Why do we fail at free market principles?

Couldn't figure out what topic this should be under, feel free to move it.

The whole idea of free markets is that people will buy good/useful products and thus they will flourish in the market and bad products will sit on shelves and thus the companies will go out of business. Pretty simple idea.

Problem is the market these days is full of things that seemingly large numbers of people are unhappy with, or at least suspicious of. Some examples:
Aspertame
Credit cards with insane rules and interest rates
Fast food that barely qualifies as food
Pick your favorite 'hate' item, I think we all have at least 1 or 2.

So a number of people find something objectionable, say toys in happy meals. Under free market theory those people don't buy happy meals, perhaps they go a bit further and just don't go to McD's at all. If they really find it a big objection they may try and get a boycott going. If the free market works the way it should McD's eventually figures out happy meals with toys is not making them money, perhaps even hurting other business and so they stop offering them.
In a perfect world we would all refuse to buy anything that contains Aspertame and that junk would stop being added to half the 'food' on the planet.
Simple fact is that the idea behind the free market system is failing to function. The markets are jam packed with products that are bad ideas, and people keep right on buying them. So if people won't do what they should we wind up with the governments stepping in, or not (which might be worse since now its not the end users making the choice but some bureaucrat).
Personally I seriously object to Aspertame and a lot of other junk that gets added to food. I do my research, I purchase carefully and I see no reason that others should not be allowed to do the same, that is if they are happy with foods the way they are they should be able to buy them, including the silly happy meals with their toys.
What worries me is that there is so much call for and implementation of regulations that soon we will have no free market choice at all. Why have both pepsi and coke? Some day a bureaucrat may decide that pepsi is better for you than coke and coke will be no more. Its a very slippery slope.

well the reason people seem to be trapped in this government and corporation controlled cage is because they simply are not aware that it is indeed a cage that they inhabit with all of the ads and propaganda stuck to the bars, telling them they are getting what they want- that hide the inner and outer reality of their lives. obviously if half of our food as aspertame in it, and aspertame is toxic, the people who sell these products won't want people to know, and we all know the great lengths that they will go to in order for people to remain unaware. Awareness, that's the principle of people like you and I that we must share. sadly most of us who know complain more than take action. the way our system is run, it is just too hard to get anything done alone. that is why more and more people need to be woken up. everything can be changed if enough people make the effort to change it. remember that for corps to get laws changed in their favor, they need dozens of lawyers and analysts and psychologists and peoples money to get things done. its not just that the CEO wakes up one morning and whispers to his wife that he needs sugar to be subsidized and walks off to washington and speaks to nancy pelosi and tada! no, theres still much that happens in between a thought and a realization.

You make great points.

For example, a few weeks ago I was on my stock account, when coke dropped from 26.50 all the way down to 16.20 in seconds! No idea what happened, but i can guarantee you it was not due to people boycotting the company.

I remember my dad saying "I miss the good ol' days when everything was healthy". Sadly, it's the same stuff, if not worst, we just know what it dose now. AND WE STILL BUY IT! Well, I do. I eat at least 3 McDonalds burgers a month. I love local burgers, but the damn things are 6 dollars and takes 20 minutes to make. When i don't have the time, 3.50 for 2 burgers in 2 minutes is great for me.

1st I agree with your post, we could be just fine IF we didn't have the vast choice we have in america, but as you said a slippy slope it is indeed, cause of our mass media adverting to people. So as for the average consumer they, 1. dont have time to make a wise choice. 2. dont really have the desire to research there products and 3. are too lazy. This is dream marketing venture for company's.

The McDonalds trick isn't to make money off of the happy meal, its to get the whole familiy in there to spend up 4 time the cost of the happy meal. You see its bake into the cake for this type of system we call american consumerism.

Well the responses so far really seem to boil down to a flaw in the free market idea. The flaw being that people will make 'good' choices in what they choose to spend their money on. Either its a change in the way people do things/think or the idea was flawed to begin with.
I personally lean towards a change for a couple of reasons:
1) Frankly I want desperately to believe better of the human race
2) MY Grandma knew better, I know better, I see plenty of people on here and elsewhere that know better.

My Grandma wouldn't buy a new pot without a lot of deliberation, my Grandparents drove the same car for 20 years (no planned obsolescent allowed there), I spent 3 hours and 4 stores to find and acceptable coffee pot the other day (paid about 20 bucks more for it too, but I bet it will last longer than 3 of the cheaper models). Is that perhaps it? We want everything RIGHT now, no think it over, look for better, save for better? How do you all suppose we became so impatient with the world and just started wanting STUFF and the heck with the quality?
Does quality count?

reply to post by Chett


The power of advertising combined with the fact that manipulating the masses is relatively easy. Think of it this way, the other side of marketing/advertising coin is information starvation. withholding information is as powerful as the intent of advertising and marketing itself.

Why is the public relatively easy to manipulate?

In the last couple of years I have noticed that in a lot of the dead brain programs on TV they are getting blokes to hug each other like women do.

I have on quite a few occasions in the last year or two been wiating for my eary morning flight at an airport in my city where a large number of flights head off to remote mine sites where large numbers of mostly young men go to work on a fly in - fly out basis where they fly into the remote lcoation for a period of time and then fly out again R&R, and what do I notice? blokes hugging each other when saying hello or good bye to other blokes when flights arrive or depart. Up until I saw this new behaviour on TV I had never noticed it in the airport before.

I suspect someone was conducting a behaviour modification experiment through the medium of television and we all know how powerfull television is.

Hope this helps

reply to post by bussoboy

An interesting observation about mimic of behavior from TV. I am at a bit of a loss on this one since I don't even own a TV. I have begun to suspect TV had a lot to do with the 'impatient' factor. The occasional small clip I see on youtube, the screen is so overloaded with information ..the scrolling headlines and stuff - people can't wait until they get to that part of the newscast I guess. I guess its a lot of 'monkey see, monkey do'.
Honestly it seems we are being driven to use every single second of our time, often in more than one way. Fast food is in fact a great example. How long does it take to go to the location, order, wait for service, pay for ..and so on?
(Honestly asking here since its not something I do) I can tell you that I can cook a full real meal with fresh veggies and all in about 20 minutes is that really significantly more that time to get fast food?