Put a Stop To Coronavirus Price Gouging, State AGs Tell Amazon, Facebook and Others (cnet.com) 136
Thirty-four state attorneys general are calling on companies like Amazon, Craigslist, Facebook, eBay and Walmart to take a harder stance of price gouging in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: The letters to each company cite specific examples, like a Craigslist ad for a 2-liter bottle of Purell Advanced hand sanitizer with a $250 price tag. While the attorneys general acknowledge that these companies have taken steps toward curtailing price gouging, the latter calls for further action.
"When consumers cannot get what they need to protect their homes and loved ones -- or in this case, help prevent the spread of the virus -- consumers suffer not only economic harm, but serious health consequences as well," the letter reads. Specifically, the letter lists three steps companies can take including setting policies and restrictions around price gouging, triggering those protections ahead of an emergency declaration and creating and maintaining a "fair pricing" page or portal.
"When consumers cannot get what they need to protect their homes and loved ones -- or in this case, help prevent the spread of the virus -- consumers suffer not only economic harm, but serious health consequences as well," the letter reads. Specifically, the letter lists three steps companies can take including setting policies and restrictions around price gouging, triggering those protections ahead of an emergency declaration and creating and maintaining a "fair pricing" page or portal.
Market (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Market (Score:5, Informative)
There is not a true shortage. There is adequate supply to meet customers' needs, but some exploitative people who are not the manufacturers or retailers are Buying out retailers' stock NOT to meet their true personal demand or needs, but instead hoping to Illegally resell the product at an artificially inflated price in online marketplaces.
It's the law that creates the shortage (Score:4, Insightful)
...some exploitative people who are not the manufacturers or retailers are Buying out retailers' stock...
That may be true, but the reason people are able to "flip" products from stores is because of anti-price gouging laws.
Panic demands exceeds normal demand; therefore, the price must increase, or there will be empty shelves. Retailers are the ones who should be raising prices, as this would reduce hoarding and profiteering by individuals. A person who would usually buy 1 will by 5, because, why not, $5 isn't much, and it's better than running out of TP! Or from a profiteer's perspective, if they know they can sell a roll of TP online for $10, and the store is still only charging $1, of course they will load up their cart. But if the shelf price was $5 per roll? They'll think twice, and likely buy less, leaving more for other buyers.
Anti-price gouging laws are often vague, outlawing "unconscionably excessive price". Basically, it's telling retailers: "try it, and see what happens".
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...some exploitative people who are not the manufacturers or retailers are Buying out retailers' stock...
That may be true, but the reason people are able to "flip" products from stores is because of anti-price gouging laws.
Panic demands exceeds normal demand; therefore, the price must increase, or there will be empty shelves.
Or the retailer simply starts rationing the products in demand. Of course, this requires the retailer to be able to react in time and realize there is a rush.
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With the exception of membership stores it's not possible for B&M retailers to effectively ration goods.
Unless the retailer intentionally maintains very long checkout lines (a bad idea in the current situation), a retailer can't stop people from buying their "allocation", taking it to their car, and then coming back in (either immediately or in a few hours or once every day) and buying another "allocation" and so on. Even if one store implemented a way to limit this such as facial recognition, there's n
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"Retailers are the ones who should be raising prices, as this would reduce hoarding and profiteering by individuals."
No. If you do that, you're screwing everyone who struggles to put food on their families plates. It must be illegal to resell at price gouging rates. It helps no one to allow these assholes to do so, and potentially costs lives. People need to be made examples of, and this shit needs to stop NOW, before it gets worse.
Re:It's the law that creates the shortage (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the government should totally decide the price of goods and services, not the market. I can see no flaw in this plan, and neither can the 10s of millions who starved to death under command economies.
Prices go up when demand spikes. Trying to ban that creates black markets and makes shortages worse, by reducing the incentive to produce more in creative and expensive ways.
People like to talk about that guy who bought 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, but it's not like he cornered the market or made prices go up by his actions: that's a trivial amount compared to the total production of hand sanitizer. What he would have done is sequester product when demand was lower, and release it to the market when demand was higher, somewhat reducing the shortage now.
