Price gouging is just a supply and demand issue. Throw out the “first come first serve” mentality during a disaster and let those that can afford the supplies pay the price.
Really? Capitalism wins over compassion and morals when people need help. – PB/TK
Prices Should Rise During Crises Like Hurricane Harvey – By John Stossel (reason.com)/ Aug 30 2017
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is upset about “price gouging” during hurricane Harvey. Some stores raised prices to $99 for a case of bottled water—$5 for a gallon of gas. “These are things you can’t do in Texas,” he says. “There are significant penalties if you price gouge in a crisis like this.”
There sure are: $20,000 per “gouge”—$200,000 if the “victim” is a senior citizen.
Texas, a state that I thought understood capitalism, punishes people who practice it.
Prices should rise during emergencies. Price changes save lives. That’s because prices aren’t just money—they are information.
Price changes tell suppliers what their customers want most, maybe chainsaws more than blankets, water more than flashlights.
“Quit your witch hunt,” economist Don Boudreaux wrote Paxton. “Government intervention is often justified as a means of correcting ‘market failure.’ But by enforcing prohibitions on ‘price gouging’ your office causes market failure.”
Boudreaux is right.
Suppose a disaster devastates your town, and your local store is not allowed to raise the price of bottled water. People rush to buy all the water they can get. The store sells out. Only the first customers get what they need.
The storeowner has no incentive to risk life and limb restocking his store. He wants to get to safety, too. So he closes his store.
But if the owner can charge $99 for a case of water, you will buy less water, and other customers get what they need. More importantly, entrepreneurs have an incentive to move heaven and earth to bring water to the disaster area. They soon do, and the price drops again.
That’s economics—supply and demand. It works pretty well.
Politicians often try to outlaw that. When Uber appeared and used “surge pricing” during busy times, my dumb mayor tried to ban Uber. The ban didn’t stick, fortunately. Seeing people pay higher prices inspires more Uber drivers to leave home to offer people rides, and it causes customers to try other alternatives at busy times. When prices float, there are no shortages.
Since Texas’ attorney general doesn’t seem to understand that, Boudreaux tries to educate him:
“By forcibly keeping ‘legal’ prices lower than their actual market values, you not only encourage black markets … you obstruct the information and incentives that are necessary both to encourage consumers to use those goods more sparingly and to encourage suppliers from around the world to rush to the devastated areas.”
People will denounce capitalist greed after the next disaster, too, but there’s nothing kind about pretending that bottled water and other valuable goods will be available if sellers are forbidden to raise prices when supplies are short.
I’d think reporters on CNBC, a business-oriented network, would understand economics, but they’re as clueless as Texas’ attorney general.
Not only did CNBC parrot his comments about “gouging,” they then claimed, “Devastating storm may actually boost U.S. GDP.”
Paul Krugman made the same foolish error after 9/11’s terrorism. He wrote that the attack might “do some economic good.”
Continue to reason.com article: http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/30/prices-should-rise-during-crises-like-hu
