glenrice,
There's a decent argument to be made that hoarding behavior while prices are artifically low from anti-gouing laws is partly the reason for shortages. Retailers being able to anticipate/monitor demand, and ration via prices, might actually work well and a be a huge argument in favor of price gouging.

The other thing gouging profit anticipation does is encourage stocking up prior, and redirection from less critical areas. When people look at gouging, they look at the "last available" items which are gouged in an environment where price gouging is illegal, and see outrageous prices. But if gouging was allowed and legal, we wouldn't see these absurd spikes. Entrepreneurs would be trucking in water/generators long before the disaster causes shortages, hoping to make a buck if their bets are correct. Right now that activity isn't incentivized.

the opinions here, are much different than what you would get if asked to people in face to face situations.

Of course they are. There is not a single person here who would have the balls to say any of this on television. lol


Being stupid already hurts. That's why they're poor. Do you think price gouging is going to magically increase their IQ somehow?

If people are allowed to price gouge during disasters, then the victims will retaliate in the only way they know how (as would anyone here). And then we have real chaos. How are you going to sell that $100 bottle of water when your head is busted open? What cops are going to protect you? Or are you going to pay them off with free water?

Sometimes the "smart" people don't really think things through.

You are underestimating the size of my balls.
See my post above. The insane hypothetical $100 bottle of water would likely not happen if price gouging was legal. It was would be $3 instead of $1.50 because the price signal long before the hurricane would encourage entrepreneurs to stock up.

massive student loans are almost always from lack of responsibility.people borrow absurd amounts of money to go away and party for 4 years to get mostly worthless degrees when they could have gotten the same or better degrees for a lot cheaper.or in many cases learned a trade that pays better for a lot cheaper.

You missed the point if you think denying access to almost everyone on the basis of them not being close to the front of the line is better than pricing out a small subsection of the population on the basis of price.

If you're concerned about segments of the population being left out in the cold, a volume cap on sales is a much more appropriate way to curb over consumption than a price ceiling.

There're plenty of catastrophe situations where people would value a case at more than $100. For a flood, probably not.

The price of gas could easily have been increased by that degree though if the supply was fixed and reserves were low in any particular station.

Also, you're assuming the market won't settle on the optimal people where people grumble at paying but don't bust heads open. Which of course it will.

If you think it through, price gouging makes a ton of sense. And we could actually test this theory and know for sure, if, again, the cuck government didn't have laws against price gouging, preventing all of the effects i mention in earlier posts. The government is destroying even scientific knowledge with its price gouging laws, a terrible externality that no one anticipated.

Yeah, i guess if anyone would, you would.

Given that i live in Florida and just went through the hurricane, i can say first hand that i think the current system works pretty good and i don't want to **** with it. Yeah, maybe you could improve it slightly. But then again, you might not. Try this somewhere else where things are really bad and there is room for a lot of improvement.

I'm going to hazard a guess that you weren't unprepared and needing water or fuel at the last minute.

An SUV pulls up to your gas station/mini-mart w/ a father/mother/3 young children as they are fleeing the hurricane. Which of you could sleep at night after you make them pay $30/gallon and $20/bottle of water?

To heck w/ economic theory. Some things are just not right.

that's probably the issue , in theory , we all believe in free markets, but when you see a situation first hand, you can understand how human life and safety should take precedence over profit. granted, someone like you would not have this problem, and others for various circumstances will, so i understand why these safety checks and government intervention are needed.

This would never happen if gouging wasn't illegal. Greed would lead to excess supply, so while you might pay $3/gallon, you wouldn't be paying 20. Now consider the following:
Now back to your original question:
Which is worse...you desperately need gas and water:

- Gas and water is available is at $5/L because market participants had a huge incentive to supply it
- Gas and water is unavailable and you're trying to flee the hurricane.

Economic theory matters. They second scenario is common without price "gouging". Your scenario of $30 is impossible if price gouging is legal. My scenario of double price gas that actually exists and that this desperate family can now obtain is by FAR the superior solution.

I have a hard time believing that price gouging will solve the shortages by leading to excess supply when talking about large scale natural disasters that occur very infrequently, with little notice, and in random locations.

Do you really think merchants will start stocking more bottled water in anticipation of a possible hurricane 10 years down the road because they'll be able to get a little more money for it?

What are you talking about? This is basic economics. If a hurricane is approaching with 50% probability, and you can make a nice bit of money price gouging, you order trucks of water in. The market is allowed to set the price required to meet needs, including uncertainties. When price gouging is illegal, that mechanism doesn't happen.

