The hoarders just buy more often.
-
Features
What's wrong with PRICE-GOUGING? during a DISASTER or any other time?
- Thread starter Lumpenproletariat
- Start date
The hoarders just buy more often.
The disaster isn't affecting Dallas, the social media panic is.
fast
Contributor
Why would we want to deter people for 'hoarding' some gasoline? How about a bit of praise for 'being prepared'! If there's going to be a short-term shortage, don't be one of the losers groaning. Put some thought into a bit of self preservation. I don't mean buy up 200 million gallons putting an entire community into a lurch, but enough to keep you going far after the catastrophe is an after thought. We don't owe anyone anything, and if there's 3 loaves of bread on the shelf, you are absolutely under no obligation to limit your purchase. If there's 5000 loaves, then yeah, don't be the source of large scale pain on others, but a few hundred gallons of gas isn't out of line by any means.
Derec
Contributor
Because their hoarding causes the shortage in the first place. Higher price would reduce hoarding behavior and thus alleviate shortages.
Again, the only reason there is a "short-term shortage" in Dallas is because of panic buys and hoarding. A higher price would have alleviated the problem. I looked at GasBuddy, and prices in Dallas are actually lower than they are in Atlanta. Of course, our prices (at ~$2.75 right now) jumped about $0.50 since Harvey hit.
Especially when you put it in unsafe containers like Home Depot buckets or trash cans.
- - - Updated - - -
A rise in price normally depresses demand. Why should this be any different? And when you buy large quantities at higher price, you run the risk that you will still be using up your surplus when the prices at the pump have gone back to normal. That alone would deter people.
Last edited:
Yes, this is why people who bought their houses in the 1970s for a tenth of what they sell for now always refuse the markup and sell way below what the market will offer them.
Derec
Contributor
Except that this does not seem to be an approved gasoline tank. For example, a similar tank sold on Amazon has this in the description:
"RomoTech by Buyers Products polyethylene storage tanks are designed for convenient dispensing and storage of chemicals, excluding flammable hydrocarbons. Approved for potable water, agricultural chemicals, industrial chemicals, and other non-flammable liquids. Tank is not intended for fuel storage"
Proper gasoline tanks (excluding small jerry cans and tanks inside cars) all seem to be metal. Not only because of chemical resistance, but also because you can ground metal.
Better than Home Depot buckets and trash cans for sure though.
Last edited:
fromderinside
Mazzie Daius
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,945
- Basic Beliefs
- optimist
Prices rose in Dallas because refineries on the Gulf and around Houston had to shut down for the storm letting those who had gas take advantage of those in Dallas even though there was sufficient gas available to handle demand at current prices for some time. It's never demand. It's always greed and supply manipulation.
Those on the street have no idea where their gas comes from nor do they read or listen to news. So saying it's fear is just a gimmick to deflate rampant justified greed accusations when prices suddenly rise on the come.
Those on the street have no idea where their gas comes from nor do they read or listen to news. So saying it's fear is just a gimmick to deflate rampant justified greed accusations when prices suddenly rise on the come.
fast
Contributor
Awe, so it's not the hoarding per se but the sudden increase in demand. We could curtail that demand by price increase, yes, but that's infuriating. The people who can buy will buy while those others that desperately want to buy cannot. That disasters bring about fear of no gas because of an inability to supply gas is no surprise. This is predictable, easily.
A better solution would be better planning. Just as it's a good thing to stock up on can goods on the days leading up to an impending predictable disaster, it's a good thing for grociery stores to plan ahead so that arrangements can be made in a timely manner. Ever notice how turkeys are plentiful around thanksgiving? It's no surprise that Christmas is coming, and there'll be plenty of trees for our buying pleasure.
Between businesses, gas stations, oil companies, and a slew of governmental agencies, you'd think they could anticipate and adjust supply in such a manner that neither restricts buyers who can or disables those that otherwise could. Just as you should stock up on some gas so you're not leaving your family in a lurch, so too should businesses who have customers depending on them make profitable decisions enabling them to satisfy the impending needs.
