> Can you actually cite and back up your claims? As far as I'm aware Japan is one of the most efficient countries in terms of mobilizing people and resources fo

> Can you actually cite and back up your claims? As far as I'm aware Japan is one of the most efficient countries in terms of mobilizing people and resources for disaster response. Are you saying that a country with price gouging will be more efficient than a country without? It'd be next to impossible to study this, because you can't readily compare disasters. I don't know how efficient Japan is, it may be that there culture is as strong as the price mechanism, or stronger. My argument is that the pricing mechanism works quite well, and that you can't simply snap your fingers and imbue say, Iowans with the essence of Japaneseness. Whereas you can snap your fingers and say "sell things at their market value". > You still haven't explained how Japan's response is insufficient compared to other countries either. I didn't intend to. What I said was the Japan's cultural attitude is not easily replicable and transferable, whereas markets are.