Chronicles in West Coast Socialism - the strict California Energy Building Codes have failed

[untermensche]

I believe the bankers who caused the Housing Crisis were business planners.

The people who saved them and the economic system were government planners.

You mean the government planners and regulators that promoted easy money, failed to regulate appropriately, and who were no better than the market? The bubble and crash was as much a failure of government to do their job, as it was of a benighted financial industry. HECK, they even promoted by buying up 50 percent of the secondary market through Freddie and Fannie (while Barney was defending them).

It wasn't the government planners that let the business planners loot the economy.

It was people like GW Bush and Bill Clinton.

People who couldn't have made a plan to prevent the collapse of the economy in a million years.

And Freddie and Fannie Mae were business planners. You know, the people who plan for their shareholders and don't give a damn what the consequences are to anyone else.

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I believe the bankers who caused the Housing Crisis were business planners.

The people who saved them and the economic system were government planners.

You think no money down (or very tiny % down) mortgages would've been a real thing without government meddling and promotion of such, with implicit guarantees that turned out to be well founded? What planet are you living on?

Show me one government document that even suggests Banks stop performing their duty and check information on mortgage applications.

 

[ksen]

Please, let's do away with all those government central planners.

As we all know, corporate central planners would never cause any problems.

Business planners plan how to manage and spend their own capital, land, and labor to meet consumer demand.

You mean business planners plan how to manage and spend shareholder's capital, land and labor to meet consumer demand, i.e. other people's capital, land and labor.

Unless you are really claiming that business planners own 100% of the stock of the companies they are planning for?

Government planners plan how to manage and spend everyone else's capital, land, and labor to meet their politician demands.

Right, just like business planners do for corporations.

One tends to do a lot better managing one's own spending, rather than 300,000,000 neighbor's spending in the nation.

True, but what's that got to do with business planners since they are planning and spending other people's money?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Libertarianism rests on "natural rights". A completely incoherent argument. IMHO it's just as arbitrary as the state just seizing stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

Socialism is only those government policies (and regulation) specifically put into place to alleviate the unfair advantages of the wealthier.

On what grounds do you call "natural rights" an incoherent argument, and then turn around and call the advantages of the wealthier "unfair"? What's the semantic difference between a socialist saying it's unfair for a rich guy to have an advantage over a poor guy, and saying the poor guy has a natural right not to be at a disadvantage? Conversely, when a nonsocialist says people have a natural right to property, in what substantive way is that different from saying that taking away people's stuff is unfair to them? You appear to be de facto judging moral judgment itself to be incoherent per se, except when you agree with it.

That's exactly my point. There is no difference. They'really both just pulled right out of the anus.

So I ignore both of them. We'll never get justice and equality for all because the words are infinitely malleable. They'll just be whatever is the most self serving at the moment.

Instead I focus on what kind of a society I want to live in. I'm a pragmatist. Whatever works and brings us toward that goal is what we should do.

Screw ideology and fuck natural rights

 

[DrZoidberg]

Central planning is born of a dim view of the human species: "people are too dumb to know that they can save money with energy efficiency built into their buildings, they are too dumb to make sure their contractors are building their unit as specified, and they are too dumb to be allowed to choose what they want. I'm smart, so I'll force my brilliance on everyone else via building codes and inspections to make sure those codes are followed."

First, how do suppose homebuyers are going to verify that the concrete slab currently underground and under their potential home met specs before being covered up? Same goes for wiring and plumbing and insulation, and framing, and the 75% of any building that is not visible and inspectable to the end consumer.

Second, it its a established fact, based on far better science than the OP study, that many humans are too stupid or too cognitively lazy to realize they will save more money in the long run by paying for efficiency up front. It is also an established fact that even if they realize it, many people will still make the self-harming and other-harming decision to pay less now because their mental calculus almost always underweights future savings.
Second only to the immense moral failing of the free-market faith is its intellectual failing in resting on the assumption of human rationality, which ironically is itself to epitome of irrationality, definitively falsified by 75 years of cognitive science.

Third, the regulations are not just to protect consumers against fraud but to protect the species against the harms of reckless waste of polluting energy. Even if the contractor and consumer were in full agreement on creating energy inefficient homes, the rest of us have an interest and a right to prevent them from doing things that harm the rest of us.

