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Faustian Bargain posted:My libertarian friends are still spamming articles about price gouging things like bottled water during Harvey is a good thing. To me this just seems like assholes trying to capitalize on an emergency but how do you refute that normal prices lead to either hoarding or people buying to resell? You can't refute that part, because it can and does happen. But all that does is perfectly demonstrate why the free market sucks at providing basic neccessities. The free market distributes by your ability to pay, not your need, and in times of rising demand and/or falling supply there is a strong profit motive to sell what supplies are available at an increased price. When the normal water infrastructure collapses due to a natural disaster, bottled water becomes a valuable (but universally neccessary) commodity. Those with the ability to hoard bottles, or to afford the gouged prices, are fine. But those that can't do those things go without but they need water just as much, if not more. People's actual demand for water doesn't go away because the price has been gouged (you can't make the 'rational decision' to stop hydrating yourself just because water now costs $60 a jug) so the supply/demand forces don't apply, beyond 'demand' being 'people who can still afford my massively inflated prices.' In normal times the supply of water is so universal and so low-priced that the cost of a glass of water from your kitchen tap is virtually free. Every home has a clean water supply, with large-scale infrastructure maintained either by some level of government or, at worst, by a private firm operating under very strict government oversight. When that system breaks down the free market responds by pricing thousands of people out of the ability to provide a basic neccessity, because it's now a scarce resource and it provides an opportunity for profit. Until the normal water supply is restored the only way to ensure that everyone who needs water received it (which is what any non-sociopathic person would want) is to ship bottled water from elsewhere in the nation and distribute it for free ('socialised water'). I'm pretty sure the reason why we're seeing all these shitheels writing blogs and posts about why price gouging water is, actually, totally good, guys, is because it actually lays bare the biggest failing of free market capitalism. So if you're invested in that as a universally good thing you can either ignore it or try and say how it's good and that the fact that people are hoarding water during a scarcity and profiting from people's suffering is a feature, not a bug.
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Sep 7, 2017 10:25
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Faustian Bargain posted:My libertarian friends are still spamming articles about price gouging things like bottled water during Harvey is a good thing. To me this just seems like assholes trying to capitalize on an emergency but how do you refute that normal prices lead to either hoarding or people buying to resell? Market price discovery has broken down and all these price gougers and resellers are just guessing how much people will be willing to pay. There's no mechanism for these sellers to discover the correct price and they could be cleared out by resalers if the price is too low or end up with inventory at the end of the hurricane which is an obvious market failure. Markets aren't magic they're made up of people and when those people don't have access to information or the ability to travel or move goods market efficiency degrades to the point of uselessness in some cases. The demand side of the argument also falls apart in a natural disaster because nobody knows what they should pay for a bottle of water because nobody knows how long they're going to need to hoard water. A rationing system would probably make more rational guesses than a herd of actors with no information. Demanders don't know what their marginal value for product is, sellers don't have time or inventory to get a sense of what market demand is. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 14:23
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Arglebargle III posted:Market price discovery has broken down and all these price gougers and resellers are just guessing how much people will be willing to pay. There's no mechanism for these sellers to discover the correct price and they could be cleared out by resalers if the price is too low or end up with inventory at the end of the hurricane which is an obvious market failure. Markets aren't magic they're made up of people and when those people don't have access to information or the ability to travel or move goods market efficiency degrades to the point of uselessness in some cases. Thats a lot of words for "capitalism fails at the provision of basic needs in times of crisis"
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Sep 7, 2017 14:32
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Thats a lot of words for "capitalism fails" We're not done refining this!
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Sep 7, 2017 14:36
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BalloonFish posted:I'm pretty sure the reason why we're seeing all these shitheels writing blogs and posts about why price gouging water is, actually, totally good, guys, is because it actually lays bare the biggest failing of free market capitalism. So if you're invested in that as a universally good thing you can either ignore it or try and say how it's good and that the fact that people are hoarding water during a scarcity and profiting from people's suffering is a feature, not a bug.
