[citation][nom]builder4[/nom]How is this not collusion? Wikipedia states collusion is "an agreement among firms to divide the market, set prices, or limit production", and is this not an agreement to limit production?[/citation]
I'm guessing they didn't actually have any agreement. They each independently had their financial people tell them that there is a dramatic price decline. Heck, they can notice that themselves, we all have. Knowing that there is a price decline, they each independently decided to cut their production simply because the price they will sell might be actually lower than the cost of production, so they would take a loss on each sale and it doesn't take a genius to decide that they should cut production. The key is they each decided independently from the others without any agreement.
Anyway, that's the principle. I'm not saying they didn't have any agreement. They might have had in secret. I'm just saying that it is plausible that they each decided to cut production based on the market condition.