quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Something I read following shortages of various products due to one of our recent hurricanes was an opinion piece criticizing policies designed to prevent price gouging. The author pointed out that price caps imposed by the government or individual companies actually made shortages more likely due to several factors.

First is that when people know prices will rise as a result of something like a hurricane, they are more likely to keep that in mind next time and prepare in advance rather than waiting until the last moment when many others are lining up to find and buy. Being gouged a few times will serve as a spur—to some people at least—to not let it happen again.

Second, if they do wait, higher prices will discourage people from buying more than they believe is reasonably necessary. If TP is going for $5 a roll, they’re unlikely to load up a shopping cart with a six month supply. That means the supplies that are available will last longer.

And then there is the effect on the vendors. If a seller knows he can get more than the normal price for something, he’s more likely to anticipate the spike in demand and be willing to spend the money and effort necessary to lay in a larger than normal supply. Or the vendor may decide to keep prices at the normal level as a gesture that will be appreciated by the public. Even if that doesn’t help limit shortages, it allows the free market to operate without unnecessary governmental interference.

Great points. I’ve never understood the sentiment of punishing so-called price gougers. Whenever I’ve expressed this, I seem to get flamed.

Consider the hurricane in Houston. I live in Utah, with a semi truck. I could have bought up our surplus generators (at retail), and probably could have gotten a hundred on the truck. Then two days to drive them there, $1000 in fuel, another $1000 in overhead. Probably days to get them sold. Going home would be empty, so tack on another $2,000 in transportation cost. Add in the opportunity cost of suspending my normal operations, the risk involved, and suddenly doubling the cost of the generators is just doing ok, certainly not making a killing.

Many say that it is a crime to do this. I saw politicians saying you would be arrested. Therefore, I just pass on the whole idea, and the supply of generators in the disaster zone remained constrained. There’s no incentive for anybody to add to the supply if prices are fixed to pre-disaster levels because supplier costs are way higher during the emergency. It’s not like I could go buy them at wholesale and wait on normal shipping. So shortages remain more acute than they need be because I’m not willing to incur the risk.

This doesn’t include people who purposefully hoard the local supply with the intention of gouging their neighbors. That’s a different matter entirely, because these types are acting as an artificial middle man.

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Originally posted by PASig:
I saw a guy trying to sell one of those big rolls you see at commercial facilities like malls and workplaces ....

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
<Sarcasm>
I'm gonna put these on FB Marketplace.
I'm gonna be Oprah Rich!
</Sarcasm>



I actually bought these this past fall for our Cub Scout camp-out.
I usually feel like a sucker for storing all this crap.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
So glad we went to monthly bulk ordering about 5 years ago. Case every other month, build up a stock, let it dwindle down / get used up when the parents stay a couple weeks, build it back up.

Pretty much have 3 months of everything here, all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
It's insane at my grocery store right now.

The lines are at least 2 hours long.