Wait what? Is somebody actually questioning whether we should have building codes or not? We want to avoid the completely unregulated 19'th century experience of buildings randomly collapsing now and again. Deregulation has historically been extremely bad for the housing market.

Deregulation has two effects.

1) Poor people get screwed even more than before. Houses will randomly collapse and leakage will be rampant and it'll just suck.
2) Rich people will only buy houses built to certain industry standards and will pay for surveyors to guarantee that they are. In effect it's just regulation, but spontaneous regulation. The poor would of course also demand this type of regulation if they had the capacity to do the numbers.

Bottom line, regulation and building codes is better for everybody. It saves us a lot of money. Yes, it might annoy the very very rich who get hampered in building their creative new palaces... but then again, they're such a small part of the market... who cares about them?

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Everything that is is bad and/or does not work correctly is socialism.

Everything that restricts my ability to do whatever I want, and ignore the rest of you, is socialism.

So you've just replaced the words "stupid poopy head" with "socialism". How mature of you.

 

[SimpleDon]

If central planning is so dumb then why is it the model used in 99.9% of corporations?

Man, corporations must have a dim view of the human species.

But we have a marketplace of corporations all competing against each other. The ones with bad rules reform or die.

No, we have a marketplace of corporations competing against one another and the ones who produce at the lowest cost and offer at the lowest price survive. In the absence of government and rules it is the competitor willing to behave the worst who wins this competition.

Capitalism is the best economic system yet devised because it channels a normally destructive human character flaw, greed, to good use. But greed has to be channeled by an authority to be a good for society. We get what we want in a complex commercial society, even more than that, we get to have a complex commercial society, not because we satisfy ourselves by seizing the things that we want, but because we pursue what we want in a way that acknowledges society's legal and cultural constraints. That is how we distinguish the merchant from the thief. Both pursue their own interests, but the merchant does so in a manner that confers legitimacy on his gains and that benefits society.

You can only have the lowest price wins competition for complex products and structures when you define the minimum standards and rules for that competition.

Otherwise you setup a race to the bottom because the competitor who is willing to cut the most corners wins and the other competitors are forced to match his bad behavior or to be run out of business. It is not the government who dreams up and imposes these standards and rules on the economy out of an evil intent to hamper commerce, but the honest competitors who want the standards and the rules to keep from being dragged down in the race to the bottom.

You can't have a complex economy without complex controls over that economy.

Yours, Max's, Jason's and auxlus' anarchism* would be a back to simpler times, back to a pre-industrial revolution artisan and agrarian based economy. It shares this with the other idealistic, anarchist, 19th century economic theory, Marxism. But if anything your anarchism* is much less well thought out than Marxism. And Marxism produced absolute horrors when it was put into practice.



* I am sure that since self-described libertarians have no qualms about using the loosest, most general definition of the word to label anything done by the government as being "socialism" that you would have no problems with me doing the same and using the pejorative "anarchism" to define your rather ill-formed theories.

 

[maxparrish]

Business planners plan how to manage and spend their own capital, land, and labor to meet consumer demand.

You mean business planners plan how to manage and spend shareholder's capital, land and labor to meet consumer demand, i.e. other people's capital, land and labor....

Government planners plan how to manage and spend everyone else's capital, land, and labor to meet their politician demands.

Right, just like business planners do for corporations.

Nope. Business planners plan for expenditures of their companies resources, either as owners or agents of the owners WHO OWN the property.

Government planners plan for their government's expenditures AS WELL AS trying to dictate-plan for the all other institutions, consumers, and workers of the non-governmental economy (i.e. the euphemism of 'other people's money'). Unless you think the government collectively owns all the nation's labor, products, and production, such central planning is quite different.

It is the difference between GM's planning for their own company, or planning and directing the expenditures of every Russell 2000 business in the country. "Central Planning" has a historic meaning, you know.

 

[KeepTalking]

"Central Planning" has a historic meaning, you know.

Yes, and you have abused the historic meaning from the first time you put those two words together in this thread.

 

[ksen]

You mean business planners plan how to manage and spend shareholder's capital, land and labor to meet consumer demand, i.e. other people's capital, land and labor....

Government planners plan how to manage and spend everyone else's capital, land, and labor to meet their politician demands.

Right, just like business planners do for corporations.

Nope. Business planners plan for expenditures of their companies resources, either as owners or agents of the owners WHO OWN the property.