But I get it, if your world view is incompatible with basic economic truths, you'll never accept basic economic truths.
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This is not a command economy, this is price gouging, opportunism at it's worst. I'm as much a fair market capitalist as anyone I know, but cornering a market is illegal...look up the Hunt brothers and what they did to silver back in the day. Only now, you have jackasses toying with people's lives. I suppose you're also in favor of that moron who bought up a company and jacked up the price of it's drug. Sorry, no, you don't get to do that shit.
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his is not a command economy, this is price gouging, opportunism at it's worst. I'm as much a fair market capitalist as anyone I know, but cornering a market is illegal
Price gouging and cornering the market are two different things, though the latter usually leads to the former. A gas station raising its prices during a crisis is price gouging, but it's in no way cornering the market. It also discourages people from hoarding gas they don't need.
Only now, you have jackasses toying with people's lives.
There's no cure, and no firm preventive, so no the jackasses aren't toying with people's lives. They're price gouging on feel-good measures. A dick move, to be sure, but not one that should be illegal.
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So, if a retailer could get more supply but it would cost them money to do so (perhaps buying from distant suppliers and paying for shipping, perhaps paying overtime and/or hiring expensive temp help to stock, or perhaps just maintaining higher stock levels with the associated carrying cost in anticipation of occasional shortages) and they can't recoup the additional expense because of price gouging laws, there is simply no food available for anyone -- except, of course, those that got "lucky" or had the t
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If the retail stores would increase prices when there are shortages until the supply and demand are in balance, people would hoard less.
When TP is priced the same as it was six months ago and the same as it will be six months from now, people with room to store it will buy a one year supply when they perceive even a slight risk of shortages -- after all, TP keeps well and will eventually get used.
However, if stores increase prices until the demand equals available supply, people will look at the TP and say
Re:Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless something shady was happening at the warehouse level, this was regular buying, not opportunism.
Yes, the guy in Tennessee who bought 18000 bottles of hand sanitizer just really likes to keep his hands clean....
Re:Market (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, let's call it what it really is: masturbation addiction.
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Mmmm, at 60% alcohol, he's going to get a surprise.
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"The only shelves I'm still seeing empty are for toilet paper."
Then you haven't looked much, or have been lucky in your area. I've been to five different stores over the last couple weeks. There's no hand sanitizer, wipes, alcohol, and bleach is often gone. That along with most bread and meat have been disappearing. And this in the suburb of a major city that has not been hit...only 2 fatalities in NC so far.
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No. You won't be able to pay for your shit. And your idiotic idea of throwing out an economy that has lifted more people out of poverty and any other system in the history of mankind is simply cruel.
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throwing out an economy that has lifted more people out of poverty and any other system in the history of mankind
No one is talking about "throwing out" the economy of China, at least that I've heard. In fact apparently they're already recovering.
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And neither are you because it's the US economy that made the Chinese economy what it is.
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And the Chinese economy made the US what it is. As did the Japanese, Italian and Nigerian economies. What was your point? We live in a single worldwide mesh of economies today, no one does something that doesn't affect all the others.
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Who are you going to tax to pay for your "social programs" once you've taxed the wealthy out of existence? The answer, as is done in every country with expansive social programs, is, of course, the middle class.
Back when people were still fantasizing about Sanders or Warren actually being the nominee (which would have guaranteed four more years of Trump), no one ever answered my question of "When Bezos, Buffet, Gates, etc. are drained of their wealth or leave the country and pay the 40% 'exit' tax, who is g
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Re: Market (Score:2)
Market wants to be free
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Market wants to be free
You don't get a free market when hoarders lock up the supply chain. It's illegal, immoral, and can NOT be justified.
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Unless you're a Libertardian, then you can justify any damn thing you want by saying, "I've got more money than you do so I'm right."
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So, is your cupboard completely bare before you go shopping? If not, you're a hoarder also.
All hail the market (Score:3, Insightful)
Or we could, I don't know, acknowledge that the market is there to serve people and not the other way around? You do realize that the reason you have food is that our government heavily subsidizes and regulates the food market so that it's affordable, right?
