I have no idea why you phrase it that way, better for people not to be able to buy because of price or because of absence of supply. I thought the point was that greedy sellers are making obscene profits, in which case they must have set the price well enough. The real choice is between the shelves being g empty and having the choice to pay what you’d never pay under normal circumstances. But to answer your question, the former case is better because then more people, and the more desperate people, get more water.
“profiting from a captive audience”
It’s not as if the sellers of bottled water kidnapped people and locked them in a cellar. They are being held captive by God or Mother Nature, not the local convenience store. So long as they are being held captive it is to the collective benefit that supplies are rationed in the mist efficient and just manner, which is the free market.
“it’s punishing people for living in the wrong city in the wrong week”
No, it may be profiting off them being so situated. But God or Mother Nature or whatever is punishing them, not the guy who sells them water. Blame the storm.
This whole punishment line of reasoning I find distasteful. I can understand a heroin pusher being seen as punishing a junkie, but would you say a farmer is punishing the eating public by growing corn when corn futures are up? Or any enterprise punishing customers fulfilling a need when supply is lacking anywhere in the market? Probably not. It can’t be bad to take advantage of market conditions anytime because then we’d all be guilty all the time.
Oh, I see, it’s only evil if you do it in times of especially acute need. But I might remind you that the more desperate was the need the better a thing it is that the seller did. Possibly saving lives is nobler than satiating the munchies late on a Sarurday eve, or whatever is their usual sale. And why shouldn’t they profit from doing good? Because it should come out of the kindness of their heart? Why? Nevermind, let’s pretend there’s a reason. Okay, then goodbye profit motive.
Because part of setting the price for something very high is pricing some people out of the market.
It’s not about setting the price “well enough”. When you have a captive audience you always get to artificially inflate prices because people lack the ability to buy from somebody. The problem with that in a disaster area is the audience is captive because of the disaster, rather than because they chose your amusement park.
The shelves are going to be empty one way or the other. That’s what happens when a disaster is predicted, the shelves get emptied. The question is did you inflate prices to take advantage of the people that are trying to survive the disaster or not.
No the guy that jacks up the prices of his goods by hundreds of a percent is punishing them. Almost everywhere faces some form of natural disaster, so the idea that it’s punishment from God or nature is just stupid. The punishment comes from the guy who has decided this is a profit making opportunity. He’s basically a looter that decided to do his looting first.
You might find it distasteful, but that’s the distaste of truth. When people jack up their prices like this they are deliberately taking advantage of people in a bad situation. They know there are people that will have to stay, they know those people need supplies, they know they’re going to sell out their entire store to these people. And knowing that they have this group who MUST shop from them they decide to drastically increase their price. That’s taking advantage of people, that’s punishing people.
It’s not a good thing they’re doing. They’re taking advantage of people in a bad situation. That’s not good. Good would be giving it away free, like WalMart did after Katrina. Evil is quintupling your prices because you know they have no other choice. They aren’t saving lives, they’re GOUGING. Selling somebody $1 of water for $5 hasn’t saved a single life anywhere ever.