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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @jgbtc 3 Apr \ parent \ on: What do stackers think of Martin Shkreli? AskSN
The advantage of high prices for in-demand goods in emergencies is that people will be less likely to buy more than they need in a panic, and the person who had the foresight to stockpile, or sees an opportunity to bring supplies to an affected area, deserves to be rewarded. This behavior should be encouraged so competition will bring prices back down quickly and people will get the supplies they need.
So to discourage over buying, we allow one person to over buy, and profit off of a disaster....
To be clear, you're defending people who gouge bottled water simply because they had the foresight to know people would be dying of dehydration?
Absolutely not, and I couldn't disagree more. Maybe you've never suffered through a natural disaster, or don't know anyone who has, but gouging isn't helping anyone.
It's literally standing in between life saving supplies and end users for profit, there's nothing benevolent about it.
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I'm for getting supplies to people who need them as fast as possible. The government (or anyone else) can buy the gouger out, and so encourage them to restock. Other people will see the opportunity and join in, bringing even more supplies to market and bringing down prices. This would be more efficient and cheaper than whatever centrally planned fiasco the government does. I'm all for decentralized solutions, like bitcoin for example.
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That's a fairly tale explication. In reality, gougers often intercept peoduct that would have otherwise gotten to its destination but they corner the market in a time of high demand.
Even in the example given of the guy gouging hand sanitizer, he wasn't facilitating getting it to people faster. He was slowing down the process by inserting himself as an unneeded middle man for profit.
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Instead of punishing greed we can use it to benefit those in need. Instead of FEMA or some other inept agency, government can just pay greedy price gougers and then distribute the supplies in whatever way it thinks is fair. Why insert an unnecessary and incompetent government agency when it isn't needed? The fairy tale is that government does a better job than the free market. Sadly, emergencies are always the excuse for intervention, when the efficiency of the free market is needed most. They used COVID as an excuse to print trillions of dollars. Government is the ultimate price gouger, but no one ever talks about that. Instead they focus all the attention on one guy selling hand sanitizer.
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