Diamonds aren't even rare

Infact , Standard Oil had no initial market power, with only about 4 percent of the market in 1870.

But De Beers set their prices insanely high

https://mises.org/library/how-cartels-ensure-diamonds-last-forever

They also spread campaigns that got us to propose with diamond rings

My point was that falling crude oil prices were the main drive behind Rockefeller’s drops in refined oil prices

It appears it wasn’t a natural monopoly

Not really the marginal competition

not especially, visitor

Obviously that was a factor but not the only factor

Unfortunately, I am unable to find historical data for refined oil prices

“the market has not been really free. In particular, in South Africa, the major center of world diamond production, there has been no free enterprise in diamond mining. The government long ago nationalized all diamond mines, and anyone who finds a diamond mine on his property discovers that the mine immediately becomes government property. The South African government then licenses mine operators who lease the mines from the government and, it so happened, that lo and behold!, the only licensees turned out to be either DeBeers itself or other firms who were willing to play ball with the DeBeers cartel. In short: the international diamond cartel was only maintained and has only prospered because it was enforced by the South African government.” @Anon365

and petroleum products p

Well yeah it was over 100 years ago

yep

I think standard oil is very misunderstood

It’s how people misunderstand the 2008 crisis

I guarantee you think it is something that it isn’t @Leo (BillNyeLand)

What do you believe caused it ?

The subprime mortgage crisis seems like the obvious answer

But what caused that

I assume you’re going to say it’s the fault of the government, which forced banks to lend mortgages to low-income homeowners who eventually were unable to pay it back, causing a widespread financial crisis?

What do you believe it is

Banks were accumulating extra risk, which was indeed partially caused by the government’s homeownership campaign, but the main fault lies with the banks repackaging them into mortgage-backed securities and presenting them to investors as far lower risk investments than they actually were, thereby leading to misinformed and misplaced investment that eventually led to a market crash.

However, of course, some of that stuff was just bad luck, and was nobody’s fault.

Do you think any repeal of a regulation caused the crash?

I haven’t done enough specific research into the regulations present to really have an answer

De Beers was mining decades before South Africa was independent

The real culprit was the CRA ( community reinvestment act) this act created by the dems forced banks into giving loans to people who couldn’t pay it back. This causes the real boom then bust. The CRA evolved through times and got hard pressed by regulators over the years until in 2008 it all popped.

The CRA was not a static piece of legislation. It evolved over the years from a relatively hands-off law focused on process into one that focused on outcomes. Regulators, beginning in the mid-nineties, began to hold banks accountable in serious ways. Banks responded to this new accountability by increasing the CRA loans they made, a move that entailed relaxing their lending standards.

All this combined with the FEDs contractionary policy caused the crash.

@Anon365 I’ll read more on it later

But the article I posted above

Ok

@Leo (BillNyeLand) banks wouldn’t have done those sorts of acts if the CRA did not exist

Glass Steagal and the CMFA was unrelated as most people like to believe

Just looking at the Wikipedia article

Ye

“The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission formed by the US Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, concluded ‘the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis’.”

yeah propaganda

they always say something along the lines of

“According to Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, independent mortgage companies made risky "higher-priced" loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the "higher-priced" loans that have contributed to the current crisis.”

“Independent mortgage funds weren’t subject to CRA”