lol, yeah that’s the ticket. Pointing out to people that ‘perfect competition’ is assumed in simple modeling is “muddying the waters”.
Here, I’ll let investopedia add to their confusion:
“Real-world competition differs from the textbook model of perfect competition in many ways. Real companies try to make their products different from those of their competitors. They advertise to try to gain market share. They cut prices to try to take customers away from other firms. They raise prices in the hope of increasing profits. And some firms are large enough to affect market prices. But the perfect competition model is not an ideal that we should try to achieve in the real world.”
“Perfect competition is a theoretical market structure. It is primarily used as a benchmark against which other, real-life market structures are compared. The industry that most closely resembles perfect competition in real life is agriculture.”
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/perfectcompetition.asp
“Pointing out to people that ‘perfect competition’ is assumed in simple modeling is “muddying the waters”.”
I never said that.
Simple modeling includes perfect competition. It also includes monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and duopoly. Nor are these meant to be collectively exhaustive and complete. These are an introduction to economic thinking. Each teaches the student something. There will always be additional challenges in application.
You seem be arguing against economics generally. That is where you muddy the waters.
Investopedia is no substitute for a classes in economics.
“Real-world competition differs from the textbook model of perfect competition in many ways.”
Duh. There are several models as I mentioned, not just perfect competition. And as I mentioned above, there are challenges in application. That there are challenges in application should not be used by you as an excuse to disregard all theory.
“Real companies try to make their products different from those of their competitors. They advertise to try to gain market share. They cut prices to try to take customers away from other firms. They raise prices in the hope of increasing profits. And some firms are large enough to affect market prices.”
There is nothing in that quote that would surprise textbook authors - or readers for that matter.