To truly understand the market requires too things. 1. A sufficient math background, and 2. To get your emotions out of it.

Everyone wants something for nothing, and very few people, especially journalists understand that consumer goods are not delivered to your local stores in a timely manner by Santa Claus.

The supply chain is a tangle of crossed threads, heavily reliant at the base, on mining, and energy production.

If government policy discourages and restricts production through misguided environmental restrictions, or by pilling sufficient graft, and expenses on it, through a desire to imposes *fairness* on the market, the whole thing, can and will collapse like a house of cards.

There are plenty of historical examples of even so called democratic countries that have shut down large sectors of their economy for political reasons.

Food was widely available again, in most of war torn Europe by 1948 except in England which enforced war rationing well into the 1950's. Smuggling, however, was a booming business. So were mail order shipments into England of care packages containing all the foods that were unavailable in England due to the post war rationing maintained by the Labour government.

“It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”

― Voltaire, Candide

The free market is far too dependent upon the Great Unwashed for its direction to suit the intellectuals.

They know better, damn it!

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Karl Marx was bothered by the inefficiencies of the free market. In his thinking, if there were three companies making automobiles, then there was a lot of industrial capacity dedicated to making automobiles that could have been used "more efficiently" to make something else.

That's why East Germany had only one car brand (Trabant). It so efficiently used industrial capacity that the waiting list for a new "Trabbi" was 15+ years.

East Germany was the only market in the world in which a used vehicle was more valuable than a new one - because you could drive the used one home at purchase but had to wait for the new one.

And, since Trabant had no competition, there was no incentive to add new features or reduce the heavy amounts of pollution the engine produced. A Trabant built in 1960 was virtually the same as one built in 1990 - same two-stroke engine, no airbags, no anti-lock brakes, no power steering, etc.

When the two Germanies reunited, hundreds of thousands of Trabants were simply abandoned as East Germans flocked to the wasted industrial capacity of West German car brands with their safety features, more powerful engines, and modern designs.

You don't want to live in a centrally-planned economy. The free market provides choices and incentive to update products.

Part graft part people wanting to play King over others. Can see that with just local homeowners associations, where graft isn't really a concern, but will fight like crazy over who gets to choose colors.

Joe, the graft is important because it provides an incentive to advertise. Note, you don't get articles and books nor poems and songs about how great HOAs are. But you are right that the real root desire is to boss others around.

Joe J and Ben, I got a laugh out of that. I used to live in South Florida. You remember the Seinfeld episodes where Jerry's dad got kicked out of the condo assocation? That's how it really was. If anything, they watered it down a bit.