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A comment on Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire. Parent comment

Re:Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire by mbreese on Saturday November 09, 2013 @01:37AM (#6700906)
Except that essay doesn't tell you how to actually make a pencil... it tells you how to make a market where the components of a pencil could be bought.

I think it would be more interesting (well, unless you're an economist) to describe the composition of the various parts of the pencil, how they are formed, and ultimately how the pencil is physically manufactured.

Then again, I also like watching How It's Made.

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Re:Apple Bought $578M Worth of Sapphire by erichocean on Saturday November 09, 2013 @03:15PM (#6702988)
it tells you how to make a market where the components of a pencil could be bought

As I recall, the point of the essay is that you simply can't make a "market" that would produce a pencil at all. No one can. It happens organically, or not at all.

The strength of markets is that they are self-organizing to a large degree (given the right conditions, e.g. political stability and preservation of capital), and that the sum is greater that the parts—in the essay, the 'sum' being the pencil, which no single organization (or government) can produce on it's own.

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