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talkpoliticsI suppose it’s appropriate that we get this truly scary, fanged, and drooling glimpse of the face of modern capitalism on October 31st. CNBC Senior Editor John Carney has decided to weigh in on the subject of price gouging during a disaster.
What’s striking is the bland cluelessness, a level of naivete that, feigned or not, borders on the murderous. After pointing out that, once a few of these layabouts experience having to pay, say, $100 for a case of bottled water, they’ll have received a salutary lesson in being prepared for disaster, Carney observes:
Right. The poor never have to do without “necessary goods and services” in normal times, so they certainly won’t have to do without them during disasters like floods and hurricanes! For the most part, anyway. And if a few poor people are unlucky enough not to be part of that “most,” seeing a few bodies of neighbors who’ve died from hypothermia or thirst will teach the rest of those lazy beggars a lesson about the dangers of overconsumption!
Carney apparently believes the plight of many people during a disaster is about dickering over prices rather than access to resources that could save lives. “This is a problem better resolved,” he declares, “through transfer payments to alleviate the household budgetary effects of the prices after the fact, rather than trying to control the price in the first place.”
Of course, this is only going to help those people who managed to survive in a "marketplace" where the prices of goods are jacked up to the point where they end up having to choose what live-saving goods to purchase. Potable water? Uncontaminated food? Dry warm blankets? Hey, if you can't afford all of them that's just now how the marketplace works, buddy, and if you or a member of your family ends up not making it because you chose wrong, those are the Randian breaks.
Surely the transfer payment you get later will compensate for having to watch them die.
But wait! There's more! Carney has followed this post up with another mentioning merchants giving away perishable goods, in which he asks:
Is this man from another planet?
*
What’s striking is the bland cluelessness, a level of naivete that, feigned or not, borders on the murderous. After pointing out that, once a few of these layabouts experience having to pay, say, $100 for a case of bottled water, they’ll have received a salutary lesson in being prepared for disaster, Carney observes:
One objection is that a system of free-floating, legal gouging would allow the wealthy to buy everything and leave the poor out altogether. But this concern is overrated. For the most part, price hikes during disasters do not actually put necessary goods and services out of reach of even the poorest people. They just put the budgets of the poor under additional strain.
Right. The poor never have to do without “necessary goods and services” in normal times, so they certainly won’t have to do without them during disasters like floods and hurricanes! For the most part, anyway. And if a few poor people are unlucky enough not to be part of that “most,” seeing a few bodies of neighbors who’ve died from hypothermia or thirst will teach the rest of those lazy beggars a lesson about the dangers of overconsumption!
Carney apparently believes the plight of many people during a disaster is about dickering over prices rather than access to resources that could save lives. “This is a problem better resolved,” he declares, “through transfer payments to alleviate the household budgetary effects of the prices after the fact, rather than trying to control the price in the first place.”
Of course, this is only going to help those people who managed to survive in a "marketplace" where the prices of goods are jacked up to the point where they end up having to choose what live-saving goods to purchase. Potable water? Uncontaminated food? Dry warm blankets? Hey, if you can't afford all of them that's just now how the marketplace works, buddy, and if you or a member of your family ends up not making it because you chose wrong, those are the Randian breaks.
Surely the transfer payment you get later will compensate for having to watch them die.
But wait! There's more! Carney has followed this post up with another mentioning merchants giving away perishable goods, in which he asks:
Clearly, people could pay market prices for the perishing goods. Does the fact that they aren't mean consumers are gouging merchants? Should this be illegal?
Is this man from another planet?
*
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 20:04 (UTC)I repeat, you have been the one in our conversation who personalized it. Not me.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 20:20 (UTC)I wouldn't exactly say I threw the first insult. Your OP was an insult. And it's not different from any prior posts that you have made.
You regularly dismiss evidence. Our last conversation two months ago? Paft ignoring inconvenient truths! (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1538165.html?thread=123672949#t123672949") No surprise from this corner.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 20:38 (UTC)My post is aimed at a specific piece by a writer who followed it up with a post implying that it should be illegal for merchants to give away perishable foods during a natural disaster.
p: I wouldn't exactly say I threw the first insult. Your OP was an insult. And it's not different from any prior posts that you have made.
The fact that you dislike my post does not transform my post into a personal attack on you.
p: You regularly dismiss evidence. Our last conversation two months ago? Paft ignoring inconvenient truths! No surprise from this corner.
I did not ignore your evidence. I was unconvinced by it. And if I dropped out of that discussion it had less to do with me "ignoring" you (and everyone else I was talking to that day) than with a family matter that came up and rather demanded my attention.
