<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Feb 17, 2012, at 10:59 AM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Owen DeLong <<a href="mailto:owen@delong.com">owen@delong.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">Jeff,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">If this policy is adopted, it would enable speculative brokers who wanted to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to maintain inventory without showing need for the addresses. It would<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">potentially turn IP addresses into a commodities futures market which I do<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">not believe would serve the community well.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">You say that no purpose is served when a transfer is rejected between a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">company with an unused allocation and a company in need. Current policy<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">does not do that. It does limit the size of the transfer to the justified<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">need, but, it does not reject the transfer.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">However, no purpose is served when addresses are allowed to be purchased by<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">organizations without need and great harm could come from allowing such<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">transactions if they start occurring on large scale in order to engage in<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">speculation or worse, anti-competitive practices.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Owen<br></blockquote><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#00721e"><br></font>Owen,<br><br>As resident devils advocate, I would be remiss not to point out that<br>anyone who stocks IP space they can't sell would soon find themselves<br>out of business thus discouraging others from substantially engaging<br>in the same practice, thus the "invisible hand" fixes the market.<br></div></blockquote></div><br><div>True, but, it would not be unusual to stock addresses at $10 until the market had high demand and low supply, then try to sell them for $50.</div><div><br></div><div>The community does not benefit from that $40 spread. The community is harmed by that $40 spread. Only the speculator benefits from that spread.</div><div><br></div><div>The invisible hand is slow to react and easily manipulated by those with resources to do so.</div><div><br></div><div>Owen</div><div><br></div></body></html>