If Microsoft can be forced to give up it's source code LP should tell me where they buy their stock. Much of it I can't buy at any reasonable price.
You have, several times, disclosed exactly where LP gets their stock and how they hit their numbers, and you have told me that you
know (not just suspect) they get it from these sources. You have also stated that you
know they sell at a near-zero margin, which, if true, means you could buy from them and resell at very close to their price. WIth your local service and immediate delivery attached, you could probably even move significant product this way.
The stuff I can buy is at a much higher price and subject to conditions that directly prevent me from competing with LP (such as no online sales).
Not even close. You could buy from them, for instance, or you could buy from the very same places that you claim they get their merchandise from. Remember, you have said more than once that you
know where they get their stock from.
(BTW, refusal to order in a given quantity to get a given price is not unfair competition. You CAN buy in that quantity - you just refuse to do so. That you would have to grow your business to obtain that volume pricing is not material - nor is it a violation of the law.)
LP and a very few others clearly have a market to themselves that existe totally independant of the scuba industry as it exists out in the open. We don't know who or where these suppliers are.
False. By your own words. You have stated, publically and right here, that you know exactly where LP gets their product and in many cases what they pay for it.
I am forced by my limited sources to teach and sell air. I am forced by the agency (who lets me teach) to have insurance that they approve. I am forced by the insurance company to abide by my sources rules and those of the agency. If I let any one of these things slip the whole thing comes apart and I have no supplier or business at all.
No you're not.
I've already explained how you get around these
self-imposed requirements. You
choose to teach and sell air. You
could eschew this insurance and just be a retail establishment with ordinary retail insurance, nothing more or less. Just like LP, I might add.
Funny how they're not "forced" to enter a business they don't want to be in, but you are. Forced? No, Mike. Its a choice. A business model choice that you took of your own free volition and which appears, now, to not be all that good of a decision, according to your various posts here.
You
choose to sell air and teach, and you
further choose not to separate your business interests so that you have two businesses - one which sells hardware and one which sells instruction and air.
That separation would get rid of the insurance "problem" you claim to have. Note that LP fixes hardware. They do sales and service, but do not teach or sell air. They seem to be able to get whatever insurance they think they need. Why? Maybe because they don't teach or sell air. So why not separate the firms Mike? Have two - one that sells air and instruction, and has "dive shop" insurance. The second is a pure retail and repair establishment.
Why, that sounds an AWFUL lot like a LDS down here that has two separate firms - one for their shop, the second for their BOAT!
I've even explained how you can avoid these problems, and suggested that you talk to corporate counsel about how you would implement such a thing and whether it would provide the protection you feel you need in your jurisdiction.
Instead of doing so, you
choose to whine and bleat here about LP being "unfair" and having "hidden" means of supply, even though you have told me right here, in this very thread, that you know
EXACTLY how LP sources their merchandise and, in fact, you COULD emulate them - if you decided to.
If this isn't against the law it damned well should be. If this isn't unfair competition then nothing is.
Its against the law to do something you know how to do, but choose not to?
You're losing it Mike.
