r/SneerClub archives
newest
bestest
longest
Ackshually, scalpers are good! It's just the F R E E M A R K E T in Action! (https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/ffzcei/coronavirus_containment_thread/fki0t55/)
45

Hmm… if the demand vastly outstrips supply, then him selling it at a higher price seems to have a value in that he sells to whoever values it the most.

Hey rationalists, who values hand sanitizer the most at UnBayesian rates: a hospital at 120% capacity, or one at 200% capacity? Enjoy the informational value of my real life marginal value experiment! Should be very useful when our AI God runs our hospitals.

Edit: shorthand: >I am on the record defending price gouging on free market principles. But

I am on the record defending price gouging on free market principles.

Why would you-?

What is the Econ 101 take on this?

Oh

Actual managers and economists: > there are a lot of ways to determine pricing Rationalists: > my memories of an high school economics class says ...

if the demand vastly outstrips supply, then him selling it at a higher price seems to have a value in that he sells to whoever values it the most.

Ah yes, of course… because everyone can afford to buy 0 bottles of hand sanitizer. As we all know, the only barrier to buying things is how much you value them.

> As we all know, the only barrier to buying things is how much you value them. If I could burn one sentiment out of these people's brains, it would be this one. I don't think any other stupid idea in economics causes more direct harm than this one. It leads to idiotic claims about things like tenants "preferring" rent to home ownership, or high deductible plans / no insurance to low-deductible ones.
Seems to me that it relates to the "bootstraps" principle as well - like, "well, if poor people *really* wanted to not be poor, they would try harder, so they must just be lazy and not value hard work." Both of these views fail to consider that, you know, maybe some people face more barriers to attaining their goal than others beyond just... apathy.

Marcus Licinius Crassus did nothing wrong!

*Those fire victims had it coming*

Because he’s distributing them to people who need them, who otherwise couldn’t get them. I must not be explaining this very well. Is there some part of this I could elaborate on better?

People like these brothers take away the opportunity for people to buy what they need, at a normal price. They are not heroes for selling items to these desperate people now.

Maybe, but what Amazon and Ebay have done is even more unhelpful. And there doesn’t seem to be a point, except to (again, unhelpfully) punish people like Colvin

I like that they can’t even consider the possibility of them selling their stock at normal prices

Right? He can still turn a profit, right? It’s on him if he would rather get nothing than to merely charge 2x his cost.

Utility of anything measured in money and only money: I sleep

paper clip maximization: real shit

It is the free market in action, and sadly this sort of things happened to medication prices at multibillion dollar level, and nobody done anything about it. Fuck this shit what ever is the scale.

Hypothetically, people might panic-buy 10 hand sanitizers each before it runs out, and then other people can’t. If price is suddenly 10x higher then maybe people buy only what they need.

I love it when the hypothetical disaster a particular fucked up solution is ostensibly needed to prevent is an exact same kind of situation as said solution, except less severe.

Found Walter Block’s alt.

Ugh I'd forgotten about that guy

I remember this from Mankiw

Sorry, I’m Bernanke or bust.

My God, when Zorba is a voice of reason.

[deleted]

Agreed, time to nationalize the commanding heights of the economy - all essentials. Tickets to Hamilton, the Superbowl and special-edition sneakers may remain free market.
In .nl we have lower (our neolib gov has decreased the difference between them once sadly enough) vat for essential living supplies, like food, drink and role playing books. While im not a fan of vat as it is a regressive tax, this is at leas something which helps poor people a bit.
Lower VAT for essentials is a bit of an oxymoron. VATs started off as luxury taxes,but tend to creep to encompass everything. That gets normalised ,then people see it as a boon when VAT is taken off an essential.
Nah, VAT's (as opposed to sales taxes) tended to start out as a general tax, and then get narrowed over time. The entire point of a VAT is that it's supposed to tax "the entire economy".

[deleted]

Try reading the thread. Profit isn't the only incentive. Price rises aren't the only means of achieving profit . Gouging isn't the only known mechanism to achieve rationing. Gouging allows rich hoarders to hoard. Gouging shuts out the poor.
Econ 101 aside, the global supply chain for nearly every product is complex enough, and tenuous enough, that a sudden spike in pricing will not get materials from manufacture to distribution to retail that much faster. It will enable a couple of first movers to capitalize on misery by jacking up price, but it will not put more (rolls of toilet paper / bottles of hand sanitizer / doses of insulin) into more hands.