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Sep 7, 2017 14:42
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Faustian Bargain posted:My libertarian friends are still spamming articles about price gouging things like bottled water during Harvey is a good thing. To me this just seems like assholes trying to capitalize on an emergency but how do you refute that normal prices lead to either hoarding or people buying to resell? the underpinning of their argument is that price signals = most efficient use of resources in an emergency. also known as "highest and best use". point out that what they're saying indicates they think it's better for a rich person to be hydrated than a poor person, and this is necessarily elitist. see how many of them deny it vs. embrace it Faustian Bargain posted:Not quite following the last bit. Both hoarding water during a scarcity and profiting from people's suffering is bad, so how could it be considered good by someone who is pro-price gouging. they think that profiting from people's suffering is actually good, they just dont want to admit it because they realize it makes them sound ghoulish
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Sep 7, 2017 16:07
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Call them hateful assholes who don't care if the poor die and move on. If they are OK with price gauging they have drunk to deeply of the flavoraid and are beyond hope.
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Sep 7, 2017 16:16
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World Famous W posted:Call them hateful assholes who don't care if the poor die and move on. If they are OK with price gauging they have drunk to deeply of the flavoraid and are beyond hope. boner confessor posted:the underpinning of their argument is that price signals = most efficient use of resources in an emergency. also known as "highest and best use". point out that what they're saying indicates they think it's better for a rich person to be hydrated than a poor person, and this is necessarily elitist. see how many of them deny it vs. embrace it Faustian Bargain fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 16:36
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Faustian Bargain posted:I've done this before and been told that it's not an argument stefan molyneux style, so you're probably right. Ironically, the latter is usually libertarians.
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Sep 7, 2017 16:42
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On an anecdotal level, as someone who lives in the gulf coast, you can point out it is bad business sense long term. I've seen local business around price gouge after major storms. I also seen that same business shutter it's doors months later when things have settled back down because we don't forgot you hosed us. But really just walk away calling them assholes is best practice.
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Sep 7, 2017 16:42
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Faustian Bargain posted:The argument is that anti price gouging laws make resources more scarce because assholes either hoard or buy to resell. who has the resources to hoard or try to do arbitrage on basic resources during the very brief window of a natural disaster? this sounds like a thought experiment which collapses the second it contacts reality. like ask them for real who in houston was going around trying to corner the bottled water market? aren't the most likely assholes hoarding or reselling the people price gouging is targeted against?
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Sep 7, 2017 16:55
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World Famous W posted:On an anecdotal level, as someone who lives in the gulf coast, you can point out it is bad business sense long term. I've seen local business around price gouge after major storms. I also seen that same business shutter it's doors months later when things have settled back down because we don't forgot you hosed us. For better or worse, the South has long memories and can carry a grudge for the same distance.
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Sep 7, 2017 17:41
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Faustian Bargain posted:Not quite following the last bit. Both hoarding water during a scarcity and profiting from people's suffering is bad, so how could it be considered good by someone who is pro-price gouging. The argument I've seen pop up the last few days is "the business owner has increased distribution costs during an emergency so they're only raising prices to make up for that", which I suppose makes sense if you honestly believe that the market is the definition of efficiency.
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Sep 7, 2017 18:12
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Thats a lot of words for "capitalism fails at the provision of basic needs in times of crisis" If you don't care about communicating with your audience sure.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:15
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World Famous W posted:Call them hateful assholes who don't care if the poor die and move on. If they are OK with price gauging they have drunk to deeply of the flavoraid and are beyond hope. Would price gouging still be a problem in a world where everyone had equal wealth? I would think so; it's still somebody holding a necessity hostage. If they were doing it long term, the business would be subject to collusion or antitrust claims or the like. Edit: VVV I mean, if you had some kind of hypothetical company or companies that managed to sell water bottles at $10 apiece. The point is, the difference between gouging and other forms of artificial price inflation is that it happens for a short period of time. PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 20:25
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Antitrust claims?
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Sep 7, 2017 20:30
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Also, in the US at least, if an emergency is sustained long enough and resources become truly scarce, price gougers might find that some people would rather pay for necessities with bullets instead of money.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:40
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Zemyla posted:Also, in the US at least, if an emergency is sustained long enough and resources become truly scarce, price gougers might find that some people would rather pay for necessities with bullets instead of money. They can buy those bullets from me at a 300% markup.
