thank you, price 'gougers'

[nothumb]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
without getting into any details, the main arguement as to why it would be unjust is that it would be usury due to the relative power of bargaining positions.

If you were starving and i offered you some food for all your worldly possessions it would be a fair deal, but there are those who would say that although voluntery it's unjust.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would it be more just for me to not trade te food to you at all? What if I'm starving, too? Is it OK then? Why does someone else get to place a cap on how much I can value my property?

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, you are free to price gouge in this situation, and, in another historically well-documented certainty, the poor are free to storm your castle and rape your wife and kill you and take it.

Only those who have property respect the sanctity of property laws. Those who are utterly without, as in this example, tend not to care. And if the governments of the world all took your cavalier attitude towards regulation you'd see a lot more of the rape and pillage mentioned above.

NT

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Let's pretend, just for a moment, that DeBeers (or equivalent) had never existed. Would the price of diamonds likely be higher, or lower, than it now is?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's called "human-imposed drought".

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, you are free to price gouge in this situation, and, in another historically well-documented certainty, the poor are free to storm your castle and rape your wife and kill you and take it.

Only those who have property respect the sanctity of property laws. Those who are utterly without, as in this example, tend not to care. And if the governments of the world all took your cavalier attitude towards regulation you'd see a lot more of the rape and pillage mentioned above.

[/ QUOTE ]

And in how many of these "historically well-documented certainty" cases is the grossly skewed wealth distribution achieved through unregulated markets? In how many of those cases is it brought about by and maintained by coercive, violent government interference?

[ QUOTE ]
Only those who have property respect the sanctity of property laws.

[/ QUOTE ]

False. I have no property and I respect the sanctity of property laws. Aren't we all taught as little children to respect other people's property as a matter of basic right and wrong?

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
without getting into any details, the main arguement as to why it would be unjust is that it would be usury due to the relative power of bargaining positions.

If you were starving and i offered you some food for all your worldly possessions it would be a fair deal, but there are those who would say that although voluntery it's unjust.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would it be more just for me to not trade te food to you at all? What if I'm starving, too? Is it OK then? Why does someone else get to place a cap on how much I can value my property?

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, you are free to price gouge in this situation, and, in another historically well-documented certainty, the poor are free to storm your castle and rape your wife and kill you and take it.

[/ QUOTE ]

In this case, the "bad guy" only "hoards" the resource if someone else caps the price he may ask for it. If there's no government "protecting" the masses from price "gougers" then the resources are put to market.

Let's say I run a hardware store about 150 miles from the coastline. A hurricane strikes. People on the coast have a demand for power generators, and I happen to have a huge number in stock. I'd like to help them out, and I'm even willing to sell them at cost. However, my costs to get them out of my store, back onto trucks, and shipped down to the coast will mean I will need to get 50% more than the price I'm currently asking for them in my local market in order to recover my costs. I'm a nice guy, but times are tough and I can't afford to take a loss on these units. The government has a price gouging law that prevents anything from being sold at more than a 10% increase over last week.

Is refusal to bring these generators to market on the coastline at a loss a unjust act? Is it as bad as selling them for 50% more? Note that the hurricane victims probably can't get in their cars and drive up to my store to pick up a generator because there's no gas on the coast, since price gouging laws have created shortages and nobody wants to ship any in at a loss.

Debates that focus on terms like 'price controls' can cause some peoples' mindsets to shift into anti-corporate auto-pilot. Most of the responses to those posts that didn't overtly bash businesses and defend the hapless consumer were either wrong, immaterial to the point being argued, or both.

The assumption seems to be that you’re either with the people or you’re with the corporations. Well people own the giant corporations, not to mention the countless smaller businesses everyone would rather just leave out of this argument. (Spare me the statistic about 99.99% of the wealth being owned by 00.01% of the population.)

The larger point is that too much effort in this country is focused on making excuses and pointing fingers at the corporate evil-doers, creating a haze of nonsense that distracts us from the truth. The truth is that in the U.S. the deck is not stacked to the point of preventing anyone from achieving seven figure wealth, let alone needing price controls in order to eat. And instilling a sound work ethic and financial skills in children would allow any family to remain upper class indefinitely, though I know some of you don’t agree with leaving a legacy. Plus it’s always easier to rant about corporate greed.

By the way, everything the old bald guy wrote about price controls was right.

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Let's pretend, just for a moment, that DeBeers (or equivalent) had never existed. Would the price of diamonds likely be higher, or lower, than it now is?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's called "human-imposed drought".

[/ QUOTE ]

But where is the explanation of why price controls will "work" when imposed on large organizations doing the selling as opposed to smaller ones?

DeBeers may be a good example of a cornered market exploited by a single entity, but it doesn't address the question. I also have my doubts that this was achieved via free market actions rather than through mercantilism.

natedogg

[natedogg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So do you believe in *no* price controls whatsoever, or limited price controls? Are there times when price controls might be necessary or just?

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you read the article?

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. I read your article.

It didn't answer my question.

Neither did you.

[/ QUOTE ]

The answer is no, no and no. And to think otherwise is basically a religious act. It's tantamount to believing the world is flat in spite of all evidence before us.

natedogg

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
But where is the explanation of why price controls will "work" when imposed on large organizations doing the selling as opposed to smaller ones?

[/ QUOTE ]

Price controls of large coorporations are often necessary to prevent predatory pricing from driving competitors out of markets with a high cost of entry. For instance, oil sands have been profitable for some time but production has never been ramped up. Also, GE and several other auto parts monopolies performed some wonderful (and illegal) tactics that forced streetcars out of business in New Jersey and several other areas as well.

A completely free market is not a good thing for the general population. Anyone that is in the banking/loan industry knows that very well. To say we are better off without loan sharking laws (a form of price control) is patently absurd.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
For instance, oil sands have been profitable for some time but production has never been ramped up.

[/ QUOTE ]

My loose understanding (very loose, that is; please add or correct as appropriate;-)) is the following: that while oil tar sand extraction may be "profitable" in the sense that the oil extraction costs may be lower than what the oil could be sold for, compared to oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, sand extraction is a woefully more costly process and therefore not at all competitive. If the price of oil were to fall greatly (which is a possibility) sand extraction could become terribly unprofitable. Hence the capital investment needed for sand extraction operations it is "scared" and rightfully so.

As adios has previously pointed out, the lowest-cost producers in any market gain the most advantage in a competitive sense if prices go low--and may end up being the only survivors in such a scenario. OPEC might even have the clout to deliberately and artificially drop prices and put any new higher-cost producers out of business. With a global market and high-investment commodity such as oil, relative production costs mean a great deal.

[ QUOTE ]
A completely free market is not a good thing for the general population. Anyone that is in the banking/loan industry knows that very well. To say we are better off without loan sharking laws (a form of price control) is patently absurd.


[/ QUOTE ]

This may appear intuitively to be true, but I'm not completely convinced that it necessarily is true.