Talk:Market distortion

This page has a lot of problems and should be deleted, it's more propaganda than anything else. It's definitely not economics. Among the list of "market distortions" are:
 * "Asymmetric information or uncertainty among market participants": This is the definition of a market. Markets are unpredictable by definition.  If a competition is fair, the outcome is uncertain.  That's why we watch sports.
 * "Mass non-rational behavior by market participants": Uh... people are sometimes irrational. If the alternative is to force everybody to be rational at all times in order to satisfy the needs of the market, that is exactly why economist Friedrich Hayek opposed central economic planning -- that is uses individuals as means to economic ends, rather than treat individuality as an end in itself.  i.e., "Where the precise effects of government policy on particular people are known, where the government aims directly at such particular effects, it cannot help knowing these effects, and therefore it cannot be impartial. It must, of necessity, take sides, impose its valuations upon people and, instead of assisting them in the advancement of their own ends, choose the ends for them. As soon as the particular effects are foreseen at the time a law is made, it ceases to be a mere instrument to be used by the people and becomes instead an instrument used by the lawgiver upon the people and for his ends."
 * "Price supports or subsidies": The lack of price supports actually caused the price collapse at the start of the great depression. These are sometimes needed to preserve markets.

Those are the low-hanging fruits. — Anonymous contribution from IP 98.103.209.74 on 14 October 2015


 * If I am being scammed into acting against my own self-interest (i.e. asymmetric information), oh well, life is unpredictable "by definition" and we should delete all Wikipedia articles regarding such occurrences, because... sports? Heck, let's delete the Market Failures article too while we're at it. Jokes aside, I do not agree with the above criticism and anon's call to delete as propaganda -- it seems to come from a prescriptive reading of the article when market distortions are a well-known concept in economics. The commenter's idea of what constitutes an idealized market doesn't seem to align with mainstream economics. 159.53.110.141 (talk) 20:40, 20 October 2023 (UTC)