221–230 of 450 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, from a "does the market optimize for good outcomes" perspective, that seems even worse - goods (that are already produced) get hoarded and sometimes they don't even sell. This seems like it's not accomplishing the goals very well.
To be specific, the market+price gouging laws+Amazon blocking listings because of those laws is suboptimal. If Amazon hadn't blocked the listings, and more to the point, if Amazon had been known to act reasonably in prior instances, then there'd be more investment and people would accept lower returns. I know firsthand people told me they weren't buying these stuff wholesale to sell on Amazon because they expected Am…
An argument supporting gouging: https://reason.com/2019/01/31/price-gouging-is-supply-and-de...
> Higher prices are also a deterrent against hoarding, particularly in the days leading up to a disaster. To be on the safe side, many consumers are inclined to buy more than enough of whatever they think they'll need. The more expensive the propane is, the more is available for everyone else. I think this makes sense. It would definitely stop people like this guy [1] going out and cleaning all the local stores/rural…
Someone’s going to get it. I’d rather it go to those paying attention and willing to put in the work to get it to where it is most needed.
I think that is best considered as a form of free speech. A is a statement of the value of your argument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be specific, the market+price gouging laws+Amazon blocking listings because of those laws is suboptimal. If Amazon hadn't blocked the listings, and more to the point, if Amazon had been known to act reasonably in prior instances, then there'd be more investment and people would accept lower returns. I know firsthand people told me they weren't buying these stuff wholesale to sell on Amazon because they expected Am…
My prediction is that people will create separate seller accounts that list emergency items at sky-high prices when there is no emergency. Thus, in an emergency they don't need to "increase" their prices.
Also, Amazon this week banned all offers, not just ones that were deemed to be price gouging. eBay did the same already more than a week ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Also, price-gouging laws do not "stop the market from giving them what they want." If anything, price gouging does - if someone who has $100 in savings wants a year's worth of toilet paper, they're less able to successfully get it if the market can run unchecked. It's true that an unregulated free market is good at getting products sold at the best price for the sellers - that's very different from giving people wha…
> the rise in price incentivises the market to produce more of the product / incentivises more producers to enter the market I really don't see evidence that it does. Remember that there are two steps here: production and retail sale. It certainly incentivizes price-gouging resellers to collect more of the product and incentivizes people to become resellers - see the various folks who are "hustling" by buying out the…
Do you honestly believe that manufacturers are currently at 100% capacity, and have been at 100% capacity for years?
That's ridiculous.
Manufacturers always have spare capacity. One simple solution is that they can increase hours that the factory runs (ex, by giving overtime pay). Or they can delay upgrades/maintenance to keep things running longer, or any number of things.
> If you disagree with that, please present evidence of decreases in production
You are the one who is making the claim that manufacturers have somehow been in a perpetual state of 100% capacity. That is an insanely strong claim to make.
The idea that it is impossibility for manufacturers to take any action at all to increase capacity is the actual claim that would require evidence.
You are also ignoring things such as the amount of supply that manufacturers have stocked up. If demand temporarily increases, then they can sell that stocked up supply, that is in warehouses, until they increase capacity.
The world is not running out of toilet paper. Instead, what we are seeing, is temporary, local shortages, at stores, until the next shipment comes in.
Those stores will just increase the number of shipments.
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.
This may be due to the fact that the retailers are heavily threatened by government action, so they take no action to increase prices.
Contrast this with the must-have Christmas toy, which may otherwise be seeing similar unanticipated demand and suddenly the same retailers are incredible pricing experts.
The factories will need to maintain long-term relationships with these retailers and they may also have similar threats from government action.
More likely is that whatever slack there is in the supply chain will be exported to countries which have no such price control policies, because price-control policies do not address the underlying issues of supply and demand.
I think that setting a price on something is best considered as a form of speech, even if it isn't exactly the same thing. A price is a statement of the value you believe that a thing has. As a free speech advocate I believe people should be able to express such value judgments freely with few constraints. A price signal is similar to other signals we can make with speech, in that it has the potential to change behav…
Price gouging is the free speech equivalent of yelling fire in a full movie theater. You are harming people for your own enjoyment.
In the same way that dentists agree that sugared gum is bad for your teeth, economists agree that price gouging laws make everyone worse off.[2] For a concrete example of how price gouging laws led to shortages, read Michael Munger.[3]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...
2. http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/price-gouging
3. https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My prediction is that people will create separate seller accounts that list emergency items at sky-high prices when there is no emergency. Thus, in an emergency they don't need to "increase" their prices.
Amazon isn't comparing the regular price of the seller, but on the product level. Also, Amazon this week banned all offers, not just ones that were deemed to be price gouging. eBay did the same already more than a week ago.
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…
> 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?