> the goods ought to have become cheaper

Counter-factual: https://www.tescoplc.com/investors/reports-results-and-prese...

Cost of food up.

Number of employees down (despite number of stores going up)

Profits up.

I'd make an argument here about the desperate need for critical thinking in economics, the typically upside down nature of discourse (topics in economics are often approached with "i must defend what i know" rather than "i must learn what i don't know")... but there's no point. You tellingly said "ought", David Hume warned us about the futility of trying to argue from logic against an ought.

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card_zero 6 days ago | parent [-]

I like the phrase "you can't get an ought from an is", but the word "ought" doesn't always carry moral meaning. If an annoying alarm is beeping and I cut off its power, I might say "it ought to have stopped beeping". That's not a moral opinion, it's invoking a model of how the alarm works and the law of conservation of energy. Here the law of supply and demand is being invoked. Hume needn't get involved.

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CraigJPerry 6 days ago | parent [-]

Why does supply and demand get promoted from a useful, widely applicable model to a universally true law?

Supply and demand is a model, not a law.

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tines 6 days ago | parent [-]

Conservation of energy is a useful, widely applicable model, not a universally true law, so I think you proved their point.

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CraigJPerry 6 days ago | parent [-]

Conservation of energy is universally true given that you or i cannot travel at the speed of light.

Whereas supply and demand is obviously not universal and i'm not just talking about Giffen goods, Veblen goods or the Chivas Regal effect. No i'm talking specifically about ceteris paribus. Application of ceteris paribus is to step away from reality, the more you do it, the further away from reality you've gotten.

The model of supply and demand is useful and its utility is only reduced by ceteris paribus.

The law of supply and demand is blocked from existing, thanks specifically to ceteris paribus.

	▲	rightbyte 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I was going to write that supply and demand is like a 'linearization' or some other regression around a point, but looking up "ceteris paribus" I'll have to thank you for forcing a good phrase upon me. :)
	▲	tines 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If something is universally true then it shouldn’t have to do with whether you or I can travel at the speed of light. But beside that, you’re incorrect. Energy is not conserved in this universe. See e.g. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-... for an explanation.