflate prices, that’s bad. Your grandmother and a sophisticated Econ PhD
would agree.

“Charge the same as their competitors happen to charge” also isn’t price
fixing. That would be parallel pricing and is entirely legal. Price fixing is
as described above, conspiring together in restraint of trade. And it’s really
hard to prove without a whistleblower or some very clear (repeated) pricing
moves that are statistically highly improbable to have been the result of
coincidence.

As for why the other 4% of the market doesn’t step up and grab the market
share, some industries just don’t work like that. It costs $10 billion or more
to build a chip fab and doesn’t happen overnight. It could be that the 4%
player is at capacity and is selling out by slightly underpricing, but doesn’t
have enough production to affect the market.

There are certainly rapacious attorneys out there. But Samsung here is a
victim? Micron? If the charges are specious, they’ll sort it out in short
order and the legal fees to do so won’t even cause them to break a sweat. I’ll
save my pity for those who deserve it.

