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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

#391

Post by salawat »

gwright wrote: post #371
salawat wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should absolutely not have raised prices. The issue isn't manufacturers, and only retailers in that they failed to implement a purchase limit per customer given news of a pandemic. You want the maximum number of people with enough supply to get by. Not to have large swathes of the population to go without because someone decided to usurp the logistics network in search of price gouging opportunities.

Purchase limit per customer? So a single person and a family of four and a family of six are subject to the same limit? Much easier to raise the price then ask people to prove their need for a product. And how are you going to prevent people from just having mom, dad, and each child purchase the items separately?

Good!

In order to do that, people will have to get cash. Cash has a far more tangible effect in terms of inspiring frugal spending, and it may not be a bad idea to get cash out of "the system" anyway.

If not, simply vet the card making the purchase. This isn't novel or groundbreaking. Way back when, you'd have a Government issued ration card I believe. Though I'd think a voluntary program implemented by The practice of private ledger keeping, while out of vogue, is still quite practicable. All you have to do is talk to people. Of course, if you went balls to the wall laying off cashier's, you may be in for a bit of a bad time, but hey, shareholder haircuts happen. Price of doing business.

This is not even the slightest bit untread territory.

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

#393

Post by magnusss »

grecy wrote: post #377
magnusss wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or selling software with 0 marginal cost for $40k? :-) As with all moral issues, it is difficult to come up with an objective distinction between wrong and right. I tend to rely on Kant’s categorical imperative: Would society be harmed if everyone behaved in this way? In our situation where hoarders are attempting to profit from a crisis, I believe the answer is clear: It’s immoral.

> I tend to rely on Kant’s categorical imperative: Would society be harmed if everyone behaved in this way? Hospitals in the USA marking stuff up 500 or 1000% ARE harming society already. If all shoe companies charged $400 for a $2 shoe, I believe society would be harmed, yes. If every company hired people as part time only so they didn't have to pay benefits, again, society would be harmed. The list goes on. Capital…

> Hospitals in the USA marking stuff up 500 or 1000% ARE harming society already.

Agreed, that needs to be fixed.

> If all shoe companies charged $400 for a $2 shoe, I believe society would be harmed, yes.

A competitor would step in, charge less, and win the business. It would only be immoral if competition was quashed or impossible, such as in a hoarding situation.

> If every company hired people as part time only so they didn't have to pay benefits, again, society would be harmed.

I don’t see why this is true. The only benefit of moral significance is medical, and there’s no law of the universe that states that must be paid by an employer.

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

#394

Post by nostrademons »

jmckib wrote: post #340
nostrademons wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a political standpoint, I see the point. Price gouging makes people extremely mad, and it redirects goods from poor people to wealthy people. When tempers are already fraying and maintaining social order is already difficult because of an emergency, the last thing a government needs is a nucleus for lots of pissed-off people to rally around. Remember that the first priority of any government is to keep itself in…

Letting supply and demand determine prices doesn't necessarily redirect goods from poor people to wealthy people; it redirects goods towards those that actually need them, because those people are willing to pay the higher price. If we're talking about someone living paycheck to paycheck who really can't afford toilet paper being 2x more expensive, they may have to use a substitute, but with price ceilings the shelve…

When it comes to daily essentials like housing, food, medicine, and toilet paper, everybody needs them - that's why they're called "essential". When you have a good that everyone needs, the market-clearing price becomes a function of ability to pay, not willingness to pay.

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

#395

Post by gwright »

stbtrax wrote: post #383
gwright wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These types of situations are textbook explanations for WAR PROFITEERING (except we are in a crisis instead of war). Meh. I don't think it is the same thing at all. There is no shortage of raw materials or of labor (as in war time). There is an increased demand (irrational or rational doesn't matter). Best way to decrease demand is to let prices rise. It isn't really any simpler than that. If politeness or customs…

Surge pricing in itself affects people differently across income levels. If the end goal is to have availability to sanitation supplies across the population to prevent the spread, then surge pricing is not the answer.

> If the end goal is to have availability to sanitation supplies across the population to prevent the spread, then surge pricing is not the answer.

That is just an assertion with no justification that goes against all standard economic theory.

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

#396

Post by Noumenon72 »

trhway wrote: post #279
ardit33 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a lot of the short term price gouging is artificial/predatory: "Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resell them." https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/12/were-hustlers... They are not raising prices to produce more, but just hoarding and then reselling it at higher prices. "Price Gouger Unable to Sell 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer after Amazon Crackdown"…

>"Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resell them." aren't they doing a public service here? I grew up in the shortage driven economy of USSR and have the hate to speculators and price gouging ingrained into my brain with the milk of the mother, yet hear me out - the consumption of the Lysol wipes has increased while the production stays pretty much the same, and the prod…

Downvoters of this post are discouraging commenters who offer direct personal experience and fact-based arguments, just because they disagree. They should be ashamed.

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

#397

Post by erik_seaberg »

anigbrowl wrote: post #353
hansvm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument being made is that these individuals are creating scarcity as a byproduct of their intended goal, not as a goal in itself. If they wanted to profit from the scarcity they induced, they would attempt to resell the items they bought in the original locales rather than at online venues.

They can't realize their goal of profit if the scarcity doesn't exist, now can they?

Not everyone is scalping, but everyone is buying more for themselves because they're suddenly worried about future supply. There would still be a temporary shortage without the scalpers, maybe slightly less severe.

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

#398

Post by gwright »

salawat wrote: post #346
gwright wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's (rightly) considered predatory and criminally anti-social It is this attitude that creates these opportunities. If we collectively understood that allow "surge" pricing is the fastest way to respond to a spike in demand and to quickly return to a more normal market equilibrium we would have fewer and shorter situations like this.

>Damnit, just let me gouge! You can do something about it once I've cashed out! No thanks. I'd prefer inflicting a social cost to disincentivize the behavior in light of the taint on one's reputation for doing it.

Why do you value the idea of preventing people from meeting demand for a good or service? You are advocating for some magical price point that is morally virtuous regardless of the context and dynamic nature of supply and demand. Why? Why do you think that is better than actually incentivising people to satisfy demand by increasing supply or alternatively to signal to those people making irrational decisions that there is a cost to the irationality?

You are choosing to create shortages and encourage irrational purchasing behavior because it is better to "inflict a social cost". I just don't understand that tradeoff.

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

#399

Post by gwright »

jimmaswell wrote: post #379
gwright wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is the end result of empty shelves? Is that an acceptable solution? I don't understand people who advocate for policies that almost guarantee empty shelves instead of a policy that would avoid shortages but at a higher price temporarily . In my mind the higher price followed by a return to normalcy is a much better outcome for rich and poor alike than a complete shortage with nothing on the shelves.

A: No price controls, scalpers buy everything and resell at 1000%. Only people who can pay that much get it until the manufacturer ends up at 10x output, which can take a long time. B: Price controls, at least some distrubution of everyone gets some, less incentive to hoard, stores still allowed to raise prices a little (just not a predatory amount detached from real costs) when the manufacturer does when ramping up…

In your A: situation you are explicitly saying that the normal suppliers are not raising the price. I am saying that the best solution to this problem is for the normal suppliers to raise their prices so that scalpers are disencentivized and regular consumers are judicious in their purchases.

So you are forcing a false choice between your A and B scenarios.

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

#400

Post by gwright »

pdeuchler wrote: post #372
gwright wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people buying in surplus isn't demand. It's just, well, hoarding Of course it is demand. You may also call it "hoarding" those aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

Will their consumption of toilet paper increase? This isn't hard.

No it won't, it is time shifted. Doesn't negate the fact that there is a short term demand spike.
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