Government planners are also agents of those who own the property in a democratic system.

Government planners plan for their government's expenditures AS WELL AS trying to dictate-plan for the all other institutions, consumers, and workers of the non-governmental economy (i.e. the euphemism of 'other people's money'). Unless you think the government collectively owns all the nation's labor, products, and production, such central planning is quite different.

Well, in a centrally planned economy there is no "non-governmental economy" but this is all a nice little sidetrack from the fact that the central planning boogeyman you keep harping on is the planning method used by corporations in the vast majority of cases.

There is nothing inherently bad about central planning.

It is the difference between GM's planning for their own company, or planning and directing the expenditures of every Russell 2000 business in the country. "Central Planning" has a historic meaning, you know.

I do know.

I also know it is the preferred planning method of the businesses involved in the free market.

http://economicsociology.org/2014/11/13/corporate-central-planning-and-american-industrialization/

 

[arkirk]

People who complain about central planning and rule making only have a valid complaint when the public inputs and comments are ignored by the rule makers in favor of special interests. In the environmental sense, this is much of the time. The irony here is that environmental issues must be dealt with by comprehensive planning and control. The more comprehensive an effective rule becomes the more important is the public input and knowledge gathering requirement of the rule making body. The irony is compounded when folks like Max simply very loudly advocate that central planning is no good and must be eliminated in favor of nothing. We are faced with flawed and incomplete regulation corrupted by regulatory capture of most agencies by the regulated parties.
When you fight central planning, you are fighting against your own interest. Poor regulation and rules are the corrupting effects of crooked lobbyists who do not have the public interest at heart. If you are not willing to engage the issues at hand (global warming, pollution, public health, toxic chemical controls, water conservation, and other environmental factors) you have no business attacking even these very flawed and underfunded regulatory approaches to deal with these very real problems.

Good regulation IS NEEDED. GOOD COMPREHENSIVE LEGISLATION LEADING TO COMPREHENSIVE REGULATION IS NEEDED. That will involve central planning, but that will do no good unless it reflects a view of the world our entire society can accept and flourish under. This is a difficult task. Let's not give up on it and turn our fates over to Exxon.

 

[bilby]

Everything that is is bad and/or does not work correctly is socialism.

Everything that restricts my ability to do whatever I want, and ignore the rest of you, is socialism.

So you've just replaced the words "stupid poopy head" with "socialism". How mature of you.

Don't blame me; I am just repeating what the Fountainhead of all anti-socialist wisdom, Ayn Rand, passed down to her descendants. The immaturity is all theirs.

Perhaps I should have used a smiley to indicate sarcasm, but I really didn't think it would be needed.

 

[SimpleDon]

I believe the bankers who caused the Housing Crisis were business planners.

The people who saved them and the economic system were government planners.

You mean the government planners and regulators that promoted easy money, failed to regulate appropriately, and who were no better than the market? The bubble and crash was as much a failure of government to do their job, as it was of a benighted financial industry. HECK, they even promoted by buying up 50 percent of the secondary market through Freddie and Fannie (while Barney was defending them).

That is because it is the charter, the only reason that they in business, of Fannie and Freddie to purchase mortgages on the secondary market. Where they violated their charter was in buying trances of subprime mortgages, which the charter expressly forbids. They did it because of pressure from their new shareholders to equal the returns of the private investment banks. Shareholders that they only had because some idiots believe that this government function would be better off if it was privatized. A libertarian wet dream.

And yes, it was the failure of the government to regulate and force the private banks out of the tranced mortgage backed securities market that allowed the disaster to to happen, because the Bush administration truly believed that the libertarian mantra of deregulation and the self-regulating free market are part of a valid way to groven.

The financial markets are inherently unstable and have to be closely regulated. This is a fact that has been proven over and over again, which we seem to forget every twenty years or so.

Easy money had nothing to do with it. While the Fed did keep interest rates low in an effort to re-elect the banker friendly George W.Bush, they did raise interest rates after the election with no effect on the bubble in housing. In fact, the worse abuses came after the rates were increased.

The reason is that the MBS's were designed to be independent of interest rates over the short term. The MBS's were designed to try to soak up some of the massive amount of excess financial capital that the neoliberal, supply side economic policies had intentionally redistributed from wages to profits and the incomes of the rich.