You just don't notice so much it because it's done with subsidies and round about rules and laws instead of direct pronouncements, but it's there, and it's why you're not paying $1000 for
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The government shouldn't be subdsiziing food - either for farmers or "poor people".
However, the amount of subsidy that the government provides to food producers, directly or indirectly, is a very small component of why food prices are so low in the US.
Government food regulation, in fact, increases food costs, not decreases them as you claim.
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The government shouldn't be using our money to pick the winners and the losers. If they stopped subsidizing farm stuffs, maybe they would stop making everything out of soy and it would only go so high before the market would
Re:Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Price hikes are a normal market feature. If price hike are not allowed in the face of increase demand with normal supply, it will damage the market. A higher price will attract more supply and the price will fall again. A ban on price hikes will cause a permanent shortage.
In the long term, you are correct... Controlling prices artificially, changes supply. Artificially high prices will drive an oversupply, price controls to hold prices down will lead to shortages.. Long Term.. Dairy products is a prime example, historically we had subsidies that held prices high and we *always* had a huge over supply of milk, and milk products. Then we had price controls on airlines, which hobbled the industry and kept it from growing for decades. Once the controls came off, some prices went up, but airlines then raced to compete and supply went up, driving prices down... Government needs to try and keep it's hands off prices as much as it can.
However, the pervading view of society is "price gouging" is wrong and should be illegal. So I agree, in the short term, you cannot allow prices to go to insane levels (though how you control the actual price is beyond me).. But I also agree that such laws need to be *carefully* written to avoid long term impacts on supply by keeping prices too low.
IMHO - We should allow modest increases in prices when supply levels are strained, but such rules should also require curbs on demand, limits on unit orders by consumers to reasonable levels (no, you don't need to have 2 years worth of TP all in one order when supply is strained.) But, we also need to keep government hands off the price as much as possible.
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To look at your example, how many times have we had to bail out the airlines since the controls were removed? Just between United and American around 5 times, plus we let them dump all their pension obligations to be paid by the taxpayers. In good years they buy up the competition, in bad years they buy up the politicians.
Re:Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, this is a "normal" market feature, but price gouging, by definition, can really only occur under during emergencies or unusual situations of some sort. Societal good sometimes has to come before whatever pure market forces may otherwise allow. This is why we regulate businesses in the first place.
When a guy drives around in a 100 mile radius and buys up 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer before anyone else can acquire them, and then turns around and re-sells them at a significant markup, that's simply market exploitation. He's not providing any sort of valuable service to the market other than enriching himself. There's no need to provide protection for someone like that, and in fact, every reason to discourage such behavior.
I'm a right-leaning Republican, and a die-hard defender of capitalism. By default, I prefer that we let market forces work naturally, unless there is a compelling reason to interfere. But natural market forces are not some holy writ that must be adhered to at all times, even for capitalists.
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"and buys up 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer before anyone else can acquire them, and then turns around and re-sells them"
The solution here is for the normal supply chain to ruin this guy by making his 17,000 bottles of hand-sanitizer worth no more than he paid for them. Make his speculation and attempt to corner a teeny tiny piece of a huge market blow up in his face.
Perhaps hold him up to public scorn and shame for preying on people's panic.
The solution is NOT to have government seize his 17,000 bottle o
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The solution is NOT to have government seize his 17,000 bottle or charge him with a crime for buying 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and trying to resell them.
For heaven's sake, why not? I don't understand that sort of thinking. Maybe you're unaware that in addition to being morally repugnant, this sort of price gouging is already illegal? As such, it is the government's responsibility to hold this sort of behavior to account. And in fact, for those unaware of the follow-up to this story, the government apparently forced that particular individual to donate those supplies to those who actually need them right now, which I think is an appropriate punishment an
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For heaven's sake, why not?
Because there's soap. :P
Exploitation or distribution? (Score:2)
When a guy drives around in a 100 mile radius and buys up 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer before anyone else can acquire them, and then turns around and re-sells them at a significant markup, that's simply market exploitation.
