Quote:
Originally Posted by treegate
Socialism in it's purest form. Did I say in my post that he should sell for hundreds of dollars over cost? No. I said let the secondary market dictate the price. If someone is willing to pay x amount over retail price who are you to dictate that they shouldn't? Yes I am sure a lot of people would love to have an item like this at cost, and he made the offer here that someone could which is very gracious of him and I support that. But if no one is interested, what obligation does he have or anyone for that matter to make sure he finds someone who can have it cost? None. I'd gladly help someone here and I have several times in getting items at cost and shipping them out using up my time to do so and those people have been very thankful, but where is is stated that a person can't put something up for sale on eBay or Amazon and let the secondary market dictate the price? What harm is there in that in all seriousness?
Let me give you an example. If someone sells an item for fifty dollars over retail or five dollars over retail, so what? That is what someone is willing to pay for the item. Does that make the seller some evil "capitalist" because it sold to someone who was willing to pay an amount that is over retail cost? No, profit is a good thing, that profit a person makes may go to help with other expenses he has so he doesn't have to rely on someone else helping him. Perhaps you live in a country where everyone expects everything to be taken care by their government, despite the fact that its the people who end up covering all the taxes to pay for everyone else. I don't believe in that, you may disagree and have every right to, but at the same time respect those opinions that differ from yours with a bit of dignity and maturity.
For the record, in my line of work I used to help people out by selling items at less than fair market value as these items didn't have "retail" prices, listening to their stories about how they needed the item and would not be able to pay more. So I would help them out only to learn they were in turn reselling the very same item behind my back at a profit so I stopped. So what is more "evil" as you put it, the person who sells for a profit as a business, or the person who lies about needing something and gets the item at a less than market value price only to turn around and resell for themselves at a high profit, yet lying through their teeth initially to gain financially?
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Look, I think we've found the root of the problem, definitely actually, going by the sort of borderline libertarian spiel you put in the second paragraph.
(Although I like the irony of having the audacity to imply that I wasn't dignified or mature enough whilst you can throw in the sneaky insult that I've heard so often before of, "Perhaps you live in a country where everyone expects everything to be taken care by their government". If you want to be so dignified and mature, try not implying that all people of my nationality are lazy and entitled, y'know, the way I've always seen that used by those closer to your political views.
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We'll never see eye-to-eye on this because, to not mess you about and just be straight, so this isn't meant as a personal attack because frankly I can't be arsed wasting my time on it, I think that typical right-wing, yay! free market, blaming my views on my government for not being some horrific Thatcherite dog-eat-dog hellhole (god forbid we have the NHS and free prescriptions and anything like that! Look at us dirty, Commie fucks, trying to support everybody in as equal a way as possible!)
As for your last paragraph, that was good of you, but really, you got burned by some royal pricks, does that excuse any of the relevant points we've been talking about, well, no. It's not really as relevant in this context, especially with you trying to frame it as a moral problem at the end, they're as bad as each other to me.
Also, to be clear, I didn't use the word "evil", maybe don't try and twist my words to suit your argument...
However, most importantly, you've still missed the entire point.
This is not some political issue and about our respective viewpoints on that but as I have always put it, it is a personal moral issue for me of someone putting personal gain over the fairness of everybody. But re-reading your reply, I can see you don't have an answer to that with how quickly you guide it to the politics side right at the start of paragraph two.