On Coin-Melting, Housing and Monopoly

Just 3 quick points on this bright Saturday morning:

First: Police raided a “coin-melting factory” and arrested its owner.

Why are coins being melted?

Only because the value of the metal is higher than that of the coin in exchange.

This is a sign of inflation.

And a pointer to the fact that our great “economists” on top are earning “negative seigniorage”.

Duds!

Second: There is a news report on a “model village” in Hisar, Haryana, which would be just an hour’s drive from Delhi if there had been an expressway. It sounds like HELL!

My question: Would this “village” not have been a TOWN if roads had been built from Delhi into the surrounds?

Would many middle-class Delhiwallahs not have bungalows with gardens, garages, servants’ quarters et. al. if roads had been built? Would this not have “developed” Hisar just as Gurgaon is developed now?

It is in this connection that the DDA’s sale of 5000 flats in Delhi at 40 per cent below market price must be assessed. This housing monopolist is also the roads monopolist. Both monopolies must go.

Further, this is how cities are being destroyed while these eminent “economists” build “model villages”.

Both the melting of coins and the model village indicate that “economists” who take over government and use its might to achieve what they call “development” can never succeed if they ignore the basic laws of Catallactics.

They need to learn, not teach.

Third: There is a headline in my old newspaper, The Economic Times, which is stupid – for want of a better word.

The headline talks of a new search engine that will “break Google’s monopoly.”

But Google was never a monopoly. It still isn’t.

Economic journalists should undertake the task of listing all monopolies: they will find that all these are run by The State: or, more accurately, by its underlings.

There has never been, and there never will be, any monopoly as long as there is “freedom of entry into all markets.”

Away with the Competition Commission and Competition Law!

Does anyone at ET remember the MRTPC?

Wasn’t India a haven of monopolies then? Economic journalists must use technical words like "monopoly" with precision. This time, they are in serious error.