Posted on 03/18/2020 4:20:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
free market all the way...
if have a stock pile of ammos, i can choose to sell them at any price
I agree with Stossel on almost all products.
The one exception I have is jacking up gas prices as people are evacuating when a hurricane is approaching.
” I would have needed to charge $10 per bottle to make it worth my while.”
If that’s what you figured, then driving from 1200 miles away was too far for the amount that you could haul.
I know, I’ve been prepped for years and mostly didn’t talk about it because people rolled their eyes. In January I visited my GD and seeing something like this coming, stocked her up and talked about it at work and people were asking why?
Last week they figured out why.
OTOH, as soon as the stores saw the hoarding, they could have put limits on what one person can buy.
That would keep the supply going without raising prices.
Concur.
Let’s look at this using round numbers:
2400 miles x $0.60 per mile (a bit higher than the IRS rate) is $1,440. Let’s call it $1,500 in operating expenses for the vehicle.
I figured I could do the trip each way in a day and a half. Add a whole day at the disaster scene and that’s four days. Let’s make it five days for the sake of the discussion. At $200/day in personal expenses (this is very high; I wouldn’t have spent more than one night in a hotel) that’s another $1,000.
If I sold the water for $10 per bottle that would have been $10,000 in revenue. A net of $7,500 isn’t a bad return for a week of disruption, is it?
Exactly. It’s good citizenship to be prepared. We’re not the ones out there snapping up scarce supplies.
That would have saved a lot of trouble.
It looks like it is calming down?
The supply chain is what matters and it is A Ok.
LOVE it.
Some price gouging ends up making more of a scarce commodity available in a time of need.
Some people only oppose price gouging when the price goes above what they can afford for something they want.
Worse people are those who take advantage of anti gouging laws and buy more than they need with no intention of either using nor selling. Working as a group they deny goods to those who really need them and are willing to pay a high price.
Remember, the “gouger” has incentive to sell at a price someone is willing to pay, making it available.
Most everybody seems to be addressing “price gouging” in regard to goods. What about services?
For instance, is it ok or not ok for medical services, doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. to raise prices to whatever the market will bear and let those who can’t pay the price suffer or die?
If you’re paying for “what the market will bear” but working for the same old pre-crisis wages, then this doesn’t help much. Your boss may profit, but you don’t.
If I own something, then I and I alone should be the one to set the value that I hold on it and would sell it for.
If I set that value right, then I make a tidy profit. If I set it too low I lose money. If I set it too high I get stuck with 8000 rolls of TP that no one will ever buy.
Anti-gouging is a direct violation of my property rights. If something is mine (and if I bought it or made it, then it is mine) then whose business is it how much I sell it for?
A natural by-product of price gouging is looting and stealing.
If you are in favor of price gouging in times of panic or emergency - then you are OK with looting and stealing during these times also.
Many people don’t think of them but it’s the elderly on small fixed incomes who are hurt the most simply because they don’t have enough money.......In my opinion, gouging in order to profit from a natural disaster is not only unethical but immoral.
Nothing wrong with wanting to make a reasonable profit. One guy has been stopped by Amazon and is stuck now and can’t rid of the stuff, which serves him right
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