LordKiran
Veteran Member
Fine, let them. This is a much easier demand for the short term supply to absorb. Again this is Dallas right? So there isn't really a shortage in the first place but we need to make sure hysteric-prone individuals don't create one all the same.
Derec
Contributor
But the sudden spike in demand happens because prices are not allowed to rise in response.
Better to pay a few dollars more for a tank of gas than to sit in line for hours or have no gas because too many assholes decided to fill up their 200 or 400 gal tanks artificially cheaply.
A spike in 50 cents per gallon or even a dollar is not going to render anybody unable to buy gas. That is $7.50-$15 for filling up a 15 gal tank. Not a high price to pay to be able to drive to work etc. And you can easily compensate for it by reducing miles driven, or driving more slowly.
On the other hand, a $100-$200 price hit on filling up a 200 gal hoarding tank would give a would be hoarder pause.
Long lines or unavailability of gas altogether at many stations due to panic buys and hoarding is much more likely to render somebody "that desperately wants to buy" unable to do so than a moderate increase in price would.
Duh. But the solution is not to suspend the laws of supply and demand.
Turkeys are also much more expensive in the lead-up to Thanksgiving than right thereafter. Is that price gouging? Likewise with Christmas trees. Chocolate Santa Clauses are half price after Christmas, which is good if you are Orthodox and celebrate on January 7th.
The extra gasoline that would need to be brought and stored in places like Dallas (but really all around the areas serviced by the Houston area refineries) costs money. But you do not want prices to go up any in response. How does that work?
Increase in prices has two Le-Chatelieresque effects - it reduces demand and increases supply, including anticipatory supply. Grocery stores would not stock up on turkeys before Thanksgiving if they were only allowed to charge the price they charge post Thanksgiving. Nobody is going to go chopping down Douglas firs if it is not made worth their while.
It's smart filling up your tank before an event like Harvey. I did so myself, at $2.10/gal. As soon as Harvey hit, prices increased. About $0.50 overall, but since price spikes cause "one price" to prevail, even my go-to cheap QT (Winters Chapel at 141) gradually went up to $2.76, just like all other gas stations in the area. Bummer, since I had to put some more gas in my tank today. But better than seeing this.
Or having to wait in line for an hour.
Had the prices not been able to adjust to changes in supply and demand, we might have had Dallas-like conditions here as well, like we had in 2008 after Ike.
Last edited:
fast
Contributor
I don't have a problem with allowing prices to rise in response. It's not THAT prices go up but WHY. Take flashlight batteries for example. If a pack of $5 batteries are suddenly $40 because the owner is aware that there are no open roads for 50 miles, then there is more at play here than typical supply and demand; we've entered into the territory of gouging. In the same vein, if gas goes from $2 a gallon to $6 a gallon, people might scream "ooh, that's price gouging," but they might be wrong. If the price is comparable in a given area, and if we can rule out some conspiratorial collusion, then what's price gouging is that one store charging $8 a gallon for no other damn reason than because he wants to take advantage of the horrible situation beyond what otherwise good people might.
I really didn't have a problem with the rise of gas price per se. It depends on why. If the government says "yo, people are in a bad situation, let's charge a $3/gallon tax and watch them squirm," then yeah, there's a problem to be had with this. If a business owner says" hurricanes a comin'; let's double the price of gas, and to you single mothers out there, we've recently tripled the price of medicine, so come see us," then yeah there's a problem. If government can have a positive impact on the supply by helping ensure there is gas when there is demand, then there's some things to talk about, like how.
However, before I speak on that, I want to tap into what drove me to first post to start off with. It's the negative characterization of those stocking up on gas. It's the negative characterization. Even here, you referred to them as assholes. Even if "hoarding" is denotatively correct, there's a negative connotation, but that there's a negative result from their actions is in my opinion insufficient grounds to do so since there's also a negative effect if we characterized them with a positive connotation as is with "stocking up." Its not the effect but the reason for the action that is driving my disdain of the word usage; however, this isn't about semantics but right and wrong, and I'll address that now.
