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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

#261

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

koheripbal wrote: post #254
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. Price isn't even the issue here, just a symptom. Hoarding is the issue. Limit people to not buying 100 rolls of toilet paper, and suddenly the price everyone's willing to pay levels out. Price isn't the problem. Uneven distribution is.

The best solution is to increase production to the point where all those hoarders are left with tons of worthless inventory.

Sure if it were as easy as that. In normal circumstances, it wouldn't be easy, nor as quick as demand shifts. In a time when supply chains are disrupted and we're all WFH to slow a pandemic, expecting another industry to drastically increase production seems like a false hope at best and an immoral one at worst.

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

#262

Post by jayd16 »

daenz wrote: post #196
jayd16 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would argue that the supply/demand pricing isn't responding fast enough Yes, that's a failing of the real free market we live. It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. In the real world we're not all omniscient, rational actors. Protections like this are useful in the short term.

>Protections like this are useful in the short term. Explain how this "protection" will stop the stated problem of people hoarding and reselling. Since when have fines or punishment stopped black markets from existing? >It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. "The car brakes couldn't decelerate the car fast enough, they failed, so I don't see why suggesting better brakes is useful."…

If you don't think any laws are successful and we shouldn't use them then I don't know what to tell you. How about parking tickets or a million other behaviors we shape through fines?

Free markets work in the long term but as they say the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

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

#263

Post by g_langenderfer »

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…

> and in many cases it is for the explicit purpose of creating artificial scarcity to increase the price of a product.

So are you suggesting:

- I create a toilet paper cartel with all my buddies

- we hit surrounding area grocery stores with surgical TP buying

- Hoard til prices rise

- dump on muppet consumers

- profit??

this is ridiculous

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

#264

Post by yyy888sss »

gruez wrote: post #258
koheripbal wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best solution is to increase production to the point where all those hoarders are left with tons of worthless inventory.

then they just return their inventory for a full refund.

Australian supermarkets are refusing refunds on all of these hoarded goods.

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

#265

Post by pascalxus »

The crazy thing here is that they go after these gougers so aggressively for just selling a 20$ bottle of soap. And yet, predatory hospitals in the US can do x1000 times worse and not even get a slap on the hand. Hospitals are the #1 cause of bankrupcy in the US.

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

#266

Post by g_langenderfer »

nate_meurer wrote: post #253
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…

> This is a case of consumers attempting to create small niches of artificial scarcity so that they can profit. A good example of this is in a related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22576225 The article describes how a couple of guys drove from store to store all across their state, buying up all of the antiseptic supplies in stock, and then trying to resell them online for as much money as they could p…

If I'm an 80 year old with a heart transplant, I'm happy they're doing this!

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

#267

Post by gwright »

EdgarVerona wrote: post #210
altacc wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the correct solution to this is that supermarkets should be charging the same as the profiteering hoarders (say $20 for a small hand sanitiser and $40 for a pack of toilet rolls) is totally insane to me. This isn't some mythical free market model in a textbook, this is the real world, where real people live. Luckily society in general, through its laws, social judgement, etc... agrees to some extent tha…

This is how I feel, precisely. There are real, human consequences to these price increasing theories. It will be felt by people who are, by a large margin, not the target audience of Hacker News. It'll be felt by people who have to choose between having basic healthcare supplies and paying rent, or eating. Indeed, at that point I think rationing - either by the companies selling the product, or by the government (as…

Letting the price float is the fastest way to discourage the hoarders and let the market come back to a sane equilibrium. By not allowing the price to float you can see that the result is empty shelves. The empty shelf is also a "real, human consequence".

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

#268

Post by gwright »

creato wrote: post #257
logicchains wrote: post #178

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…

I highly doubt toilet paper manufacturers will add production capacity. In the long term, toilet paper consumption must be absurdly stable. If people are buying extra toilet paper today, they'll buy less toilet paper in the future (unless they start having toilet paper bonfires or something).

They won't if they can't sell it for higher price. But adding capacity could just mean running extra shifts or producing on the weekend. But that means higher costs (paying people to work on the weekend).

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

#269

Post by gtyras2mrs »

seibelj wrote: post #19
sollewitt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just poor reasoning on multiple levels: it assumes supply, the argument that it prevents hoarding misses that as prices are driven up the incentive to hold increases, and it overlooks that some populations night need the good immediately so real harm is being done. The gain is personal, the harm is social, this is ethics 101 and solipsistic pseudo-libertarion reasoning doesn't make it right.

I would rather the price 10x if it means people can buy toilet paper, than have it be unavailable to all. But I am thinking rationally rather than emotionally.

I don't believe that necessarily.

I think people are not rational to think that "oh its too expensive" - I think they will still try to hoard it and speculate on prices going up to 15x. And so on and on until the crises ends or they end up with no place willing to sell it.

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

#270

Post by jcranmer »

logicchains wrote: post #178
geofft wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, alternatively, convince them that they don't want that much toilet paper. For instance, convince them that stores will not run out of stock and that they will be able to go to stores. This is the normal state of the toilet paper market. The problem here is not that we've suddenly been possessed by demons who want infinite toilet paper, the problem is that people are making rational decisions based on actua…

>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.

Ask yourself this question: if a TP manufacturer were to double their production effectively immediately, how long would it take for that extra product to reach the shelves? I don't know the answer specifically for toilet paper, but it's generally going to be in the region of a month or two for most consumer products.

Price gouging isn't a signal to manufacturers to produce more; it's opportunistic middlemen profiting off of the inability of the supply chain to absorb a temporary shifting of demand.

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