 

[arkirk]

I believe the bankers who caused the Housing Crisis were business planners.

The people who saved them and the economic system were government planners.

You mean the government planners and regulators that promoted easy money, failed to regulate appropriately, and who were no better than the market? The bubble and crash was as much a failure of government to do their job, as it was of a benighted financial industry. HECK, they even promoted by buying up 50 percent of the secondary market through Freddie and Fannie (while Barney was defending them).

Max: If there is no law and no regulation at all and we put Goldman Sachs and Bof A and Chase in charge of our economy could we expect it to function properly and not destroy the middle class? I agree with you that government planners and regulators promoted easy money for the bankers, but if the banks had been honest and had a moral compass that required they serve society, the promotion of easy money would not have been so bad. It is the second half of your first sentence that I agree with you on....the regulators were no better than the market. The thing went on its ear...ass up a total flop of an operation. So who owned the regulators...the bankers. As long as we have government by monied interests there will continue to be the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. You cannot throw this problem to Congress either when congress is bought and sold just like the regulatory bureaucracy.

In our country it is not a matter of what party a legislator belongs to. It is a matter of who pays for your campaign to get elected. This is not changing in our country and in fact is drifting in the direction of becoming unsolvable. You complain all the time about our government and only suggest we weaken it. It is the failures of a weak government that you are complaining about, yet you want it emulate the dreams of Grover Norquist. (Make it so small you could drown it in a bathtub.) You aren't a closet Libertarian are you?

 

[maxparrish]

(Reorganized sequence of points for clarity)

...Nope. Business planners plan for expenditures of their companies resources, either as owners or agents of the owners WHO OWN the property....

Government planners plan for their government's expenditures AS WELL AS trying to dictate-plan for the all other institutions, consumers, and workers of the non-governmental economy (i.e. the euphemism of 'other people's money'). Unless you think the government collectively owns all the nation's labor, products, and production, such central planning is quite different.

It is the difference between GM's planning for their own company, or planning and directing the expenditures of every Russell 2000 business in the country. "Central Planning" has a historic meaning, you know.

Government planners are also agents of those who own the property in a democratic system.

Well, in a centrally planned economy there is no "non-governmental economy" but this is all a nice little sidetrack from the fact that the central planning boogeyman you keep harping on is the planning method used by corporations in the vast majority of cases.

There is nothing inherently bad about central planning. ...I also know it is the preferred planning method of the businesses involved in the free market.

http://economicsociology.org/2014/11/13/corporate-central-planning-and-american-industrialization/

Your insistence on a flawed understanding of the historical meaning of "central planning" is a red herring. It is no wonder that the blurb in your link notes: "Richard Adelstein’s use of the word “planning” to describe corporate management will seem jarring to some." It is "jarring" because Adelstein is focusing on a different meaning. He focuses on the process of managerial planning in corporations, RATHER than in the historical sense of just what kind of activity is being planned. For our thread purposes, its a canard. OF COURSE, taken literally, some kind of centrality in planning is used by ALL businesses and persons; in fact, regardless of size, all firms (from single owner barter proprietors to fortune 500) plan for their own business operations, as determined by its assigned decision maker(s). All businesses of all sizes 'centrally' plan for likely consumer demand then plan and manage their own production, logistics, marketing, pricing, and distribution - be it directly or through sub-contracting. How could it be otherwise?

But the difference is in the mainly consensual multitude of transactions of 18,000,000 of US businesses and firms (regardless of their chosen form of legal organization) and the 114,000,000 consuming households are in a market relationship without a "central planning" for outcome by these participants; the other 40 percent of the economy is in subordinate to the non-market leviathan of the federal government whose central planners tell producers and consumers what must result from their spontaneous ordering.

So no, they don't do the same thing. The general contemporary meaning is not in dispute:

"The guidance of the economy by direct government control over a large portion of economic activity, as contrasted with allowing markets to serve this purpose."

Read more: http://www.investorwords.com/17515/central_planning.html#ixzz3kcR6dBSJ

So the issue between the quasi-socialist policy makers and those of us who oppose their bromides is not over foresight and preparation (planning), it is over whether the monopolist of force and coercive power should merely set the neutral rules of the market so each of the 10,000,000s of millions of participants can each plan and direct their own resources and operations spontaneously OR whether a "central planner" is going to issue decrees and directives telling businesses and households what they what they must produce and/or consume.