You appear to think that because a negative result stems from our actions that there is something wrong with the actions. That's not true in all cases. It depends on why. I went through hurricane Hugo. We didn't have a generator, and a tank of gas even with no generator is insufficient to last anyone with a need to be mobile to go two or three weeks with no access to gas. If stocking up on can-goods causes less can-good availability, that negative effect is an unfortunate consequence of good intentions, just like stocking up on gas. It's when we set out to harm others that warrant such negativity.
I think it's smart and should be expected and praised that these 'assholes' 'hoard' some gasoline. What makes this acceptable is they are acting like good people should act. People who stock up on can-goods are not hoarding assholes just because their action collectively cause a shortage. The solution to the problem (and this is where I transition in to explaining the HOW as mentioned earlier) is to fix supply and leave demand the hell alone.
For instance, someone mentioned putting a cap on allowable purchase. I abhor this idea because it screws with the people. Limiting how much one can purchase might solve the issue, but the solution is wrong in its own right. Artificially inflating price is wrong as well. If it results on its own, that's one thing, but gouging to merely take advantage of others in the path of unavoidable calamity is something entirely different.
Stores need to prepare such that we have what we need when we need it, and the government should help with that in ways it can without messing with the demand side that affects people negatively.
No, prices in Dallas stayed about the same throughout the hurricane. The panic buying started days after as the 3 day weekend neared.
fromderinside
Mazzie Daius
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,945
- Basic Beliefs
- optimist
Yeah, right after prices jumped ten to fifteen cents a gallon. It's a meme that attention requires a strong blow to one's income.
lpetrich
Contributor
Lumpenproletariat seems to have forgotten about his beloved consumers. They don't benefit very much from price-gouging.
ronburgundy
Contributor
It's rather basic morality. If your neighbor's house was on fire and he was screaming for someone to help him carry his mother to safety, would you tell him that you'll only help if he gives you a $10,000? After all, your just making a greedy profit by satisfying other's needs, right?
There is no basis for moral standards to be any different in the name of profit or business than the rest of daily life. The saying "Business is business" was made up by immoral scumbags.
While extreme, the example applies to gouging in disaster situations, precisely because the ability to gouge and get people to pay huge amounts is because the good being supplied is desperately and immediately needed for the basic welfare of the buyers.
A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't do it to your mom or a friend, then it is likely immoral to do it to a stranger.
They are not making people better off by short term price gouging. They are making them worse off. The good or service already existed prior to the disaster at a price that was and still is profitable. If you didn't raise the price, they could still get it and satisfy their immediate need. So, raising the pricing does nothing to help meet the need and only prevents some needy people from being able to afford the good. In most these situations, the good is sitting right there and no more need be made, and in fact usually not time to wait for an increase in supply. Rather the seller hoards the supply because he knows the dangerous crisis situation means people will force people to pay for it at a much higher cost.
It is not similar to a non-disaster situation involving some luxury non-necessity. There, you can argue that the only way you can increase the price is if people want more it than is available, and thus increasing the price and thus profitability will increase supply to meet the need.
Derec
Contributor
They benefit if there are goods on the shelves (or at the pump), even if the price is higher.
If you keep prices artificially low, you invite enterprising people to take advantage of arbitrage. The consumers still pay higher prices, but they have to go through the black market to do so. Venezuela is a particularly extreme example of this.
fromderinside
Mazzie Daius
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,945
- Basic Beliefs
- optimist
Yet markets are created by demand which some see as a good thing. The boogie man in all this chatter is with greed.
Sometimes they do. Expensive is better than nonexistent.
coloradoatheist
Veteran Member
Possibly, But when you are talking shortages you can be shorted out of having it too. So the issue becomes when there isn't enough of something to go around, what is the best solution to allocate the resources and what are the tradeoffs. It also deals with economics in general too.