Sometimes, real life intrudes. Sometimes, as much as I would like to, I cannot continue online discussions. When that happens, I drop out and come back later when I see another conversation that interests me. That hardly qualifies as a personal dismissal of Politikitty.
(no subject)
Date: 1/11/12 20:51 (UTC)You attack a writer who proposes alleviating price gouging with additional support. You actually have the temerity to mock him for that.
Your post is a take down piece filled with ad hominem attacks and light on intelligent discussion of the facts on hand. As all your posts are.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 16:54 (UTC)If I consider it unconvincing, does this somehow qualify as a personal attack on you?
The subject of that discussion, as I recall it, was whether or not excessive unity in BOTH parties had resulted in gridlock. My premise was and remains that, in fact, the Democrats have not been unified in the face of the steady rise of the far right over the past 30 years. This assessment was based on what I'd seen happening in Democratic politics since the 1980s. My family has been involved in Democratic party politics for many years. I've known Beltway people of both parties, and have talked to them over the years, and what I've seen has not been unity, but a depressing willingness on the part of Democrats to compromise. I've heard Democrats complain about it -- and Republicans chortle over it -- for years. Yes, the Democrats have become more unified in recent years. It's about time.
Now, you may disagree with this. You may find this unconvincing. Fine. I'm not going to interpret your disagreement as a personal attack on me, unless you declare, in the course of disagreeing with me, that I'm crazy or stupid, or mean simply for disagreeing with you on whether or not the charts you provided are convincing.
pk: It has nothing to do with whether or not you chose to drop out of the discussion a few comments down the line. It has to do with the fact that you made an assertion that was clearly false. And you were unconvinced by incredibly unbiased evidence from a very respectable source.
The fact that you consider my assertion "false" and that I am unconvinced by the charts you posted does not make me impervious to reason or a vicious personal attacker. I means we disagree. Period.
pk You attack a writer who proposes alleviating price gouging with additional support. You actually have the temerity to mock him for that.
Yes, I do have the "temerity" to post a mocking piece about a guy who not only thinks merchants should be allowed to gouge desperate people during a natural disaster, but apparently believes merchants should be prosecuted for giving away perishable items.
pK: Your post is a take down piece filled with ad hominem attacks and light on intelligent discussion of the facts on hand. As all your posts are.
And you plainly have some sort of personal axe to grind where my posts are concerned.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 17:32 (UTC)You've mocked my beliefs, which are actually pretty liberal. You've created an equivalence that believing in significant government redistribution and aid to the poor is still evidence of hating the poor because I consider that the price mechanism is the central driver of capitalism, and it doesn't make sense to have a mixed system and take out all the good of a capitalist system.
It's like saying that the great part of socialism was all the starving kids and gulags, and fuck the parts about redistribution and trying to help the poor. It makes absolutely no economic sense whatsoever.
You have never ever responded to disagreement with the belief that perhaps a person who disagrees with you doesn't hate the poor. Your comment below is quite possibly a first. And it's so laughable because I've been in livejournal for years arguing with libertarians and pointing out what part of the free market is worth saving and what part of the free market needs to be augmented by considerable government intervention. And yet your response to me, and anyone who is to the right of you (and considering you're pretty liberal for a San Franciscan, understand that's 90% of America) is always dripping of accusations that we could care less about the poor.
The point is that you just used personal experience of 30 years to trump actual data. Despite the fact that you are a person who clearly lives on the fringe of the rest of America, and would clearly have a warped perspective of American politics. That's not an attack, that's just a demographic fact that everyone has to live with. Which is why if I use my personal experience, I also try to counter my gut check to see if my experience really is similar to everyone else's.
(no subject)
Date: 2/11/12 18:20 (UTC)You believe merchants should be prosecuted for giving away perishable items during a disaster?
Sorry, but if you believe that, yes, I think it's a pretty mockable belief. And yes, I will mock it-- without descending into mocking you as a person.
pk: You have never ever responded to disagreement with the belief that perhaps a person who disagrees with you doesn't hate the poor.
No, I don't generally include that caveat. Nor do most people when they talk about issues of poverty and the distribution of necessities. When, however, I see someone insult the poor as a bunch of lazy,unmotivated layabouts -- as is frequently happening in our current political climate -- yes, I do object and say something about it.
pk: The point is that you just used personal experience of 30 years to trump actual data.
I've used the evidence of my own eyes and ears.
pk: Despite the fact that you are a person who clearly lives on the fringe of the rest of America,
"Lives on the fringe?" What, in the name of the 12 apostles, are you talking about here? Do you envision me living in some sort of bunker? A commune?
What exactly is it you imagine about my offline life?
pk: and would clearly have a warped perspective of American politics.
My perspective is based on growing up in a family very active in politics on both sides of the political spectrum.