Price Gouging

Townhall.com ^ | March 18, 2020 | John Stossel

[Kaslin]

The ob-ed by Walter E. Williams was posted in Townhall.com on Oct 24, 2018

Price Gouging During a Natural Disaster

[Kaslin]

Why?

[Roman_War_Criminal]

They’re not only bad, they’re evil.

[Kaslin]

You mean it's ok to charge $100 for an item that you paid a Dollar for?

Shame on you. You are disgusting

[VeniVidiVici]

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.

Not really. If I sell fuel cans cheap you'll buy all you can regardless if you can use as many as you can buy. Just like water. If I can buy a gallon of water for a nickel I'll buy as much as I can. However, if that same gallon of water costs me $5 bucks, you can be damned sure I'll measure out how much I need over a given period of time.

This will allow more water to be available to more people too.

[KrisKrinkle]

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.

If you want to sell it, the buyer has a say in it's value to.

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?

If you cornered the market to create an artificial shortage so you could increase your profit, it may be other people's business.

[Vaduz]

Keeping stock low is good for profiteering,notice how few deliveries stores get when warehouses are full.

[Impy]

To stop hoarding you limit per customer you don’t jack up the price.

[John O]

You mean it's ok to charge $100 for an item that you paid a Dollar for?

If I can find someone who wants it for that price why not? After all. I agree to sell it, he agrees to buy it. No one is being coerced to do anything

Shame on you. You are disgusting

Why is dealing with my own property as I see fit disgusting? Seems that is one of the reasons we started this whole country in the first place.

I understand that communists get upset about other people owning property but I'm sure you aren't a communist (or at least I strongly suspect you are not) So what objection do you have to me selling my own property to a willing buyer?

[John O]

If you want to sell it, the buyer has a say in it's value to.

Exactly correct. If I set the value too high I will never find a buyer who also values it for that amount. If I set the value too low I lose money.

The free market is a wonderful thing. Willing sellers, willing buyers, no coercion.

If you cornered the market to create an artificial shortage so you could increase your profit, it may be other people's business.

Possibly. But I do not know of any examples where anyone has successfully done that in the last 75 years or so. There is always lots of competition.

(About the closest we get to a monopoly is the liberals control of media. Which I am all in favor of breaking up as they are misusing something that they do not own but are only leasing from us)