Me on FB this morning:

price gauging also dissuades hoarding AND resale of products. a few posts to the local craigslist were offering TP at inflated prices with delivery until they were removed. that or the people got scared they'd get contacted by the cops.

if TP usually costs 5$, and it gets raised to 10$. people arent going to buy out the whole stock as much, they'll leave more on the shelf. and the asshat who planned to sell it at 10$ now has no profit incentive.

but yes, completely agree with the incentive to produce more. even though with scarcity being a thing that was likely already there for many products like TP and bread.

typical strawmanning from someone exposed for spreading and defending bigoted right-wing propaganda (yet again). pretty sure the 'moron' is the person who thinks that trying to make the 'china virus' label stick is NOT a calculated and coordinated political move.
acknowledging that an attempt to re-name a virus, in order to score political points in the middle of a global pandemic, is a shitty and cynical move, is not the same as getting upset over a harmless observation. context matters. imbecile.



no, you're just missing a very important element of this: we both (and i'd assume pretty much the whole sub) already agree that the CCP is a shitty and despicable party, that is a massive detriment to its people and the world - so that's a given. YOU, however, think trump's republicans are not. actually quite the opposite... so why try to justify his actions by applying shitty CCP standards?
personally, i would NOT want the people representing my country to stoop to the level of chinese state propaganda, to rile up citizens, and to stoke racial sentiments. but hey, to each their own... i guess i shouldn't be surprised that you approve of such methods, considering your support for the german neo-nazi party...

Well, I think going after price gougers is supposed to deter vultures from artificially increasing demand. If there were no price gougers, I agree that the new market equilibrium would be fair. Really, vendors should try and limit purchases for individuals.

This post was edited by thundercock on Mar 19 2020 11:52am

Untrue. Its an evil conspiracy by rich people to keep us commoners down under their grip.

Bernie can still win.

your whole argument makes perfect sense during normal times, when producers can increase their production whenever there is enough monetary incentive to do so. it completely falls apart during times of crisis when production is limited not by money, but by the availability of healthy workers and preliminary materials.

Do you even know what a fucking strawman argument is? I didn't say "this is (inaccurately) your argument and here's why it's wrong." I made fun of you for being so predisposed to condemn absolutely anything to do with Donald J Trump that I was positive that had my imaginary scenario arose, that would have been how you reacted. Don't use logical fallacies with me, you're out of your league.

There's a reason people use simplified terms for these epidemics. The most accurate way to describe it is SARS-COV-2, but that's a technical term most lay people simply aren't going to use in regular conversation. Lay people use lay terms. Derp.



You're using that Tennessee guy as a rule instead of an exception.



I disagree. I think that in times of emergency is when price is most important.

This post was edited by Santara on Mar 19 2020 12:43pm

sure. depending on the industry.

but toilet paper? lol. no. like 5 people touch the stuff from start to finish. they just turn up the VFD to speed up lines to a higher production, do longer runs, and ship more.

Steering production via price during times of shortage means that rich buyers and the products/services they demand are prioritized over poor people and their needs.
If there's a situation where it's impossible to produce enough TP for everyone, your approach means that the rich folks get all of it while the poor can wipe with their hands.



Ok, healthy workers are probably not the bottleneck for TP production. But what if the supply chains are interrupted or overburdened and the TP factory runs out of its fiber supply? Then, we're in a situation of fundamental shortage which price hikes cant fix, so all price hikes do in this situation is enrich the producer and lead to an unfair allocation of a scarce resource.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 19 2020 12:54pm

It's not just him, it happened all over LA county so they could sell on Amazon (obviously there are a lot of supplies here due to population). The DA is really going after these people though because it's illegal in CA to hoard and price gouge during a state of emergency.