4 ms·
The headline says "price gouging", but I can't find the term in the body of the article. The claim actually assessed seems to be "record-breaking increases in
by caturopath 4y ago
The headline says "price gouging", but I can't find the term in the body of the article.
The claim actually assessed seems to be "record-breaking increases in the price of eggs [are caused] by price collusion among the nation’s top egg producers."
Collusion and price gouging are pretty different concepts as far as I know. It's somewhat hard to apply the 'price gouging' concept here -- a central example of price gouging would be to charge high prices for fuel or accommodations after a hurricane. It's easy to see the appeal of the concept (people are in a lurch and have few options to trade off with, making it very painful) in the natural disaster example, but that isn't the usual case with eggs.
- whatshisface 4y agoOn the other hand, not allowing very high prices for fuel in the aftermath of a hurricane is a good way to make sure nobody ever stockpiles fuel especially to be available after a hurricane.
- Spivak 4y agoYou're like 99% of the way there. This is the behavior you want. The alternative is panic shortages from people afraid prices are about to skyrocket.
- gruez 4y ago>You're like 99% of the way there. This is the behavior you want. The alternative is panic shortages from people afraid prices are about to skyrocket. Forcing prices to be low has the opposite problem: since the cost of stocking up is low, everybody does so. If you're at the grocery store and there's a hurricane approaching, why wouldn't you stock up on some non-perishable foods? After all, worst case scenario you pay a bit more than you would have (assuming you only buy stuff on sale), and you can consume them over time, so the net cost to you is very low. Of course, if every shopper stocks up for 2 weeks worth of perishables, the shelves will be empty within an hour.