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Originally Posted by de captain
Because historically they haven't increased supply. It's not a profitable endeavor for private business to have the supply for random events that occur infrequently in random locations. They simply take the existing supply and price gouge. By doing that they severely harm the poorest people who were least able to be prepared to begin with.
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When is this expected to start happening?
Based on what?
It would never show up in writing - you don't itemize your stock on the basis of why you're holding it.
If you're able to sell at significant premiums on non-perishables and live in an area prone to natural disasters though you'd be a fool not to keep extra stock on hand. There're large numbers of individuals who live in disaster prone areas who stock up on essentials for the exact same reason. The only reason a business wouldn't is if they're not able to realize the benefit of keeping that extra stock on hand.
What would constitute evidence in your eyes? Do you need a business owner to make an unpopular declaration that he held an extra 1,000 units of bottled water in reserves in case there's a hurricane because he knew he'd be able to charge 5x the price? They'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
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Should only the people who can afford to pay $100 per bottle of water in an emergency be allowed water? Or should there be a system where we try to take care of all the citizens? You're literally advocating kicking a man while he's down.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. In the event that prices are prohibitively high they can provide financial aid to carry people through the worst of it. You'd still want to have some mechanism to distribute it to people on the basis of how much they value it.
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How would you feel if you were desperately thirsty during a crisis and the government said "We're going to let profiteers handle this crisis and charge whatever the market can bear. If you can afford water at $100 per bottle you'll survive. If not, tough titties."?
And how would you feel if they didn't increase prices and the first few people who got to the store bought up the entire supply saying "tough tits, shoulda gotten there sooner"?
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Do you think that's better for people than the government saying "Look this is a very unique situation, and we're not going to let the rich profiteers just **** over the poor people during their time of greatest need."?
If their answer is solely to keep prices sticky then yes, it is better to do nothing. Other options like sales volume caps might be an improvement though i have a hard time picturing how they'd enforce something like that.
Last edited by Abbaddabba; 09-08-2018 at 06:50 PM.