[geeks] eBay question

[Dan Sikorski]

On Wed Sep  5 18:05 , 'Hicheal Morton' <mh1272 at gmail.com> wrote:
>In all of the transactions described there is a buyer and a seller for the
>item.  The seller or the buyer may be a middle man.  Every item is a
>commodity--even milk, even gold, even houses, even cars, even a college
>education, or a plane ticket.  Someone sells it as an item.  The seller must
>find a buyer.  Someone must choose to buy it.  If no one buys the "precious"
>item, it is has no $ value.  It is always a buyer market.

Your theory does not account for scarcity.  You are assuming that a seller
always exists.  I want to buy a bottle of Stone Brewery's 02.02.02 Vertical
Epic Ale.  I have created demand.  A search of ebay and other known outlets
for this particular bottle of beer yields no results.  I am a buyer, but there
is no seller.   Therefore, this is a seller's market.  Last week, a seller
surfaced on ebay with two bottles of this specific beer.  They both sold for
$515 each.  In 2002 these bottles sold for $10 or less.  In 2002 it was a
buyer's market.  Now it is a Seller's market.  Due to of an abundance of goods
in the world, this does not happen often, but it happens.

>I do not approach this from a financial point but rather from a
>philosophical point as my stepdad did.  From a financial view point, you are
>correct and I do not disagree, that is, we are not writing about the same
>thing. Life should not be lived on the level of buying and selling.  Living
>is meant to be lived on a higher level.  Others have stated this a variety
>of ways.  Another is the question, "Do you work to live or live to work?"  A
>kiss on the cheek cannot always be purchased.  Those times when it is freely
>given are joyous, don't you think?

Even from a philosophical point of view,  a transaction requires three things.
A buyer, a seller, and an agreement.  If all three do not exist  there is no
transaction.  An abundance of sellers, with a scarcity of buyers, results in a
buyer's market.  An abundance of buyers, with an scarcity of sellers results
in a seller's market.  When buyers and sellers are both abundant (or scarce),
the market is balanced.  If you are a buyer of a kiss on the cheek, but there
is no seller, you have just created a seller's market.

    -Dan Sikorski