3 ms·

Congratulation, you just noticed obvious problems of a rule like "don't change prices at state of emergencies". Thus, no reasonable/battle-tested actual regulat

by Faark 8y ago

Congratulation, you just noticed obvious problems of a rule like "don't change prices at state of emergencies". Thus, no reasonable/battle-tested actual regulation will have such a rule. Surprisingly, simple principles like "free market", "planned economy"/"communism", "free speech", "equal opportunity" etc cannot solve every problem on their own and we tediously need to balance all of those tools for the best possible outcomes for society. Here a compromise might be something like caps on price increases (maybe max 500%) and some mild rules to prevent hoarding. I remember reading something like that in actual law, but it's been a while and I'm not sure about details anymore. It's also interesting many forms of disaster relief are provided by the governments or non-profits instead by the free market directly. This development seems like a good indicator that free markets might have significant drawbacks in such situations.

sokoloff 8y ago
And yet, you have people like the AG of Texas threatening to investigate any business who raised prices by more than 10%. Actually happened; not theoretical. See the quote from the Texas AG in the article here: https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-attorney-general-warns-price-gouging-aftermath-harvey/story?id=49503480 https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-attorney-general-warns-price...
- wahern 8y ago
  Interesting. FWIW, the pertinent law in Texas is recited at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/disaster-and-emergency-scams/how-spot-and-report-price-gouging https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/dis... [Illegal to sell] fuel, food, medicine or another necessity at an exorbitant or excessive price The only thing that might be worse than leaving the standard so open-ended is actually specifying hard numbers.[1] I wonder what the caselaw looks like, and what are some actual price multipliers involved in successful and failed prosecutions. [1] Sometimes vague standards like that are deliberately designed to incentive conservative behavior while permitting equitable treatment (give defendant benefit of a doubt) in actual disputes. Being scared you could easily run afoul of the law is partly the point. That works better when designed for enforcement by private plaintiffs where quantifiable harm must plausibly have occurred. It's prone to abuse when enforced by regulators preemptively as there's no limiting factor of manifest harm. If everybody was happy to pay $50, no harm no foul. If somebody's grandmother passed out from dehydration because she couldn't afford a bottle even though the shelves were full, then not only do we have harm but we have a concrete context to gauge "excessive". Preemptive enforcement lacks these contextualizing facts.

by Faark 8y ago

sokoloff 8y ago

And yet, you have people like the AG of Texas threatening to investigate any business who raised prices by more than 10%. Actually happened; not theoretical. See the quote from the Texas AG in the article here: https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-attorney-general-warns-price-gouging-aftermath-harvey/story?id=49503480 https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-attorney-general-warns-price...

wahern 8y ago
Interesting. FWIW, the pertinent law in Texas is recited at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/disaster-and-emergency-scams/how-spot-and-report-price-gouging https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/dis... [Illegal to sell] fuel, food, medicine or another necessity at an exorbitant or excessive price The only thing that might be worse than leaving the standard so open-ended is actually specifying hard numbers.[1] I wonder what the caselaw looks like, and what are some actual price multipliers involved in successful and failed prosecutions. [1] Sometimes vague standards like that are deliberately designed to incentive conservative behavior while permitting equitable treatment (give defendant benefit of a doubt) in actual disputes. Being scared you could easily run afoul of the law is partly the point. That works better when designed for enforcement by private plaintiffs where quantifiable harm must plausibly have occurred. It's prone to abuse when enforced by regulators preemptively as there's no limiting factor of manifest harm. If everybody was happy to pay $50, no harm no foul. If somebody's grandmother passed out from dehydration because she couldn't afford a bottle even though the shelves were full, then not only do we have harm but we have a concrete context to gauge "excessive". Preemptive enforcement lacks these contextualizing facts.