Ok I totally disagree with you. Youâre not the average man so prices wonât effort your behavior as much but they do effort a family living on 70k a year. If he goes to work everyday and his wife works and they have 2 children donât you think they deserve the basic fair living standard. He is not wealthy enough to gouge somebody so if he robs somebody to pay his bills in your mind he is worse. Youâre running a class system because a rich person can gouge and a poor person does not have that opportunity so he does physical crimes. I think since the government does not encourage or really invest in alternatives to oil that makes it a necessity. You canât ride a horse down the street and government regulates the cars you can drive on the road. Oil selling is a government franchise. What is the point of government if it does not protect the helpless from predators? I do believe you should be able to sell your stock or house at any price though in most normal cases. A luxury also should be fair game to what the market is willing to bare.
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Does price gouging exist?
- Thread starter c_323_h
- Start date
Ok I totally disagree with you. Youâre not the average man so prices wonât effort your behavior as much but they do effort a family living on 70k a year. If he goes to work everyday and his wife works and they have 2 children donât you think they deserve the basic fair living standard. He is not wealthy enough to gouge somebody so if he robs somebody to pay his bills in your mind he is worse. Youâre running a class system because a rich person can gouge and a poor person does not have that opportunity so he does physical crimes. I think since the government does not encourage or really invest in alternatives to oil that makes it a necessity. You canât ride a horse down the street and government regulates the cars you can drive on the road. Oil selling is a government franchise. What is the point of government if it does not protect the helpless from predators? I do believe you should be able to sell your stock or house at any price though in most normal cases. A luxury also should be fair game to what the market is willing to bare.
Rearden Metal... Thanks for your post and for trying to add some sense to these rediculous comments.
Price "gouging" is a liberal myth. RM got it exactly right. Watch out all you little trust-fund, boys and girls: inflation and higher interest rates are coming back! And in a big way. And not for the reasons you are thinking.
The reason is simple: SUPPLY and DEMAND. I'm living in Qatar at the moment and paying $0.65 per gallon for gas. I was in London last week and paid $7.89 for a gallon... about 1lb/lt. Qatar has lots of oil and gas and relatively small demand. Not so in London... get it? See any oil wells there in Manhatten?
Living Standards: The greatest threat to American living standards is the supply of labour. A construction worker in the Middle East makes about $150US/month... and there are lines of them looking for work. At the same time, India and China have millions of people moving up into the middle classes and buying the clothes, cars and appliances that Americans are so fond of buying. These 2 phenomenon will continue to depress wages and fuel inflation.
As the world grows more free and inter-connected, living standards will also begin to "equalize". Translation: India and China living standards go up; USA standards flatten, if not decline.
Time to sell the SUV and vacation home. Conservation is back and will be the "mega-trend" for the next 20 years.
Price "gouging" is a liberal myth. RM got it exactly right. Watch out all you little trust-fund, boys and girls: inflation and higher interest rates are coming back! And in a big way. And not for the reasons you are thinking.
The reason is simple: SUPPLY and DEMAND. I'm living in Qatar at the moment and paying $0.65 per gallon for gas. I was in London last week and paid $7.89 for a gallon... about 1lb/lt. Qatar has lots of oil and gas and relatively small demand. Not so in London... get it? See any oil wells there in Manhatten?
Living Standards: The greatest threat to American living standards is the supply of labour. A construction worker in the Middle East makes about $150US/month... and there are lines of them looking for work. At the same time, India and China have millions of people moving up into the middle classes and buying the clothes, cars and appliances that Americans are so fond of buying. These 2 phenomenon will continue to depress wages and fuel inflation.
As the world grows more free and inter-connected, living standards will also begin to "equalize". Translation: India and China living standards go up; USA standards flatten, if not decline.
Time to sell the SUV and vacation home. Conservation is back and will be the "mega-trend" for the next 20 years.
Anyone with a grounding in classical economics will be skeptical of claims of price gouging. Ultimately, all goods have to be allocated among consumers. Capitalist systems do it by price. Others, like communism, may do it by forcing you to wait in endless lines. The hard truth is that if price is artificially set below the equilibirium level, demand will outstrip supply and shortages will develop.
Disasters create short-run disequilibrium situations, leading some to say it is "unfair" for those who happen to have necessities that are in short supply to be able to capitalize by raising prices. Economists will say that is how you give people incentives to stockpile goods or to rush them into a disaster area. Society seems to have made a collective decision to suspend the normal rules during disasters. We are willing to accept prolonged shortages rather than risk the hard feelings caused by "gouging."
Unfortunately, diminishing property rights because of a disaster leads to what we saw during Katrina. Casual looting, even by the police, becomes acceptable because they "needed it." Society at that point is close to reverting to a primitive level, where goods are allocated by force.
Disasters create short-run disequilibrium situations, leading some to say it is "unfair" for those who happen to have necessities that are in short supply to be able to capitalize by raising prices. Economists will say that is how you give people incentives to stockpile goods or to rush them into a disaster area. Society seems to have made a collective decision to suspend the normal rules during disasters. We are willing to accept prolonged shortages rather than risk the hard feelings caused by "gouging."
Unfortunately, diminishing property rights because of a disaster leads to what we saw during Katrina. Casual looting, even by the police, becomes acceptable because they "needed it." Society at that point is close to reverting to a primitive level, where goods are allocated by force.