(08-18-2024, 07:00 PM)HURRICANE!!! Wrote:

(08-18-2024, 01:15 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote: And that's what you don't get about economics, prices control scarcity and supply. Since the prices DIDN'T double (or more) half the people who would've bought some at that price couldn't find any to buy and we had severe shortages. Meanwhile, people like my mother-in-law had 30 cases of TP in her garage for two people. That's the function of price increases, to passively prevent hoarding. 

The same can be said of generators after a hurricane. My uncle in South Carolina owns three box trucks that he used to bring supplies to my family in SW Florida after Ft Myers got wiped out. "Price gouging" laws made it unprofitable for him to load up 300 generators and bring them in to sell. So instead of having those generators available for people to buy at a higher price they had none to buy at all. Because higher prices also incentivize people to bring supply to the market. Artificial interference in these mechanisms simply make people unaffected by the supply problems able to puff their chests and virtual signal about how the fight "profits."

I get economics but gouging is not the only regulation to put in place.  Perhaps there needs to be purchase limitations on such items, if that is possible to a certain extent.  Is is realistic OR can it be done, I really don't know but it could make things more difficult for people to stock up, leaving others out in the cold.

I totally get economics and can afford the many things I advocate against, especially when it comes to crisis situations like national disasters, epidemics, etc.

Regarding your uncle, I commend his business instinct but also note that those 300 generators from a store like Home Depot could have easily be transferred to local SW FL stores where the consumer could purchase them at a reasonable costs.  I'd much rather have 300 generators available to those hurricane victims at cost rather than to have uncle Teddy bring in generators and charge cost x 4 to the victims.  If gouging laws are in place, he can't hoard them, waiting to take advantage of innocent victims.  I reiterate, I do commend his business acumen

All you're doing is making the market less free. In doing so you're trusting that central planners are better arbiters of commerce than the individuals involved in the transactions and that's why it fails. People are laughing at Kamala's price control strategy but don't understand that all forms of market interference are the exact same thing.

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