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I've been alive a decent amount of time now and I've seen no evidence that price controls during disasters are anything more than political fluff for easy point

by phil21 8y ago

I've been alive a decent amount of time now and I've seen no evidence that price controls during disasters are anything more than political fluff for easy points. Everyone - even otherwise reasonable folks - love their 2 minutes of hate on "price gougers" even if the facts don't make much sense. As far as I can tell, all they do is simply limit supply. I'd seriously consider loading up a 53 foot trailer full of generators and drive them 2000 miles to Florida some years if it were legal to sell them at 2-3x retail. But it's not, so I don't bother as it's not worth my time and immense financial risk. And I'm not even in the generator selling business. Someone who is I imagine could be quite incentivized to keep the factory open a few more shifts and ship a bit more if profits were there to offset the additional expense and risk. Instead we have these laws that encourage stuff like a single dude living alone buying 3 cases of water at the gas station and the family of 6 who arrives an hour later can't get a single bottle. Or the dual with dual tanks in his pickup truck filling both up and the folks who come by in their Civic needing 1.5gal to evacuate can't. The response of course to my complaints is rationing, which of course brings up a whole other giant can of worms.

zaarn 8y ago
>Instead we have these laws that encourage stuff like a single dude living alone buying 3 cases of water at the gas station and the family of 6 who arrives an hour later can't get a single bottle. Or the dual with dual tanks in his pickup truck filling both up and the folks who come by in their Civic needing 1.5gal to evacuate can't. What if the single dude has 1000$ and the family has 10$? The single dude can obviously just buy all the water and the family still gets none.
cimmanom 8y ago
When it’s physically not possible to increase supply sufficiently (in the relevant timeframe) to meet demand at a price affordable by everyone who needs a good in order to survive; and if you want to distribute those goods in such a way that the maximum number of people do survive; your only option will be price controls and rationing. If it were possible to increase supply sufficiently AND the markets were perfectly efficient (and cows were spherical), price controls wouldn’t be necessary - but these controls were typically introduced after disasters where people died because other people were jacking up prices to levels most couldn’t afford. Even if it truly is possible to increase supply you may nevertheless have price increases because disasters induce demand and encourage hoarding. The solution here IMO would be to cap prices but subsidize them in order to incentive suppliers to increase supply.
jcranmer 8y ago
> As far as I can tell, all they do is simply limit supply. I'd seriously consider loading up a 53 foot trailer full of generators and drive them 2000 miles to Florida some years if it were legal to sell them at 2-3x retail. But it's not, so I don't bother as it's not worth my time and immense financial risk. If you were really willing do to this, could you be so kind as to share your prognostication for where future disaster will strike with disaster planners? For you see, that task would require you at least 5 days of advance planning (assuming you were a champ at locating and ultimately selling them), probably more than a week in any actual executable plan. Even for well-forecast hurricanes, that is pushing it for advance notice.

by phil21 8y ago

zaarn 8y ago

>Instead we have these laws that encourage stuff like a single dude living alone buying 3 cases of water at the gas station and the family of 6 who arrives an hour later can't get a single bottle. Or the dual with dual tanks in his pickup truck filling both up and the folks who come by in their Civic needing 1.5gal to evacuate can't. What if the single dude has 1000$ and the family has 10$? The single dude can obviously just buy all the water and the family still gets none.

cimmanom 8y ago

When it’s physically not possible to increase supply sufficiently (in the relevant timeframe) to meet demand at a price affordable by everyone who needs a good in order to survive; and if you want to distribute those goods in such a way that the maximum number of people do survive; your only option will be price controls and rationing. If it were possible to increase supply sufficiently AND the markets were perfectly efficient (and cows were spherical), price controls wouldn’t be necessary - but these controls were typically introduced after disasters where people died because other people were jacking up prices to levels most couldn’t afford. Even if it truly is possible to increase supply you may nevertheless have price increases because disasters induce demand and encourage hoarding. The solution here IMO would be to cap prices but subsidize them in order to incentive suppliers to increase supply.

jcranmer 8y ago

> As far as I can tell, all they do is simply limit supply. I'd seriously consider loading up a 53 foot trailer full of generators and drive them 2000 miles to Florida some years if it were legal to sell them at 2-3x retail. But it's not, so I don't bother as it's not worth my time and immense financial risk. If you were really willing do to this, could you be so kind as to share your prognostication for where future disaster will strike with disaster planners? For you see, that task would require you at least 5 days of advance planning (assuming you were a champ at locating and ultimately selling them), probably more than a week in any actual executable plan. Even for well-forecast hurricanes, that is pushing it for advance notice.