Thomas E. Woods is my absolute favorite economic / historian speaker. I’ve read his book Meltdown, and listened to at least 15 hours of his speeches / lectures, and am convinced he is one of the most compelling speakers of our time. I predict that his work will be renowned far into the future, and I am encouraging my kids to listen him also (believe it or not, they are interested in this kind of stuff!). This is one of my favorite speeches of his:
Spray-on liquid glass
Posted by
Crash
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This article about Spray-on liquid glass written by Lin Edwards is exciting enough – if true, this product will be more revolutionary than most anything in my lifetime – on the level of the microware oven… but I was struck by one statement in the article towards the end that seemed to indicate that Lin has absolutely no experience in the business world:
Liquid glass spray is perhaps the most important nanotechnology product to emerge to date. It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US). Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.
What the hell does Lin know about the profitability of cleaning products? If it is commonly known that selling cleaning products is enormously profitable, why wouldn’t the same DIY stores be selling them and also reluctant to sell the liquid glass? Why are the DIY stores so stupid? And also, wouldn’t an enterprising supermarket try to attract customers from another supermarket with lower cleaning product prices?
And why would supermarkets not compete with the DIY stores, if their customers were refusing to buy their cleaning products in favor of the DIY store’s “monopoly” of the liquid glass.
Finally, consumers are going to consume approximately the same amount, in the aggregate. Why would supermarkets care if you spend your hard earned cash on cleaning products, or on liquid glass? All they care about is making sure they have what the consumer wants, at prices that attract the most consumers.
It appears that Lin doesn’t believe in free markets, nor does she understand the concept of voluntary free exchange.
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