" Not everyone agrees that price gouging is immoral, of course; the Libertarian Institute argues that it’s a perfect example of why an unregulated free market is the best system for dealing with crises."
Fine - then we’ll put them in a private prison in deference to their preferences.
Note that when you have access to soap and water, you should be using that instead of hand sanitizer, as soap and water is more effective, cheaper, and actually cleans your hands.
Hopefully no one starts hoarding soap.
Or we could just legislate that prices not more than double (allowing some semblance of Supply & Demand to function) and initiate rationing, so that supplies don’t only go to the wealthy, don’t cause the poor to starve, and help ensure that as many people as possible are able to procure necessary supplies.
Gouging doesn’t help anybody but the rich and the gougers themselves. Fuck 'em all, and the harm they do to humanity.
The major supermarket chains where I live aren’t doing refunds on any of the products people have panic-bought.
At least they should put mandatory labels on their cars so that if they run out of gas or get a flat tire whoever encounter them can charge a “fair market price” for helping. They probably hava Crassus as a patron saint.
My thinking was that these guys pulled all of the stock out of an entire region. Returning that stock to individual retailers makes it accessible to folks who actually need it in those places. The retailers should never have allowed these purchases to begin with, so eff them and their desire not to allow returns. Many retailers were already limiting bulk purchases, but these retailers allowed two guys in a van to buy them out their entire stock of what some folks see as a critical supply.
Donating is fine with me. When I read the AG’s letter, it seemed like the entire stock was locked down, but I’m glad someone was thinking enough to get this stuff back into the supply chain somehow.
Two words - price controls. Then open the floodgates again.
Of course, we’re expecting that sort of response from a company that lets listings of $0.99 with $100 shipping to stand…
In the article, he states that shipping for each bottle is $10, so he’s already exponentially increased the price, even with no mark-up. People that could have bought it for, say, $4 off the shelf would now need to pay $14, and that’s only if it’s sold at a loss to the seller.
That said, reading the follow-up article today, I do feel a little bad for the guy and all the fallout. It was a very poor decision that brought him here, but I’d rather, as some have pointed out, see this level of rage aimed at the pharmaceutical companies and other institutional causes of this sort of bullshit.
[cue: why not both? gif]
There are plenty of sites that give instructions on making your own soap, if need be.
Of course, the fact that these predators vacuumed up all the santiser from dollar stores, denying poorer communities any access at all caused no problems with libertarians. To them, it’s your own fault if you are poor, and you deserve the consequences of your decision to be so. “Get a job!”
But these were items bought in mass quantities from regular stores, often early in the day, preventing normal purchasers from buying anything at all.
Woolworths in Australia is allocating the first hour of the day to people in need, which is the best news I have heard all month.
We should catch them and tattoo them. Give them a number and add them to a public database. Make sure the market is able to respond in all circumstances appropriately to their sensitivities, so we don’t behave in an insulting or demeaning manner that would put them ill at ease.
Libertarians take it in the neck because they refuse to espouse the “we’re all in it together”. While not wanting anyone to suffer, they believe that individuals are right to do what they can to help themselves and their loved ones, and then maybe do as they wish to help others.
I, on the other hand, do espouse the “we’re all in it together”. While not wanting anyone to suffer, I believe that countries are right to do what they can to help their citizenry, and then maybe do as we wish to help others.
Thank God that my membership in the hereditary aristocracy known as Canadian citizenship allows me to condemn the Libertarians belief that wealth is an acceptable arbiter for the rationing of vital services, when of course, only citizenship is a morally acceptable arbiter for such rationing.
In other words, the Libertarians are, in my opinion, wrong. But I’m not going to pretend I’m somehow vastly morally superior because I pretend I’m not wealthy simply because I live in a wealthy country.
Only a little morally superior 
No, price-gougers made it harder for the rest of us to get hand sanitizer. Amazon and eBay just didn’t want to be a part of it.
from “this is why we can’t have nice things” to “this is why the world ended”
Which brings us back to this article:
How can you tell if something is exponential growth from only 2 data points?
“Exponential” is not a synonym for “big”, or even “fast”. “Exponential” doesn’t even imply growth. There is such a thing as exponential decay. Radiometric dating relies on it.
The scary thing about the number of coronavirus cases is not that it is growing (roughly) exponentially. It’s that it is growing (roughly) exponentially at a high growth rate. The growth rates seem to vary by country, but they are all scary.
By contrast, many previous viruses have shown (roughly) exponential growth in their early stages, but they were less scary because they had lower growth rates. If I deposit a lump sum in a bank account earning a fixed interest rate, with interest added to the account balance, it also exhibits exponential growth (if we ignore the practicality that the interest might only be added monthly rather than continuously), but that wouldn’t excite me at all since it it would have a low growth rate, what with interest rates being at a very low level.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
