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Because a lot of the short term price gouging is artificial/predatory: "Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resel

Because a lot of the short term price gouging is artificial/predatory: "Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resell them." https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/12/were-hustlers-amid-coronavirus-fears-this-couple-has-made-more-than-100000-reselling-lysol-wipes.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/12/were-hustlers... They are not raising prices to produce more, but just hoarding and then reselling it at higher prices. "Price Gouger Unable to Sell 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer after Amazon Crackdown" https://www.nytimes.com./2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html?0p19G=2870 https://www.nytimes.com./2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-p...

daenz 7y ago
I would argue that the supply/demand pricing isn't responding fast enough to the hoarders. If the price was fully elastic, as people began to hoard lysol wipes, prices would rise on the hoarders and make it much less profitable for them. But prices aren't rising correctly, much like an artificial price ceiling would do, making it possible and profitable for hoarders to create a shortage.
- jayd16 7y ago
  >I would argue that the supply/demand pricing isn't responding fast enough Yes, that's a failing of the real free market we live. It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. In the real world we're not all omniscient, rational actors. Protections like this are useful in the short term.
  - daenz 7y ago
    >Protections like this are useful in the short term. Explain how this "protection" will stop the stated problem of people hoarding and reselling. Since when have fines or punishment stopped black markets from existing? >It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. "The car brakes couldn't decelerate the car fast enough, they failed, so I don't see why suggesting better brakes is useful." Decentralized, free market pricing is enormously robust and flexible and has allowed the global economy to flourish. But since it has failed you, what would you like to replace it with?
    - jayd16 7y ago
      If you don't think any laws are successful and we shouldn't use them then I don't know what to tell you. How about parking tickets or a million other behaviors we shape through fines? Free markets work in the long term but as they say the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
      - daenz 7y ago
        I understand how laws shape behavior, but I also believe that for a law to be effective, it has to be worth the effort to enforce it. This law doesn't protect anyone, as you stated it would, unless the government is spending its limited resources chasing down TP resellers and confiscating their goods. It certainly isn't going to stop the hoarding.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    > Yes, that's a failing of the real free market we live. We don't live in a free market. Not even close. I would argue that since these laws exist, commercial suppliers are unwilling to raise prices for fear of being penalized under this law. That prevents the market from working naturally, and allows these individual gougers to take advantage.
trhway 7y ago
>"Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resell them." aren't they doing a public service here? I grew up in the shortage driven economy of USSR and have the hate to speculators and price gouging ingrained into my brain with the milk of the mother, yet hear me out - the consumption of the Lysol wipes has increased while the production stays pretty much the same, and the producer and big distributors and retailers aren't willing to increase the price while the price increase is really necessary to adjust/optimize for the new equilibrium between the new increased consumption and the same production levels, otherwise there will be shortages - similar to CAP theorem you can have either price control or availability (in my experience USSR with price control and total shortages and later, in 199x, Russia with freed prices and immediate availability of everything are direct experimental confirmation of that - you had to see how sausages and everything else magically appeared on Jan 1, 1992 in the just yesterday empty stores, granted it was 3x of the yesterday's fixed price, yet it was really available at that 3x price while yesterday at that nice 1x price it just wasn't there). Thus the price gougers like that couple de-facto do necessary job which the producers/distributors/retailers aren't willing to do.
- Noumenon72 7y ago
  Downvoters of this post are discouraging commenters who offer direct personal experience and fact-based arguments, just because they disagree. They should be ashamed.

daenz 7y ago

I would argue that the supply/demand pricing isn't responding fast enough to the hoarders. If the price was fully elastic, as people began to hoard lysol wipes, prices would rise on the hoarders and make it much less profitable for them. But prices aren't rising correctly, much like an artificial price ceiling would do, making it possible and profitable for hoarders to create a shortage.

jayd16 7y ago
>I would argue that the supply/demand pricing isn't responding fast enough Yes, that's a failing of the real free market we live. It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. In the real world we're not all omniscient, rational actors. Protections like this are useful in the short term.
- daenz 7y ago
  >Protections like this are useful in the short term. Explain how this "protection" will stop the stated problem of people hoarding and reselling. Since when have fines or punishment stopped black markets from existing? >It already failed so I don't see why suggesting the status quo is useful. "The car brakes couldn't decelerate the car fast enough, they failed, so I don't see why suggesting better brakes is useful." Decentralized, free market pricing is enormously robust and flexible and has allowed the global economy to flourish. But since it has failed you, what would you like to replace it with?
  - jayd16 7y ago
    If you don't think any laws are successful and we shouldn't use them then I don't know what to tell you. How about parking tickets or a million other behaviors we shape through fines? Free markets work in the long term but as they say the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
    - daenz 7y ago
      I understand how laws shape behavior, but I also believe that for a law to be effective, it has to be worth the effort to enforce it. This law doesn't protect anyone, as you stated it would, unless the government is spending its limited resources chasing down TP resellers and confiscating their goods. It certainly isn't going to stop the hoarding.
- pitaj 7y ago
  > Yes, that's a failing of the real free market we live. We don't live in a free market. Not even close. I would argue that since these laws exist, commercial suppliers are unwilling to raise prices for fear of being penalized under this law. That prevents the market from working naturally, and allows these individual gougers to take advantage.

trhway 7y ago

>"Vancouver couple exploits pandemic by hoarding Lysol wipes and charging double to resell them." aren't they doing a public service here? I grew up in the shortage driven economy of USSR and have the hate to speculators and price gouging ingrained into my brain with the milk of the mother, yet hear me out - the consumption of the Lysol wipes has increased while the production stays pretty much the same, and the producer and big distributors and retailers aren't willing to increase the price while the price increase is really necessary to adjust/optimize for the new equilibrium between the new increased consumption and the same production levels, otherwise there will be shortages - similar to CAP theorem you can have either price control or availability (in my experience USSR with price control and total shortages and later, in 199x, Russia with freed prices and immediate availability of everything are direct experimental confirmation of that - you had to see how sausages and everything else magically appeared on Jan 1, 1992 in the just yesterday empty stores, granted it was 3x of the yesterday's fixed price, yet it was really available at that 3x price while yesterday at that nice 1x price it just wasn't there). Thus the price gougers like that couple de-facto do necessary job which the producers/distributors/retailers aren't willing to do.

Noumenon72 7y ago
Downvoters of this post are discouraging commenters who offer direct personal experience and fact-based arguments, just because they disagree. They should be ashamed.