In a free-market, sellers and buyers will find an equilibrium price at which goods can be exchanged for money. When an outsider such as a government artificially sets the price (or forces the price to stay constant), there will be shortages or overproduction.
$5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
151–160 of 450 posts
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#152A lot of people in this thread are willfully ignoring some basic facts here. These products are being made in sufficient quantity for everyone. There is not a significant decrease in production. There is a significant increase in hoarding, and in many cases it is for the explicit purpose of creating artificial scarcity to increase the price of a product. This is not a case of toilet paper suddenly costing more to pro…
The price of an item is a very blunt instrument. It doesn't distinguish between producers and scalpers/hoarders. Both of those parties are equally incentivized to produce stock and sell it if the price goes up. From the point of view of a potential buyer, toilet paper straight from the factory, and toilet paper from the guy next door who bought some ahead of time are equally good. > This is a case of consumers attemp…
Even with #2, I worry that people who are short of money would sell their allocated hand sanitizer to pay for more urgent needs (rent, food, fuel), so we'd end up with an allocation similar to #1, but with higher transaction cost.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#153A lot of people in this thread are willfully ignoring some basic facts here. These products are being made in sufficient quantity for everyone. There is not a significant decrease in production. There is a significant increase in hoarding, and in many cases it is for the explicit purpose of creating artificial scarcity to increase the price of a product. This is not a case of toilet paper suddenly costing more to pro…
> We would be doing our entire society a severe disservice if our solution to this problem is simply "create so much toilet paper that people can't hoard it." If the people want to hoard toilet paper, who are we to deny them?
"No, you can't have more pie. You have had enough already."
Literally any exasperated parent who has to deal with little children having a tantrum because they can't get what they want.
Yes, that sounds harsh, but it's exactly how this works. Your statement is simply saying that society - you, me and everyone - should obediently and without criticizing enable those who can't cater to their own emotional needs; those who don't know how to deal with their own drive towards self-gratification; those who haven't learned to not indulge in their own irrational fears.
People don't need toilet paper, they need to talk and understand that hoarding is a dysfunctional way of approaching their own fears about the future. And that hoarding - ultimately - is a self fulfilling prophecy as it puts unnecessary pressure on supply chains and creates even more unrest and fear.
That's why your comment is not constructive nor even remotely funny.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#154A lot of people in this thread are willfully ignoring some basic facts here. These products are being made in sufficient quantity for everyone. There is not a significant decrease in production. There is a significant increase in hoarding, and in many cases it is for the explicit purpose of creating artificial scarcity to increase the price of a product. This is not a case of toilet paper suddenly costing more to pro…
> The fuck are we going to do with that much toilet paper.
It's not like it goes bad (on a meaningful timescale); it'll get used eventually.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#155Reading this thread is the official confirmation that Americans are out of their mind.
Absolutely, I cannot fathom how people are so anti-government that they cannot see the forest from the tree. These types of situations are textbook explanations for WAR PROFITEERING (except we are in a crisis instead of war).
Yeah, the government is great at stopping price gouging. You know - like in Medicare or DOD contracts.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#156Reading this thread is the official confirmation that Americans are out of their mind.
It really drives home to me, again, how prevalent right-wing libertarianism is in the computing community.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
>it redirects goods from poor people to wealthy people. In this case it's arguably something desirable, as the most at-risk group, the elderly, on average are much wealthier than young people. Someone over 80 is around 100x more likely to die from the virus than somebody under 40.
Think in terms of the survival of the government, not in terms of general social welfare. If you have a lot of pissed off poor young people, they're often fairly socially well-connected, they're more aggressive, they're able-bodied, and they can fight. If you have a lot of pissed off old people, they'll continue to be pissed off but probably won't make a whole lot of trouble. They might make a lot of trouble come ele…
You’re overdoing the “priority of governments is to survive”-shtick. Any number of administrations have lost elections, for example. Very few tried to stay in power.
There is absolutely zero risk of a violent overthrow of the California state government right now. Even if politicians were as craven as you suggest, you have already noticed how lame your argument is with regards to age groups: old people have far more power on Election Day.
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#158[deleted]
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the points you are making. I will add that hoarding does increase the cost of producing goods. If the toilet paper manufacturer needs to produce at 10x normal capacity because people are filling their car with the stuff, they will need to increase staff, work more shifts and maybe even buy/rent/build more production equipment. Does this double, triple or quadruple costs? Likely not. Yet costs do increase…
>Perhaps the law we need is one to control hoarding behavior or the rate of change. Aside from an authoritarian system of governance where all purchases are tracked, and one must only purchase their "allotted" amount of goods, how exactly would one control hoarding? i hope you are not proposing such a dystopian future.
By the exact mechanism in the article above, penalizing price-gouging?
Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price of an item is a very blunt instrument. It doesn't distinguish between producers and scalpers/hoarders. Both of those parties are equally incentivized to produce stock and sell it if the price goes up. From the point of view of a potential buyer, toilet paper straight from the factory, and toilet paper from the guy next door who bought some ahead of time are equally good. > This is a case of consumers attemp…
> The higher price means that those who demonstrate a higher desire for an item (by their willingness to pay) end up getting it. The hoarding profits are a charge to the rest of society for a more efficient distribution of the item compared to 0. > What bothers people here primarily is that hoarders made money while everyone else is suffering. No, what bothers me is the assumption that "higher desire" means "more wil…
"use the government's influence to artificially prevent the price of the product from rising"
How would that work? If Dollar Tree were fully stocked with hand sanitizer, I would go there right now and buy 10 bottles. But so would 99 other people. So we 100 would get all the 1000 bottles, and everyone else would be SOL.