DC Braces for megastorm

[Felch]

Anti-hoarding laws are evil. Thrift and prudence are virtues to be encouraged not punished. I'd feel better with a law that mandating hoarding than one that allowed private stockpiles to be seized.

[MrFun]

Here's a hypothetical scenario, and I'd like to hear what y'all think.

Bill is a selfish bastard, and he lives in New Jersey. Long before any news of the storm, he's built a stockpile of canned food, sufficient to feed his household for a few weeks. After the storm, Bill hears that the grocery store is keeping its prices at pre-storm levels, but is rationing food, and even so can only serve half the people in town. Bill gets in line, buys food he doesn't need, and then flips it on the black market for three times what he spent.

Would that bother anybody but me? Wouldn't it be better to let the grocery store set realistic prices so that people like Bill can't game the system? Do any of you think that this is wildly unrealistic or implausible?

Yes, what Bill did in that hypothetical scenario bothers me just as much as price gouging.

[MrFun]

Charities operate on a voluntary basis. The Red Cross doesn't break into my house and steal food from me. I either donate to them or I don't.

Government laws against price gouging does not entail breaking into your home/business and taking your stuff.

[giblets]

Yes, what Bill did in that hypothetical scenario bothers me just as much as price gouging.

What if someone got in line for food with the honest intention of eating that food, and came away with a bag of groceries, but when they got home their neighbor offered them $10 for their loaf of bread, and they changed their mind and decided to sell some of the food? Both the person who stood in line and their neighbor benefit.

[Felch]

I like how MrFun and Imran both sidestepped the question about letting grocery stores set realistic prices. It's called unintended consequences. You can't separate the Iraq War from all the hell that it caused, you can't separate price controls from opportunistic individuals exploiting them. I'm not a libertarian because of a mythical faith in private enterprise, but because of a realistic belief in governmental ineptitude.

[Felch]

Government laws against price gouging does not entail breaking into your home/business and taking your stuff.

No, that's more the anti-hoarding laws. But my point is that the Red Cross is purely voluntary, and I have no beef at all with people doing what they want.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I like how MrFun and Imran both sidestepped the question about letting grocery stores set realistic prices. It's called unintended consequences.

I'm sure I dealt with this issue upthread. I understand unintended consequences - "collateral damage" as it were .

[MrFun]

What if someone got in line for food with the honest intention of eating that food, and came away with a bag of groceries, but when they got home their neighbor offered them $10 for their loaf of bread, and they changed their mind and decided to sell some of the food? Both the person who stood in line and their neighbor benefit.

The person who would sell the loaf of bread would be taking advantage of the other person's desperation, even if that desperate person is voluntarily offering ten dollars.

[Kuciwalker]

Imran is an idiot, who could've guessed? Oh wait, EVERYONE.

[Kuciwalker]

Reallocation of consumer/producer surplus is not intrinsically immoral. You have to actually tell a fairly complicated story to get a model where price gouging reduces welfare.

[MrFun]

I'm going to show off my argumentation skills by calling Imran names, rather than present a counter-argument.

'kay

[Felch]

There are a hundred posts filled with counter arguments, all of which you ignored because you think charging money for food is tantamount to murder.

[MrFun]

I'm not arguing that we should give food away for free.

[Hauldren Collider]

That's because you apparently aren't capable of understanding the logical implications of your own beliefs.

[giblets]

Instead of price gouging laws, why not have the government give people free money during a crisis so that the poor will be able to buy food and gas at higher prices?