Central planning, in the usual sense, is an inherently bad idea.

 

[arkirk]

(Reorganized sequence of points for clarity)

Government planners are also agents of those who own the property in a democratic system.

Well, in a centrally planned economy there is no "non-governmental economy" but this is all a nice little sidetrack from the fact that the central planning boogeyman you keep harping on is the planning method used by corporations in the vast majority of cases.

There is nothing inherently bad about central planning. ...I also know it is the preferred planning method of the businesses involved in the free market.

http://economicsociology.org/2014/11/13/corporate-central-planning-and-american-industrialization/

Your insistence on a flawed understanding of the historical meaning of "central planning" is a red herring. It is no wonder that the blurb in your link notes: "Richard Adelstein’s use of the word “planning” to describe corporate management will seem jarring to some." It is "jarring" because Adelstein is focusing on a different meaning. He focuses on the process of managerial planning in corporations, RATHER than in the historical sense of just what kind of activity is being planned. For our thread purposes, its a canard. OF COURSE, taken literally, some kind of centrality in planning is used by ALL businesses and persons; in fact, regardless of size, all firms (from single owner barter proprietors to fortune 500) plan for their own business operations, as determined by its assigned decision maker(s). All businesses of all sizes 'centrally' plan for likely consumer demand then plan and manage their own production, logistics, marketing, pricing, and distribution - be it directly or through sub-contracting. How could it be otherwise?

But the difference is in the mainly consensual multitude of transactions of 18,000,000 of US businesses and firms (regardless of their chosen form of legal organization) and the 114,000,000 consuming households are in a market relationship without a "central planning" for outcome by these participants; the other 40 percent of the economy is in subordinate to the non-market leviathan of the federal government whose central planners tell producers and consumers what must result from their spontaneous ordering.

So no, they don't do the same thing. The general contemporary meaning is not in dispute:

"The guidance of the economy by direct government control over a large portion of economic activity, as contrasted with allowing markets to serve this purpose."

Read more: http://www.investorwords.com/17515/central_planning.html#ixzz3kcR6dBSJ

So the issue between the quasi-socialist policy makers and those of us who oppose their bromides is not over foresight and preparation (planning), it is over whether the monopolist of force and coercive power should merely set the neutral rules of the market so each of the 10,000,000s of millions of participants can each plan and direct their own resources and operations spontaneously OR whether a "central planner" is going to issue decrees and directives telling businesses and households what they what they must produce and/or consume.

Central planning, in the usual sense, is an inherently bad idea.

Actually you are 180 degrees from the truth on this matter. The days of laissez faire lack of planning are gone. It is not a matter of whether or not to have central planning. It is more a matter of whether or not that central planning is fair and democratic. Contrary to what you think, there is a marketplace of ideas in which we all must participate. Lack of democracy in planning has the effect of leaving people like you complaining about central planning. You focus your attention on destroying central planning instead of insuring that central planning has a democratic basis.

 

[Togo]

(Reorganized sequence of points for clarity)

Government planners are also agents of those who own the property in a democratic system.

Well, in a centrally planned economy there is no "non-governmental economy" but this is all a nice little sidetrack from the fact that the central planning boogeyman you keep harping on is the planning method used by corporations in the vast majority of cases.

There is nothing inherently bad about central planning. ...I also know it is the preferred planning method of the businesses involved in the free market.

http://economicsociology.org/2014/11/13/corporate-central-planning-and-american-industrialization/

Your insistence on a flawed understanding of the historical meaning of "central planning" is a red herring. It is no wonder that the blurb in your link notes: "Richard Adelstein’s use of the word “planning” to describe corporate management will seem jarring to some." It is "jarring" because Adelstein is focusing on a different meaning. He focuses on the process of managerial planning in corporations, RATHER than in the historical sense of just what kind of activity is being planned. For our thread purposes, its a canard. OF COURSE, taken literally, some kind of centrality in planning is used by ALL businesses and persons; in fact, regardless of size, all firms (from single owner barter proprietors to fortune 500) plan for their own business operations, as determined by its assigned decision maker(s). All businesses of all sizes 'centrally' plan for likely consumer demand then plan and manage their own production, logistics, marketing, pricing, and distribution - be it directly or through sub-contracting. How could it be otherwise?

