You are the type of person who could complete your income tax return, with minutes to go before the filing deadline, while riding a roller coaster, in the middle of a hurricane. Family and friends use you either as a paperweight or boundary marker. Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at the confiscated property police auction hoping to buy either a video game player or an AC adapter that won't fry your computer. Be on the lookout for crowded shopping malls. You should consider shopping at stores or businesses beginning with the letter I, but do not buy any products with a serial number or product code containing the number 247657. Your preferred shopping venue is department stores. Your special symbol is the at sign (@).

As a Blue Placidola, you are easy-going and even-tempered, calm and composed. For you, the hectic pace of a crowded shopping mall during the holiday rush is nothing, it's little more than a tranquil stroll in the park. Life is good. Life goes on. Why worry. You are a happy shopper and you seldom fret over trivial details of a market exchange, in part because you are astute enough to get moderately low prices and relatively good deals.

Markets or industries with two or more sellers and buyers that fail to match the criteria of perfect competition. The most noted examples of imperfect competition are the two market structures with selling-side control--monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Lesser known market structures with buying-side control--monopsonistic competition and oligopsony--are also considered as imperfect competition. Facing no competition, monopoly and monopsony are not included. Most real world markets can be considered imperfect competition.

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Upon leaving Scarcity Stan's Bakery Shoppe and Confectionery Palace our pedestrian's excursion drops into Mega-Mart Discount Warehouse Super Center. A quick tour of this mecca of mass production -- lasting no more than three days -- is likely to reveal within the 20 gadzillion square feet of floor space a number of sales racks, shelves, and tables filled with merchandise marked down for clearance. A prominently displayed sign on one sales rack boldly declares that the regular $24.99 price has been drastically reduced, for this week only, to $3.98. What a bargain! What a sale! We have the chance -- "for a limited time only" -- to get stuff valued at $24.99 for only $3.98! With a bargain like this, how can we lose?

It's easy to lose, if you don't understand the concept of value. Most of us have several "bargains" stored away in the attic, closet, or garage that never have seen, and probably never will see, anything resembling use. What seemed like a great "bargain" at the store, does nothing but occupy space at home. (By the way, does anyone have use for a distributor cap for a 1949 Ford?)
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