A friend of mine gave me the "National Do Not Call List" as an example of a government regulation that clearly addresses a "market failure". He points out that clearly, the market had failed in providing an effective mechanism for the consumer to block the telemarketers from intruding their homes (by phone). Legislation was justified in order to meet that consumer demand, thus, a good example of productive government intervention. How do you address that? Does anyone have a good refutation of this common interpretation of the "Do Not Call List"?
A friend of mine gave me the "National Do Not Call List" as an example of a government regulation that clearly addresses a "market failure". He points out that clearly, the market had failed in providing an effective mechanism for the consumer to block the telemarketers from intruding their homes (by phone). Legislation was justified in order to meet that consumer demand, thus, a good example of productive government intervention.
How do you address that? Does anyone have a good refutation of this common interpretation of the "Do Not Call List"?
DD5:Does anyone have a good refutation of this common interpretation of the "Do Not Call List"?
Private telephone firms could do the same thing and probably would in a free market. It's not a free market, so there is not competition, so to say that the market has failed is false. If there was no regulation, and there was competition, and no firms addressed this issue, then you could blame market failure.
As an aside, telemarketers do not intrude. People choose to have phones, and choose to answer them. If it was still cost effective to go door to door, then the government would have to institute a "Do Not Knock List" although I suspect many people would still answer the door.
Many times people opt into these phone lists, email lists without realizing it. We are a culture that has massive TERMS OF SERVICE agreements, and yet no one bothers to read them.
/rant
One more thing. As a marketer, the do not call list actually helps the firms with something to sell, by qualifying their lead databases. If I have a list of 150,000 phone numbers, and I can sort out the 35,000 on the Do Not Call List, then my sales team only has to make 115,000 calls, presuming that most of those 35,000 on the do not call list would have been difficult to sell, or unlikely to buy anything on the phone.
In the lead generation game, the higher quality your leads, the more you can sell them for. That is why marketing firms want to know your age, your income, your race, education etc. You don't sell Porsches to people making under 35k a year, and you don't sell sub-$1000 Caribbean vacations to people making $250,000 a year.
People who take positive action to avoid sales men and do not want to be sold are dead leads. So being able to clean those dead leads out of the lists, makes the lists higher quality, and thus more valuable.
I suspect in a free market, firms would pay for the databases of "do not call" clients so that they can increase their performance per lead.
DD5, I hope this isn't your friends huge justification as to why we need to keep the State and the big justification for Empire building, cause they do "Do Not Call List" operations. If so (but please say no) but if so this goes to show how warped priorities are.
Person A: "Yeah, I don't want the State cause of all the corrupt wars, intervention in education, regulatory child vaccinations, and hampering of the economy."
Person B: "But dude they are really good at "Do Not Call List" operations so we can make the necessary sacrifices."
Please DD5 say it's not so.
(I agree with LS's answer I'm just a bit boggled)
Spam filters.
It's not intrusion, but if we are going to assume, for argument's sake, that it is, then why wasn't the government prosecuting telemarketers before the advent Do Not Call List? Likewise, isn't it a government failure everytime a someone gets murdered on a sidewalk or dies on a public road, or dies because of an out-of-control fire at a state park?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
thebob: Spam filters.
Specifically, that's why they invented Caller ID.
Also, a big problem is that the state forces its citizens into giving them all sorts of personal information and then sells it to telemarketing companies. Dead serious.
I registered new license plates for my car at the DMV a couple months ago, and starting about a week and a half after that, I've been getting tons of calls on my cell phone from telemarketers trying to sell me warrantees for my car. It was a new cell phone number, and the DMV was the only entity other than a few friends and family that knew about the number at the time. DMV sold me out.
"Anticapitalist theories share in common an inability to take human nature as it is. Rather than analyzing man as a complex creature, anticapitalist theories tend to focus on what the theorist wishes man to be." - Isaac Morehouse
Freiheit: Also, a big problem is that the state forces its citizens into giving them all sorts of personal information and then sells it to telemarketing companies. Dead serious. I registered new license plates for my car at the DMV a couple months ago, and starting about a week and a half after that, I've been getting tons of calls on my cell phone from telemarketers trying to sell me warrantees for my car. It was a new cell phone number, and the DMV was the only entity other than a few friends and family that knew about the number at the time. DMV sold me out.
At least it was for your own good.
Yeah, think of all the negative externalities of owning a car that were avoided thanks to the state monopoly on car licensing.
DD5:A friend of mine gave me the "National Do Not Call List" as an example of a government regulation that clearly addresses a "market failure".
You should ask your friend how he feels about a national "do not wiretap" list.
caller ID? that seems to be a market solution to unwanted calls.
do we get free cheezeburger in socielism?
fezwhatley: caller ID? that seems to be a market solution to unwanted calls.
Yep, but caller id costs money and requires effort in actually getting off the couch to check the led screen of the ringing phone.
Why pay for something the state can do for you for "free?"
i know youre joking. but caller id should theoritically help put the telemarketers out of business, by essentially not even letting them in the door.
fezwhatley: i know your joking. but caller id should theoritically help put the telemarketers out of business, by essentially not even letting them in the door.
i know your joking. but caller id should theoritically help put the telemarketers out of business, by essentially not even letting them in the door.
Until they start beaming crap into your brain!