But the difference is in the mainly consensual multitude of transactions of 18,000,000 of US businesses and firms (regardless of their chosen form of legal organization) and the 114,000,000 consuming households are in a market relationship without a "central planning" for outcome by these participants; the other 40 percent of the economy is in subordinate to the non-market leviathan of the federal government whose central planners tell producers and consumers what must result from their spontaneous ordering.

So no, they don't do the same thing. The general contemporary meaning is not in dispute:

"The guidance of the economy by direct government control over a large portion of economic activity, as contrasted with allowing markets to serve this purpose."

Read more: http://www.investorwords.com/17515/central_planning.html#ixzz3kcR6dBSJ

So the issue between the quasi-socialist policy makers and those of us who oppose their bromides is not over foresight and preparation (planning), it is over whether the monopolist of force and coercive power should merely set the neutral rules of the market so each of the 10,000,000s of millions of participants can each plan and direct their own resources and operations spontaneously OR whether a "central planner" is going to issue decrees and directives telling businesses and households what they what they must produce and/or consume.

Central planning, in the usual sense, is an inherently bad idea.

Based on this definition, what caused the sub-prime crisis was still central planning, by market participants, particularly the largest banks, who used their political and financial influence to force through changes weakening the neutral rules of the marketplace set by the industry, mainly via government. They decided that markets must change to promote wider home ownership so they could expand investment opportunities in the US property market. They decided that new financial instruments could reasonably divorce the structure of the loan from the actual building, and rely entirely on credit and market indicators. They successfully weakened existing industry practices and agreements, enforced by government, that would have stopped them.

In other words, the problem is that corporates are engaging in central planning. Not planning their own resources and operations, but central planning. That's why Greece's economic plan, and it's subsequent bailout, were both authored in part by Gold Sachs. That's why they simultaneously involved themselves in planning the market rules for the treatment of Greek debt while at the same time massively betting on the outcome of how Greece would fair. That's why tax and market rules are increasingly being written by 'free' consultants from large corporations.

We're in an era of unprecendented levels of central planning by large corporates.

 

[Harry Bosch]

A central authority plans and decrees that everyone within their jurisdiction must do X, Y, and Z and use materials A, B, and C when they construct something, no exceptions. Yes, central planning.

You mean just like in businesses?

Sure corporations practice central planning. And they fail at it all the time. The vast majority of companies fail. That's okay, because other companies will take their place. However, I don't want to live in a country that practices "central planning" and fails every three or four months. I don't want to wait in line all day to buy a loaf of bread. And etc.

 

[laughing dog]

Your insistence on a flawed understanding of the historical meaning of "central planning" is a red herring. ...

Coming from someone who considers building codes as "socialism" and "central planning", the irony is overwhelming.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I can't see the field for all of the straw men in this thread.

 

[arkirk]

You mean just like in businesses?

Sure corporations practice central planning. And they fail at it all the time. The vast majority of companies fail. That's okay, because other companies will take their place. However, I don't want to live in a country that practices "central planning" and fails every three or four months. I don't want to wait in line all day to buy a loaf of bread. And etc.

My my! How impatient you are...or is that SPOILED? Businesses don't fail for lack of lack of planning. They fail for LACK OF PLANNING. They also fail for poor unattentive planning. That can happen at any time and with any group. Live with it. Your idea is that for you to rub elbows with the common man is not as efficient as you would like to be. That is just a meme in your head.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Sure corporations practice central planning. And they fail at it all the time. The vast majority of companies fail. That's okay, because other companies will take their place. However, I don't want to live in a country that practices "central planning" and fails every three or four months. I don't want to wait in line all day to buy a loaf of bread. And etc.

My my! How impatient you are...or is that SPOILED? Businesses don't fail for lack of lack of planning. They fail for LACK OF PLANNING. They also fail for poor unattentive planning. That can happen at any time and with any group. Live with it. Your idea is that for you to rub elbows with the common man is not as efficient as you would like to be. That is just a meme in your head.

?? Have you heard of metaphors before? It is believed that central planning fails in the long run because "central planners" can't accurately predict where supply should meet demand. Therefore, often people wait in line all day for a loaf of bread, while they have an over abundance of pet rocks for example. It was a common complain in the former USSR that people would have to wait in line for hours and hours to buy bread, but they always have more batteries than they could use.