Anonymous Coward writes:
"http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/ 18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity
Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford is supposed to have remarked that it was a good thing that most Americans didn't know how banking really works, because if they did, 'there'd be a revolution before tomorrow morning.'
Last week, something remarkable happened. The Bank of England let the cat out of the bag. In a paper called "Money Creation in the Modern Economy", co-authored by three economists from the Bank's Monetary Analysis Directorate, they stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong, and that the kind of populist, heterodox positions more ordinarily associated with groups such as Occupy Wall Street are correct. In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 25 2014, @04:39PM
For the purposes of pricing, $50, because the MCP, industry-wide, is $50. If it costs me $120 because I'm a really bad widget-maker, then my MCP is $120, but the industry's MCP is $50, so they'll happily sell for $55 and I'll be out of business.
If I was a really good widget-maker, and got my costs down to $40 per widget, it will take a while before the industry-wide MCP drops to $40, which means my profits will go up by $10 until the industry adopts my methods. Once a lot of other sellers have my methods, though, then the selling price of a widget will drop down to $45, and those that fail to adapt will again lose out. This is a feature of capitalism that's definitely worthwhile, since it encourages innovation and technological growth.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.