I would call it distribution.
People in cities need hand sanitizer, especially those who ride public transit. All their stores are sold out. They can't buy hand sanitizer in rural TN. This guy is just engaging in arbitrage: he took product selling in one locale and was looking to sell it in another (globally, thanks to the Internet). What's worse, some guy selling hand sanitizer to a buyer for $40 per bottle, or the buyer not being able to get hand sanitizer at all? Because without this guy, there's no hand
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The flaw in your argument is that he didn't buy the product at wholesale, he bought it from retail outlets, thus denying the other customers of those retail outlets the chance to buy it at a normal price.
He's not engaging in arbitrage, he's creating artificial scarcity so that he can exploit it for profit. He's also being a cunt.
how did the store acquire their inventory? They probably bought 50,000 bottles at a wholesale price, and marked them up 50-100%.
Retail is one of the lowest margin industries. Of course they marked them up 50-100%, they have to pay staff, pay for the building, fixtures and fittings, business rates, various ot
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Couldn't have said it better! Bravo!
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This is not about the market being normal, and it's not normal right now. People have hoarded much needed items in an attempt to price gouge others who have a real need. This includes critical items necessary for medical professionals. I am very much a free market person, but what I'm not is someone who believes in monopolizing and cornering a market. There are good reasons for laws against such evil behavior, and that's exactly what it is...evil.
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This isn't a price hike, this is closer to knowingly shoving a diabetic out of the way at a vending machine, taking the last bag of jelly beans, and saying "Fifty dollars." when he tells you he needs it for his sugar levels.
The only way these people will learn that what they're doing is illegal and for good reason is if the police show up with a moving van and take everything that is not nailed down and distribute it to the needy.
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This is not a normal market, so normal expectations may not be met.
F'rinstance, regarding standard face coverings, there soon will be excess. I'm listening to news reports now of how this person or that company is producing masks for free distribution. "War" profiteers may be dismayed to learn of this.
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Supply and Demand != Price Gouging (Score:2, Interesting)
People cannot get what they need to protect their loved ones. That's the end of it, there's no way around it. Companies aren't sitting on massive horded stockpiles of stuff, there is a legitimate supply problem underway.
If I have one thing 1000 people want and I sell it only to the richest person, that's isn't price gouging. Regardless of if I charge $250 or $2.50 for it 999 people will miss out.
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Ordinary supply and demand rules are temporarily suspended because its a national emergency; People's willingness to bid up the price does Not permit sellers to exploit them, because we have had laws that deal with such situations written to Prevent unscrupulous profiteers from exploiting an emergency for personal gain. Most states have laws the prohibit artificially inflating prices during an emergency: You are only allowed to increase prices by the amount that you can prove is reasonable based on di
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People's willingness to bid up the price does Not permit sellers to exploit them
It's not exploiting when you're pricing limited good at what the market will bare. I come back to my numbers example. Just because the rich can afford something and the poor people can't, and I price a product to target the rich, it doesn't make any more or less of a product available. I can still only supply one person, 999 will still go without, and as a result the price I charge, providing I'm able to sell said product has no impact on the population and as such I'm not exploiting anyone.
I'm not arguing
I hate to tell you (Score:2)
But the free market and offer and demand is not only for bananas.
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Not In The USA!
The USA is a hybrid market somewhere between Capitalism and Socialism.
Proof is all the Governmental Laws, Regulations, Rules on Capitalism and businesses. We have Government-mandated air bags in our cars, don't we?
If the USA was a true "free market", the supply/demand would motivate higher prices during scarcity and then lower prices during the glut.
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Wow.. from one extreme to another we go..
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Others will do it (Score:1)
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The dark web only exists because investigators are lazy and government allows cryptocurrency to exist (if government cuts off cryptocurrency exchanges from financial transactions it's the immediate end of cryptocurrency).
Even with cryptocurrency, product still needs to change hands. Even if dealers drop off packages at multiple post offices they won't be hard to find, it's just laborious.
