Producers are under two pressures: to raise prices to account for the loss of purchasing power of each dollar, and to lower prices to attract customers with declining incomes. They most obvious way to accomplish both is to keep the nominal prices the same or slightly lower while adulterating the goods and services.
In groceries, that means 59oz cartons instead of 64oz, at the post office, 18-stamp booklets instead of 20-stamp, and at the hotel much reduced service, such as no daily bedding changes. The difference over even one year has been drastic enough to be noticed.
The other cost is in the increase of regulations. To use the sound suppressor registration as an example, government intervention at least triples of the prices over countries where suppressors are not registered. To that, a $200 excise tax is added. And to those costs, the value of productivity lost while complying with the paperwork requirements, easily a full day of work time. So a suppressor costing $100 in New Zealand ends up costing Americans $300+$200 tax+$200 lost work time, a total of $700 plus a delay of 6-8 months. This is as an illustration only — all regulations increase costs and most provide no benefits to anyone but the bureaucrats enforcing them in exchange for paychecks and influence.
I think you’re trying to read too much into this. The purpose of the $200 tax and associated paperwork is very simple: to effectively outlaw the guns and accessories subject to this. Consider how much $200 was back in 1930…
This “tax it into oblivion” approach probably was used to avoid a Constitutional challenge. “No, your honor, we didn’t outlaw that gun, the 2nd amendment is not affected at all”. Yeah right.
Things like this pop up from time to time. Teddy Kennedy floated the idea of a $5 per round tax on ammo, or some such thing. Same idea exactly.
Another angle is the racist one that is at the basis of most anti-gun laws: let rich friends of the political class keep their guns, but deny them (or make them unusable) to ordinary people, especially minorities. The 1968 law is a well documented example, but the same goes for the GCA (same idea, different minority), or the Sullivan act.
Have you ever noticed that most people think machine guns and suppressors are illegal, as opposed to just being taxed and paperworked? That shows what the intent was, and that the intent was pretty much achieved.
Well said. Milk cartons in this example are unintended consequences, the suppressor, intended.
All of the negative consequences of Progressivism (incremental communism) are intended. They are the main feature. The familiar selling points, the explanations and justifications that your average American can recite without having to think, are the distractions from the reality.
We put up with all of violations in the hope that someone else will somehow fix it at some point, and we’ll be able to avoid the fight.
Lyle, if all such consequences are intended, did the USSR intend to collapse? I should think not. And I do not think price increases are intended consequences except in specific instances where it is intended to affect behavior, most notably in the energy sector.
I think Lyle’s point is that the evil effects on ordinary people were intended; collapse and other adverse impacts on the dictatorship were not.
Yes indeed. The history of Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt and their ilk make it clear that they deliberately set out to wreck the constitution.
From what I have seen concerning socialism is that they always believe they can do it right “this time”. So, no the collapse of the USSR was not planned but all of the bad things that happened were planned. The govt in that case, as is usual for communism, was only out for the raw power, no matter what platitudes they fed the sheep.
Oleg: Are the cheaper suppressors in other countries comparable to the ones on the market here? My assumption was that since you have to pay $200 to acquire the suppressor there isn’t a low-end market here. I assume you can’t buy welded-core titanium suppressors overseas, and that if you can they will still cost around $1000?
Their cheapest suppressors are about $30es. $100 buys a good one. And yes, they have a high-end segment also.
My key question is how and how much are suppressors “inflated” in the U.S.?
For reference, here are two different types of inflation:
1. Product inflation: A $1000 suppressor here would sell for roughly $1000 (equivalent currency) elsewhere, but the average selling price here is $500 whereas in unregulated markets it’s $100. In this case the transaction barriers are so high that there isn’t much activity in cheaper products.
2. Price inflation: Equivalent suppressors sell for much more here than in unregulated markets. Given that there is still a competitive and large market here this case seems unlikely, but it could happen in the extreme case that regulations tighten trade so much that manufacturers can’t realize economies of scale, and/or there is little price competition.