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$5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

caloes.ca.gov

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Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#211

Post by devcpp »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #153
whatshisface wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So the State is your mom now? Have as much toilet paper as you want, we can make more. Have fun paying stupid prices.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#212

Post by EdgarVerona »

logicchains wrote: post #172
EdgarVerona wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if we created it at the dramatically and artificially increased demand that it has right now, it would be disastrous for that industry once this panic subsides. Imagine the increase in infrastructure these companies would have to build to keep up with this fake supply. The workers, the real estate, the building of supply chains and machinery. Now imagine what happens to that industry when suddenly the market's de…

The manufacturers aren't stupid. If they're capable of running a profitable manufacturing company they're capable of realising the demand won't last forever, and not investing an amount that would cost them too much when the demand dies back down.

I was about to respond to you with the same response I made below - but it turns out we're basically having the same conversation twice. I'll refer to our other conversation below instead of repeating myself.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#213

Post by EdgarVerona »

forkexec wrote: post #192
daenz wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So is your solution "good on them, they're taking advantage of people's fears to help make the rumors true?" My solution is we should do all that we can to decrease the latency that prices respond to supply and demand. It will help everyone. >Just what price do you think toilet paper should be right now in stores? That's not up to me to decide, because I don't presume to speak for the individual wants and needs for…

Increasing retail prices doesn't do any good, especially normal people who need one package of TP, limiting quantities does. That's a fairer way to solve it than treat TP like some damn Bitcoin.

To bgorman: (apparently I can't reply directly to you, there's some nesting limit in Hacker News [EDIT: apparently not? I see a "reply" button now where it didn't exist before? odd])

>I would much rather be able to buy one package of toilet paper for 50 dollars versus being able to buy zero for 5 dollars.

Yeah, because you have 50 dollars to spend on that. What's a person supposed to do who is only barely making ends meet? Do they forsake eating so they can wipe themselves? Underpay their rent? Go into debt so they can wipe their ass?

My point here is that this isn't an either/or situation. There's other alternatives, though some people won't like it.

Rationing - at least by stores if not by the government - is one that we don't like these days, but that has worked for us in historical times of trouble.

This law is meant to be another alternative. It's certainly not perfect - I'd have taken rationing initiated by stores over that - but it is an alternative to the "pay 50 for a roll or not have a roll at all" options.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#214

Post by cadlin »

smallnamespace wrote: post #123
EdgarVerona wrote: post #95

A 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…

>To a very good approximation, the marginal impact of any hoarders on the scarcity of a product is zero.

This is pure ideology. Do you have any evidence that a single person buying 10,000 masks from every hardware store in an entire state has no marginal impact on the scarcity of a product? Basic math would suggest this is not the case.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#215

Post by rtkwe »

anikan_vader wrote: post #16

From an economics stand point, I don't understand why the government should ban price-gouging. Doesn't this place an artificial price ceiling that will ensure a shortage of goods? I would personally rather stores have items such as food/water at marked-up prices than not at all.

Two problems; factories cannot surge up immediately and all of the actual gouging here is not actually making it to the manufacturers, it's people mass buying out stocks and reselling. So the supply side isn't actually seeing any increased price to increase their supply. The Econ 101 pro price gouging logic breaks down here because of that.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#216

Post by sneak »

ghshephard wrote: post #76
radu_floricica wrote: post #47

Prices being elastic is good for people, in a vast majority of cases. It makes sure things get distributed more or less proportional to need, as opposed to just random or worse than random. Case in point: I luckily found some hand gel still for sale online. Probably the very last one around here. So I stocked up - not resale quantities (thought it would have been trivial) but definitely more than I needed - something…

"I'm doubtful I'll get to see any more this year." - I'll take that action. All of the consumable that people have been panic buying - toilet paper, hand gel, etc... have experienced absolutely zero supply shock, and, indeed, most of the manufacturers are going to be delighted to draw down their inventory and get a boost this quarter. I'll be extraordinarily surprised if shelves aren't completely full of those consum…

> I'll be extraordinarily surprised if shelves aren't completely full of those consumable within 7-10 days.

Then why do we need any price-gouging laws? Who is harmed without them, if the supply remains intact?

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#217

Post by mhb »

cl0rkster wrote: post #191
EdgarVerona wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You neglected to mention that when people see fake headlines about toilet paper scarcity, there's a nontrivial percentage of people who see that as an opportunity for said arbitrage. There's two kinds of hoarding happening here: fear-alleviating and profit-seeking, which allows the profit seeking form of acquisition to be possible. Several weeks ago, it wouldn't have been feasible for someone to scoop up the entire m…

Seems to me that it's unlikely the toilet paper producers are perpetually running at 100% factory output. Something tells me they will respond by increasing production. Why? Because they are seeing enormous sales currently. Of course they want more. With some of the supply chain troubles we are having with everything closing, though, the delay might be slightly longer. I highly doubt this shortage will last longer th…

There's another benefit of the signal sent by high prices. It encourages the use of alternatives. There are many substitutes for toilet paper including other paper products and bidets.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#218

Post by EdgarVerona »

zozbot234 wrote: post #190
EdgarVerona wrote: post #95

A 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…

> "create so much toilet paper that people can't hoard it." The fuck are we going to do with that much toilet paper. Stock it somewhere, and release it gradually over the following months, perhaps at a loss. Some hoarders will actually stock it as a reserve for the next emergency and brief price spike, which is socially beneficial behavior. Think of it as a kind of insurance. This would be more of a problem if we wer…

The problem is also with the industry itself, particularly if it's perishable. If this continues much longer, there's going to be a point (and perhaps it's already there? We don't get numbers about capacity - though I'd love to see it if there are numbers available!) where these companies reach peak capacity, and would have to incur significant investments in order to scale: investments that would become a detriment once the market comes back to normal, particularly if everyone has a glut of stored supply by the time this has ended.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#219

Post by rtkwe »

leptoniscool wrote: post #151

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.

Stores and manufacturers aren't actually charging increased prices in the majority of cases here. It's people buying out those stores and selling. If manufacturers don't see the increased prices the Econ 101 logic breaks down.

Re: $5000 per violation of price-gouging in CA

#220

Post by EdgarVerona »

syshum wrote: post #177
CaptArmchair wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you google "rationing" because that's exactly what happened in during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdo... Not just in the U.K., rationing was also introduced in the United States during wartime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_States

I fully understand rationing, rationing is something done by Authoritarian governments, including the US and the UK... So it seems you are infact proposing authoritarianism as a solution to the problem Give up freedom for safety... wonderful. I see alot of that right now it is very sad

Just to make sure I understand your ideology: so you're saying the rationing that happened during World War II was a mistake?
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