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I was amused to see on some random web site last week the headline was something like "Man has warehouse full of masks that Amazon refuses to let him sell". (It was actually a storage unit rather than a warehouse, but never mind.) They seemed to think it a bad thing that Amazon wouldn't let him sell the masks that he bought for fifty cents each for $12.
They're doing what they can, but when Amazon has over 600 million items for sale there is a limit what is possible.
We've achieved linear growth (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at this site [worldometers.info], I note that the rising curve is no longer exponential, it's linear. The last four or so points on the curve (four days) are in a straight line, and not increasing each day 50% over the previous day.
This is very good news! It means effectively that, at the very least, we have a lot more time to make preparations.
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Um not so fast.. I'm not seeing what you see...
Obviously we have blunted the curve a bit, but the daily "new cases" is still increasing, we are still finding more new cases today than we did yesterday and it seems we will find more new cases tomorrow than we did today. You may be correct though, we have been ramping up testing, so part of that daily increase is from increased testing, but the numbers are not yet clear.
Now when the "new cases" per day stops getting bigger, or starts to decline day to day,
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Is it accurate though? Your government really wants this to be over fast and everyone get back to work.
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You haven't started to achieve linear growth. You have tapered off the initial backlog of tests which which only very recently became available to the public. Good luck.
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Remember Folks! (Score:2, Insightful)
YOU are not allowed to take advantage of others. But...
Pharma, Medical, especially the Government and other forms of big business ARE.
Don't you even DARE to step into the shoes that the usual suspects currently fill. You are not and were never invited to do so!
As much as this just proves that poor folks are the same in the mirror as the rich folks, there is most certainly a deep and expansive caste system in place in the USA. It is just below the surface and everyone active participates in and foments it
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YOU are not allowed to take advantage of others. But... Pharma, Medical, especially the Government and other forms of big business ARE.
Just because someone else does something evil doesn't mean you should also do evil because that doesn't make the world better. Many people (especially Democratic candidates) are calling for and proposing reforms to address the very exploitation you are talking about. Perhaps you should talk to other about how they vote to convince them to vote in their own interests.
As much as this just proves that poor folks are the same in the mirror as the rich folks,
I wouldn't go that far. People who become rich have a much higher rate of Antisocial Personality Disorder than those who do not. It's just
It's a mix of things. (Score:5, Interesting)
The only bad sort of 'price gouging' is when some vermin buys up all of something actually important to make a buck. This is happening and college age pseudo-libertarian me would have been fine with it, but now I see it really is a problem. The solution doesn't need to be draconian - Amazon, Ebay, etc.. can just refuse to allow them to sell. That solves 90% of the problem and discourages it.
The good 'price gouging' is what's missing. Pricing on these goods being swept off the store shelves needs to go up. Preventing stores from raising prices on e.g. TP, dry goods, meats, etc.. just leads to unavailability. TP, for example, should have doubled or tripled in price by now but it won't because stores will be accused of 'price gouging' by the same dummies who now can't find fucking TP at all, and grandstanding attorney generals will see it as an opportunity.
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The only bad sort of 'price gouging' is when some vermin buys up all of something actually important to make a buck. This is happening and college age pseudo-libertarian me would have been fine with it, but now I see it really is a problem. The solution doesn't need to be draconian - Amazon, Ebay, etc.. can just refuse to allow them to sell. That solves 90% of the problem and discourages it.
There's another way to address this as well. Amazon, eBay, etc know the price of every item sold and can identify overly high markups. Simply refund the money and don't pay the seller, and require return of item. The could also put up a notice to tell consumers if they suspect they where price gouged to report the sale via the return item option; and put a button on the site to allow people to report price gouging. Their system could then flag items for further review and refund / delist those found t be p
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Amazon has over 600 million items on sale, that's not a manageable number. They're doing what they can but automation can't solve everything.
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???
Amazon *already* runs a search for similar items on *every* page it displays for an item.
Noting/logging that this price is more than three standard deviations above the mean for the product is an incremental, not evolutionary, change.
hawk
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What are these products needed for life but are not available?
