Just in Time for Halloween!

[paft.livejournal.com]

I 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:

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?

*

Comments

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

THIS.

THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE WHY I FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK YOU ARE CAPABLE OF RATIONAL THOUGHT.

My ENTIRE point is that when people use the Red Cross/FEMA debit cards to purchase useless crap instead of necessities, that is a GOOD THING. We want to give people enough cash so that price increases do not affect the needy, while also driving down demand.

If people only use those debit cards to buy necessities, price increases cannot function as method to drive down demand.

I made it perfectly clear that I never had any problem with how people utilize the aid they're getting from FEMA and the Red Cross. I have made it perfectly clear that I believe that if anything FEMA and Red Cross aid should increase and people should buy even more perfectly stupid trinkets.

That way the poor will be able to afford anything they need, but everyone also has an incentive to only purchase what they need and no more.

As you've noted, laws can easily be broken. Especially during a natural disaster. So it is important that we have the right incentives outside of the law.

[paft.livejournal.com]

pk: THIS. THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE WHY I FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK YOU ARE CAPABLE OF RATIONAL THOUGHT.

Stop shouting.

And while you're at it, stop insulting me.

I don't think that there are likely to be enough people buying crap with their debit cards to effect the change you want on prices. Luxury items do not sell well in hard times even when there ISN'T a natural disaster. The vast majority of people issued these cards are going to spend them on what keeps body and soul together, things like food, water, etc.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

It is not a problem that you disagree with me that additional aid and raising prices could reduce demand.

It is a problem that you responded, thinking that I was against the Red Cross/FEMA debit cards due to abuse, when my original comments were actually that I thought the so called "abuse" of the debit cards was a good thing. You refuse to step back and actually recognize what I am advocating. You instead accuse me of believing exactly the opposite of what I'm saying.

That has nothing to do with you disagreeing with me and everything to do with you being so wrapped up in your vision of the world, that you assume everyone who disagrees with your preferred policy is a libertarian against all public policy.

When I say I'm for debit cards, don't accuse me of not being for debit cards.

[paft.livejournal.com]

And this warrants you personally insulting me and even indulging in snide speculation about me living on the "fringes?" Really?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

It probably does warrant questioning your capacity to engage in an actual conversation.