Saffire

Again, I'm going to keep repeating myself because you and Reilly are like children stamping your feet on the ground when mommy refuses to stop for ice cream: The mechanism of price discovery is irrelevant. Either the buyer is willing to pay the price for the item, or not. Fraud can only exist when the item is misrepresented. The only party that has a claim here is Ebay (against the seller), and even then it's Ebay's job to make sure this doesn't happen - not taxpayers'.

Sigh. It depends on the rules of the auction. If the auction requires sellers sell at the price arrived at, without bidding it up themselves (or starting the auction at that level), then he's broken a rule. But not a law. It's Ebay's issue, not the buyer's problem. The buyer voluntarily traded his money for the item at that price level - the mechanism determining the price shouldn't matter to the buyer. The only reason buyers are complaining is because they see a way to get their money back, or attack a man for making profit in excess of what they would "allow" him to have if they had the righteous guns of the government at their beck and call.

No, the appeal for auctions exists for the sellers as well - they hope to get a better price by having buyers bid against one other. And there's no reason for the law to get involved when a price has been arrived at voluntarily.

lol Reilly, it still doesn't matter. If one of the rules of the auction is that the seller isn't allowed to bid on the item, then it should be Ebay's job to enforce that. Clearly it's in Ebay's best interest to catch this sort of behavior, because one of the appeals of auctions is (as you pointed out) getting a good deal. But this is only a problem for Ebay, not the individual buyers/sellers. They have no claim here.

Of course I would. If I paid $20,000 for a car that I later discovered only costs Toyota $12,000 to make, I'd want that money back, too. I want everything I buy to be as close to free as possible. But the margin that I pay beyond what it is worth to the individual selling it, is called "profit". It exists because of the discrepancy between the seller and buyer's relative value preferences. I have no "right" to have my money back.

Ebay would probably know. But again, my point stands - who cares? Besides people who are offended when someone does something rude, like dating your ex, or walking their yappy dog near your park bench, or bidding on their own Ebay items.

I feel bad for the person who will have to scrape his remains off the side of a rock one day.

Reilly, if you're willing to part with X currency in order to obtain X product, then you've made a value judgment. The only factors that matter in making value judgments are the individual's cost/benefit analysis. If buyers discover an Ebay seller that is bidding on his own goods, they can make other buyers aware of that fact by giving the seller a negative rating. But it in no way changes the fact that you're either willing to buy something at a specified price or not. There is no third alternative.

What's wrong with this? I honestly don't see a crime here. It doesn't matter who's making the previous bid - all that matters is that someone is willing to spend more than that amount for the good offered.

Heh, this leech on society is going to pretend like she could have prevented the bomb - if only she were in charge at the time it was detonated! If only the government had more power... to search, to spy, to steal, to imprison, to tax. If only! Then horrors like this would never happen. Also, let's ignore the fact Timothy McVeigh was armed and trained by the US Military. That doesn't work well with the whole "OMG ANY LIBERTARIAN COULD BE A TERRORIST" line.

I don't get what the interest in Nick Clegg is about. I just watched a few videos of him on youtube and he strikes me as the same as every other politician since the Big Bang - vague "solutions", promotion of in-fighting among voters, overuse of buzz words like 'reform'. Even your conservative party is a bit too obsessed with immigration, but I guess that's understandable given the massive welfare state erected there. I do like Nick Clegg's occasional homage to privatization. How decent of him to throw the taxpayers a bone like that! Funny thing I noticed - everybody in the audience at the debate was over the age of 50. Normally in America they load up the audience with models under 30.

Well there goes Europe's hybrid/CFL lightbulb offsets.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with everyone having the same currency. The problem arises when one country's government takes on too much debt, and expects other nations to "monetize" the hole they've dug themselves into - meaning print enough extra cash to pay off their creditors. All of these economic crises can be avoided very simply by just having a commodity-backed currency. That solution isn't on the table because the governments enjoy having the ability to take on debt - it's a way to hide the cost of their operations from voters. Raising taxes pays for things up front, but it also hurts your chances of getting reelected. Central banking is the nasty side-effect of democracy.

Britain should just get it over with and ban "unpleasantness". Make the penalty life in prison.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7576357/Muslim-staff-escape-NHS-hygiene-rule.html O_o

When a society has a skewed male:female ratio, it can mean becoming more militaristic.

Personally I hope we CAN'T pay our debt back. Maybe then other countries will finally stop lending money to us. It's not good that the US can command such cheap credit, it creates an imbalance of power.

The CEO of a monopoly security corporation died in a plane crash, along with a notorious counterfeiter. Not really feeling the warm glow from this one.

Well the professions (soldiers and cops) attract a certain type of person... many are sociopaths. Governments often help them cover up their criminal activity, because it's bad for patriotism. I'm more afraid when I see a police officer than I am when I see some "gangsta" looking punk. But America is particularly bad when it comes to police brutality and double standards - conservatives here automatically believe whatever a cop says, and the media adores them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/economy/11rates.html This NYTimes article is really good.

The police should hire him to figure out how he did it. He's a useful asset.

What are the differences between the major parties? What are they running on, and how does the media portray them? I know more about supernovae and algae than I do modern British politics.

Women can start by helping themselves. Try dating "nice guys" once in a while, and see what happens.

I'm actually watching Jamie Oliver's TV show here in the states right this minute. He is critical of people who make bad health choices, but I think it's a good thing. Most people are too polite to say this stuff out loud.

lmao Apparently the "Minister for Digital Britain" doesn't know what an IP address is: http://i.imgur.com/1pXlO.jpg