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If you have no market controls then very quickly you end up with one vendor buying up the competition until they have a monopoly on the entire market. Adam Smith recognized that in 'Wealth of Nations', arguing that government controls of markets was a necessity. Personally I would prefer the people that I'm able to vote for to have the power rather than whoever the richest and most aggressive asshole around turned out to be.
Noooooooooo! (Score:2)
Crap! There goes my retirement plan. Now what am I going to do with ten thousand boxes of laundry detergent?
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Simple - bring back the foam party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_party/ [wikipedia.org]
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I guess we could get a bunch of people to dress in 1773-era attire and dump it all in the SF Bay. We could call it the COVID-19 Party—no taxation without breathing protection, and all that.
BTW, does anybody know how to dispose of a few hundred thousand dead fish? Oh, and also birds? Thanks.
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Don't worry, the birds will drown and sink to the bottom once the oil is washed out of their feathers.
There is an easier way to buy commodities (Score:2)
Get a broker, and you can trade whatever you want, and you don't even have to wait in line at the store. Instead of buying toilet paper, you could have made much more on speculating on oil or other commodities. You don't have to lift a finger, well maybe a few clicks.
When you get down to it, it's a stupid strategy (Score:3)
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I'm
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In a capitalist economy, everyone is playing chicken with every transaction.
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Oh? I start to laugh.
Gouging? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't allow prices to rise--some might call it gouging--you lose the signals that cause people not to overspend. The alternative is rationing, like one bottle per customer (and you think people don't cheat or get mad when that happens?)
Some examples:
Hand sanitizer and TP normally sells for $3, so anti-price-gouging laws in a "crisis" will say it's gotta be $3 during the "crisis". So when people go to the store in a panic, they buy 10 bottles and 50 rolls of TP. Did they really need all that to get them through the "crisis"? Or did they just panic buy because the could? Now if the price was to go up to $10 bottle or even $50 bottle, people might stop an think..."Hmm, maybe I only need this one bottle, maybe two tops." That means there's going to be 7 or 8 more bottles left on the shelf for the next person.
Now mind you, no one NEEDS hand sanitizer. All the health officials keep saying that and that washing with soap and water is the best thing. So hand sanitizer is a luxury "feel-good" item, almost like chai tea and lattes.
When gas supplies are reduced, prices would normally go up. But if a refinery blows, there's a "crisis" so anti-gouging calls begin. So instead of gas running up to $8 or $10/gallon, the law says it was $2.15 yesterday before the refinery blew, it must be $2.15 today and going forward. We've seen how this plays out: people rush to the pumps to top off every vehicle they own and fill every portable canister they can get their hands on. The pumps run dry in the first hours, and then there are "No Gas" signs at all the gas stations for days. If gas ran up to $10/gallon, would people panic buy as much as they possibly could?
Evacuating in front of a hurricane, the family arrives at a hotel. Price-gouging laws say you can't raise the price of your rooms. So Mom & Dad say, "we'll take 3 rooms please, one for the Bobby and Susie, one for Grandma, and one for us please". And the family right behind them in line is forced to head to the next hotel and keep hoping they can find temporary shelter. If the room rates tripled, maybe the first family says, we'll take one room and cot and we'll make due for the night.
With a hurricane in the news, but a week from landfall, Bob, who lives in Kansas but is out of work, realizes that he could make a little money if he were to take a risk and spend some time on the road. So he goes to his local HD and Lowes and buys as many generators as he can fit into his trailer and on his last good credit card. He starts driving to Florida, where landfall is coming soon. He starts selling his generators for $200 more than he paid for them in Kansas 2 days ago, and is arrested for price gouging. Crappy reward for the risks he took. He realizes he should have sat on his ### and let people in Florida NOT have generators, which could continue to sit on the HD shelves.
The same people who complain about price gouging will gladly drop $10 for a can of beer at a football game, or $7.50 for a soda or $3 for a bottle of water...makes me think: If it's OK to charge $10 for a can of beer at a football game, why do people think it's wrong to sell a case of bottled water for $50 during a "crisis"? Why can't the bottled-water seller just say "I'm using stadium pricing..."?
