25 May
2005
25 May
'05
2:41 p.m.
--- Barry Watzman <Watzman at neo.rr.com> wrote:
You don't understand how E-Bay works. If you bid
$5
and I bid $100, I win
the item .... for $6. And the fact that I had bid
$100 is never even seen,
by anyone.
I understand it quite well. I believe that both you
and Eric missed the point of my remark, which was
simply that there was in each case another individual
who was willing to pay essentially the same price at
which the auction closed, therefore there was a
market, however small, in which the exhorbitant
closing prices of those G-15 document auctions was in
fact the "correct" market price. You cannot blame an
individual willing to pay that price as driving up
prices -- it takes at least two bidders willing to pay
"above market" prices to do this. His only
alternative would have been to bid less, and lost.
The situation is different in an ordinary sale, where
the price will rise to whatever a single individual is
willing to pay, as long as the seller is willing to
hold out for a higher price.
--Bill