Posted on 03/18/2020 4:20:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m all for the free market
but in a time of hysteria
the free market gets hijacked.
Amazon went after 3rd party Sellers whom were price gouging.
The Wife bought last week Car Cup Holder Kleenex 50 count dispenser 4 pack via Amazon Prime $17 and change. Target had the exact same 4 pack for $7.50 regular price. Amazon accepted the return and picked up the shipping. They didn’t accept my review about their price gouging.
Amazon, eBay and Facebook, worried about accusations of “profiteering,” cracked down on resellers.
Abhorrent and despicable. No one forces you to pay $50 for a bottle of hand sanitizer.
But these folks seem to think they know whats best...now you can’t get it at all. We don’t like your price so you can’t sell any of it at any price.
What bs.
“They’re not bad people”
Yes, they are.
#Preppers like us are getting that last laugh watching all sheep panic buy when we have been telling y'all for 20 years how and why to be ready and all you grasshoppers just wanted party!...
Which is why I am offering for sale at the usual low price 2 bags (16 lbs each) of Friskies Tender and Crunchy Combo gourmet cat food.
They're all yours for only $100 apiece.
Guaranteed Fresh! Regular Low Price. I promise.
This offer comes with one beautiful My Pillow for Cats. I promise your cat will thank you. My cats don't just like...they love their My Pillows. They sleep on them 16 hours a day.
Walter E. Willias had a column with the same conclusions.
The first thing I noticed after my state passed its first “anti-gouging” law a few years ago was that more and more businesses don’t even bother opening after serious weather events like snowstorms. The number of gas stations closed after a major snowstorm was shocking — because this was the type of business that NEVER closed in the past. Once they lost the ability to raise their prices in a time of high demand, the owners of these establishments simply realized that there was no reason to make heroic efforts to open their doors during difficult times.
Probably the dumbest John Stossel piece I’ve ever read
“Probably the dumbest John Stossel piece I’ve ever read”
Read this one by Walter Williams. These guys are not dumb. I’m not sure about Stossel, but I know for a fact that Williams is a lot smarter than I am.
https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/10/18/price-gouging-during-a-natural-disaster
Just for fun, go to Ebay and look for Campbells chicken noodle soup.
If you think this bad, just wait till the looting and robbing starts.
Fuel cans. Bottled water.
I used to think that “price gougers” should be shot. But after surviving the 2004-2005 hurricane season on FL, high prices are the only way that one can get ANY supplies.
If you can’t charge what the market will bear there is no incentive to bring supply.
“Price gouging is legally defined as charging 10 to 25 percent more for something than you charged for it during the month before an emergency”
Therein lies the ridiculousness of the law & the argument by Williams & Stossell.
Raising the price from $2 to $4 isn’t the same as raising the price from $2 to $20 or even more, which is what’s happening with the masks & gloves & sanitizer. That’s not 10 or 25%. It’s dumb for cities or states to think that a small percentage like that is ‘gouging’. Raising the price 5 or 10 times or more is gouging.
The problem isn’t so much with charging high prices during a shortage. It takes extra time, effort and transportation to bring items from an area of availability to an area of shortage.
The problem is that some of these folks created the shortage by raiding all of the stores in their region, buying up all of the local stock, and then selling it at inflated prices because of the shortage they created.
That is way different from buying supplies from a region where they are plentiful and selling them in an area of shortage.
As did Dr. Thomas Sowell. They both make perfect sense.
[Amazon, eBay and Facebook, worried about accusations of “profiteering,” cracked down on resellers.
Abhorrent and despicable. No one forces you to pay $50 for a bottle of hand sanitizer.
But these folks seem to think they know whats best...now you can’t get it at all. We don’t like your price so you can’t sell any of it at any price.
What bs.]
I gave up on the idea when I learned that I could be prosecuted for “price gouging.”
How did that stupid law work out for ANYONE in that particular scenario?
Amazon pretty much turns all of their pricing over to algorithms. The right hand literally does not know what the six left hands are doing.
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