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good comment; I've no mod pts so it's just a heartfelt 'attaboy!'
Yes, gouging. (Score:2)
Hand sanitizer and TP normally sells for $3, so anti-price-gouging laws in a "crisis" will say it's gotta be $3 during the "crisis". So when people go to the store in a panic, they buy 10 bottles and 50 rolls of TP. Did they really need all that to get them through the "crisis"? Or did they just panic buy because the could? Now if the price was to go up to $10 bottle or even $50 bottle, people might stop an think...
The correct solution is set the price at $3 for one bottle and $30 for each additional bottle.
If you start with one being absurdly priced then you are putting up a barrier for people who need the product to slow infection. Such a barrier could discourage them from purchasing the product and thus increase the rate of infection.
The fact that you don't understand that this is exploitation is a reflection on you... and it's not pretty.
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While you might be right about hand sanitizer (with several caveats, see below), since as you point out it's essentially a luxury item as soap works fine and nobody seems to be mass buying soap, people are going to get seriously hurt both ways in the gas crisis you laid out, because it's a low elasticity item.
When the prices go up enough, for many or even most it might as well be "No Gas". This is because you can't go halfway and you can't change your lifestyle on a dime. If you can't afford the gas to get
"Gouging" is a made up term (Score:3)
Make it harder to price gouge.....
So that people can hoard.
There are only TWO CHOICES (Score:2)
Given the current demand for these items, there are only two choices:
If there are 10 million bottles of sanitizer, and 20 million people trying to buy them, whichever option you choose, 10 million will be left without sanitizer.
The first option, at least, provides incentive to the manufacturers to ramp-up production, and for transportation and retail companies — to work ov
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I ran out of the bottle I keep around and the stores were out of the pump stuff but they had lots of bars of soap.
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How you deal with the shortage of sanitizer is another matter. But it still a shortage, and there are only two options for addressing it.
this is what free markets are for (Score:2)
If we didn't have stupid rules against price gouging, far more of us would be able to find toilet paper.
As usual, two sets of rules (Score:2)
You can't blame the guys who play the game to win. They are just following the example set by the big players.
One set of rules for the little guys who can ordered by government officials to do business differently, and another for the masters of the universe who write the rules in the first place and also write the checks for "our" elected officials.
Get over it (Score:2)
FDA needs to step up its game (Score:2)
It sent a warning back in Jan to Purell, for making false and misleading claims on its effectiveness... Evidently moat consumers havent gotten the memo
https://thehill.com/changing-a... [thehill.com]
De-list 3rd party stores (Score:2)
A straightforward fix is to de-list protected items from 3rd party sellers. If they can't sell the product easily they won't try to scalp them and the supply chains will normalize to local stores, Sold by Amazon, etc.
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I'm offering my toilet paper for sale at only $12 million per roll. Please contact me if you're interested. (Note: Prosecutors will have to pay slightly more.)
Darn man, I traded my 48 big roll package of Charmin NIB too soon... I only got a 4 bedroom 3 bath house on 10 acres in the trade and they didn't even leave me a partial roll in any of those 3 bathrooms..
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none at all with price controls
The only time that happens is if the sale price is lower than the purchase price, which is not the issue at all.
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Price controls don't usually work, I won't disagree, but your question deserves a humongous "fucking duh!": if you hike prices, you interfer with or destroy poor folks' ability to get the things they need, while the more well-off end up buying more than they can actually use, just because they can. Wealth absolutely does not correlate with need.
What DOES work is rationing, or anyway limiting per-sale. Yeah, so some dipshit is going to abuse the limiting and go back and forth between the store and his car
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Maybe there's some merit to having SOME hand sanitizer on the market at SOME price rather than none at all with price controls?
The people that made price gouging illegal agree with you, which is why the guy that bought 17000 bottles is being charged with a crime.
If he hadn't been a greedy exploitative cunt then people across his state could've bought hand sanitiser at its normal price. Because of his actions, there was none available for them.
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They are (at least Amazon is, don't know about eBay). I've seen web sites complaining about it already.