There were days of notice in fine weather with increasing probability of Irma hitting.
That's because you're only comparing worlds with government intervention (price gouging illegal). You have no idea what supply or price would look like if price gouging was legal. It's not like the price-gouged stuff isn't going to get used.

I'll explain the source of the fallacy that many have in this thread.

When nature does something to us (make gas cost $1 million/gallon - unobtainable), we do not see it as evil, even though it's identical to someone having gas and charging $1 million/gallon for it.

When a person charges $1 million/gallon to a desperate person, we see it as evil.

Because of this psychological flaw, we desperately try to police the second "evil" act done by a person, even if it results in far more of the former act of nature doing exactly the same thing in terms of outcome to that person.

It's ****ed up and completely crazy that we haven't overcome such ******ed caveman social group psychology, and results in lots of major policy mistakes, not to mention left wing thinking which is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of the misery of billions.

Wal-Mart does weather forecasts and shifts supply based on them:

Pam Bondi is doing tremendous harm with her crusade against moral, profit-maximizing businesses.

Yep. Now imagine the redirection/overstocking that would happen if there was 100% profit to be made.

No, i wasn't. But I don't attribute this solely to me being a smart enough guy to prepare. I also credit the state government in doing an excellent job in informing people and protecting the convoys of trucks that brought in last minute food and gas. If you saw what they are doing at the Tampa gas facilities post-hurricane, it would amaze you. If i have to go through hurricanes, i would want to do it in Florida. This place really has their **** together, and the vast majority of the people doing the hard work are state employees.

Who defines it as price gouging vs higher cost of goods ??
what's too much?
is $5 a case of water ok but $6 not
I find it sickening that that same Liberal who says the blue collar guy can't make a buck
all the while shifting his portfolio to take advantage and make millions off the same disaster.

Where do you plan to store the gas? There is a limited space. That space was already FULL before the hurricane.

Water is easy. Gas not so much.

There was enough gas and water to go around. Don't criticize Florida until you've been here during a hurricane. This state moved 6-7 million people out and they are bringing them all back in. Sure, there are hiccups here and there, but for the most part, it is AMAZING what we've done given that a hurricane just went up the entire state.

Imagine if the state of Florida took the same tack and decided to charge 10x for toll roads to all the a-holes who are trying to carpetbag here. Oh wait, you thought only the companies get to price gouge?

The bottom line is that the utopian dream of reaming the poor and getting rich off the backs of the suffering isn't going to fly here. It never will. Because most people recognize how despicable it is and won't waste time listening to the silly arguments.

If the price is high enough you park tankers at the gas station.
If the price is high enough, excess supply gets built in anticipation of future profit.

Respectfully, you haven't thought this through. And that's a slur on you. Issues are complex and creative solutions so requiring of focused experienced motivated energy that no one can really plan this stuff from a bird's eye view. Which is why the US is like it is, and Russia is like it is.

As for your storage problem, take oil. There's nowhere to store the stuff. Except that the free market found a way - over 100 million barrels worth of oil is floating at sea, bought up cheap during oversupply, with large externalities as cushions for shocks.

The US has a million fracking wells now, many of them capped, which are essentially excess oil stores to cushion a shock - possible solely because of free market, profit seeking bets. The government would never in a million years have dreamed up such a shockingly wasteful, low probability of success effort, which basically saved from the world from peak oil.

The point is, when you don't bureaucratically **** with pricing (which is just wants meeting effort), the free market finds ways in ways you couldn't dream up.

In the middle of a hurricane? hahahahahahahahaaaaaa

I'm only going to explain this bc you're a Euro and apparently don't understand hurricanes.

1) Trucks blow over in the winds.
2) Hurricanes spawn tornadoes. We had dozens of them.
3) Police won't hang around protecting your precious cargo. It will be gone long before you crawl out of your shelter to sell it.


I could go on, but you see the point.

Water is easy to store, but you better not have a storefront after price gouging, bc they will destroy it as payback. You just don't get how pissed people get when they are being screwed while under the most intense pressure they have ever experienced in their lives. These people are worried about losing their lives, their homes, and all they own. And you want to trigger them with price gouging? Sometimes i wonder if conservatives even understand the basics of human behavior.

This was fun, but my roofing guy is here now to assess damage, so i'll have to wander back to this thread sometime later. I can't wait to hear about how the insurance companies should be allowed to **** us as well.

Another politics thread (sigh)