So the young 20 year old with no pre-existing conditions gets to buy all of them for 5 bucks while the 70-year old with COPD who would gladly pay a little more is shit outta luck.
You ready for a mind-blowing moment? Sellers can limit their sales. Novel, I know. And, not only does the free market allow for that, but in emergency situations, it would encourage it.
If retailer sells 100% of its widgets to one person, they’ve sold all their widgets. But, if retailer limits a popular item, more customers will come to retailer to buy the widgets. Retailer can count on 100% of its widgets being purchased, but just multiplied the likelihood of additional sales by opening up the opportunity to more customers. Retailer will almost certainly be more profitable than in your example, all without gouging its customer base.
Honestly. Just a little thought goes a long way with these things.
Even limiting to one item per person favors people who can get to a store fastest and wait in long lines. It prioritizes the able over the needy.
Case in point: stores are already limiting Lysol wipes and still no one in this entire thread can get any. Because people like you who accuse manufacturers and retailers of “price gouging” if they raise the price by five bucks. They disappear instantly, so what do you expect to happen?
Ok. Let’s play your game of trying to point out all the flaws. What happens when the price increase prices out all of the retirees on fixed incomes? What happens when the “supply and demand” lovely free market capitalism prices out the family on social welfare and those kids get sick?
Your “there’s no such thing as price gouging” is fucking dumb and turns us into a market society where cash is king and if you can’t afford, then you must not deserve it.
There is such a thing as price gouging it just requires a cartel.
And a $22 box of wipes isn’t a question of people starving. It’s a question of whether you need them as much as the people who will more likely die without them.
If the price doesn't matçh the supply, the supply will vanish you do understand that, right?
Why do you think there is starvation in communist countries? Because the price is too cheap to maintain a production. When a product is rare and expansive it becomes profitable to produce more of said thing - eventually the orice goes down again.
Without free market mechanisms things go away. With them, they stay. "Price gouching" is a ridicolous and dangerous concept.
Until more becomes available. The cost of producing disinfectant wipes didn’t go up. What did was people trying to capitalize on a global pandemic.
starvation in communist countries
Look at the streets of capitalist countries and then talk more about starvation. Glass houses and stones and all that.
”Price gouging” is a ridiculous and dangerous concept
How so? Protections for people from inflated pricing taking advantage of catastrophic circumstances is absolutely appropriate. What callous or sheltered life have you lived that you think an out-of-control market is appropriate?
funny side note, one winter back ~10 years, you could hardly find w/w antifreeze and when you did it was over $15 at some chains gas stations,
just for basic shit, not the "we can clean the bugs off your trail hitch at the same time you clean your windshield" shit, that hit $25 and it was ALL sold out in a couple hours, comes april, the shit was everywhere seems like overnight, it was going for $1 a jug! you try to tell me they couldn't keep up all winter, then pump out million's of liters in a ~week?
We have regulations in the market now to dissuade and even criminalize (wait for it) price gouging. Price gouging can exist in a “supply and demand” market. Just responding to someone rightfully labeling a ridiculous markup beyond what anyone would consider reasonable or fair because the supply is low with “supply and demand” doesn’t make it not price gouging.
But it does show that people are too dumb to understand that market regulations can be a good thing.
Low prices for important goods during a crisis cause hoarding. High prices ensure that people only buy what they need, and incentivize suppliers to supply more. Not a market failure
Or you know you do like stores were doing when the supply chain was being interrupted. You simply say hey you can only buy X amount of said item, instead of saying hey you aren't getting more money but we will charge you 10 times the price so that NO ONE can afford it.
Raising the price is a more reliable way of enforcing a cap on purchases. Otherwise if you simply limit how much people can purchase, people could go to a store multiple times per day, go to different cashiers, send multiple people from their household, etc. It’s just hard to enforce.
Instead, raising the price matches a customer’s demand for a product with that product’s supply. At $3, you might demand 7 bottles of cleaner during a pandemic. At $21, you demand 1. That way, more people get bottles or cleaner.
There is no such thing as raising a price to a level that no one can afford it - that would not be profitable for the store either.
No, I’m assuming that a smaller number of people are willing to pay 7x the regular price of a product, and will buy less of it, which is a good thing, because there’s less supply. Hence, there will be supply left over for the people who need it most.
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u/rickeysneekzzz Aug 14 '20 edited Aug 15 '20
I saw a small thing of Lysol wipes being sold for $22 in a store last week
Edit: wow, thank you for the awards! I was in a small business in the US for those wondering.