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Sep 8, 2017 00:55
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the_steve posted:They can buy those bullets from me at a 300% markup. Well, I mean, you'll probably sell one...
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Sep 8, 2017 01:20
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Family member shared this.quote:By ?: People on my feed are progressively making this disaster more and more political and it's getting difficult to not want to respond.  I decided not to rant and instead just posted links to pictures of Obama helping at various disasters and then http://trumpgolfcount.com/
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Sep 8, 2017 01:21
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the_steve posted:They can buy those bullets from me at a 300% markup. That's still cheaper than the Obama era rates.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:06
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PhazonLink posted:That's still cheaper than the Obama era rates. For real I mean I've seen people hoarding bullets for a decade now and Obama really did start it here in Oregon. Around here it was actually difficult to find ammunition for several years because people would show up at the store before the deliveries were actually unpacked and they would buy all the stock and then resell it.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:22
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Hot take: Checked his facebook feed, nothing but political memes and "stupid liberals" posts.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:31
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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Well considering how many times the Bible mentions that God will punish sons "to the third and fourth generation" for the sins of their fathers, it's not super surprising that so many people really don't care about dreamers being innocent of intentional wrongdoing. "The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children." -Shakespear
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Sep 8, 2017 02:55
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ChristopherRobin posted:Family member shared this. What happened in 2016, according to this image?
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Sep 8, 2017 09:27
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Smegma Princess X posted:What happened in 2016, according to this image? 
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Sep 8, 2017 09:31
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Faustian Bargain posted:I've done this before and been told that it's not an argument stefan molyneux style, so you're probably right. May be time to deconstruct the question a bit, defining a bit more clearly what is to be achieved. If the point is that none one should go thirsty on account of someone else wasting water the free market is simply not doing it. They can then, if they wish, argue that no other system would either, but they are on pretty thin ice there. It is a situation rather tilted in your favor I feel, since the usual rear end in a top hat libertarian argumentative approach relies very heavily on going MILLIONS OF PEOPLE STARVED IN SOVIET RUSSIA, but when a state of emergency is declared all kinds of rules are already suspended, so it is not the start of full communism to argue that store-owners have some extra responsibilities in those events. That is, the main problem is to avoid getting bogged down in a million practical issues where they will want you to talk your way as deeply as possible into the picture of men with guns taking the poor citizens water away, but they are arguing against the status quo when they imagine full freedoms during states of emergency.
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Sep 8, 2017 11:21
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If I can't "logically" explain why price gouging is bad, then I guess poor people just deserve to die. It's only fair. How many more years until libertarianism is openly mocked by most people?
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Sep 8, 2017 15:53
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I've got friends who all say they are "libertarian" but they usually fall into these groups: 1) rather have a smaller federal government and a larger/better/more-in-touch state government 2) being jerked off by the invisible hand of the free market 3) "if I say I'm a libertarian, I can still vote straight R but pretend to be an intellectual" 4) socially liberal but EVERYONE LOOK AT MY LATEST WORTHLESS AR MOD 5) conservatism is good except I would like to smoke a lot of weed
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Sep 8, 2017 17:12
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I suspect a lot of the movement is about education anyway, the mindless expectation of a logical explanation from minimal principles is a blight upon our times. One of those where the founding fathers have subtle things more correct than these movements appreciate, in that "we hold these truths to be self-evident..." is a very clear admission that one cannot reasonably expect to somehow establish that the poor people are worth as much as the rich.
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Sep 8, 2017 17:32
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Faustian Bargain posted:I've got friends who all say they are "libertarian" but they usually fall into these groups: 6) South Park has taught me that really both sides are equally wrong.
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Sep 8, 2017 17:39
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Faustian Bargain posted:I've got friends who all say they are "libertarian" but they usually fall into these groups: A quick perusal of the libertarian thread will reveal the "it is socially unacceptable to call myself a fascist" grouping, but they might be fewer in number since the election.
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Sep 8, 2017 17:43
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Pretty much every Libertarian I've ever known basically boiled down to "I value money/my own personal wealth above literally everything else in the world". I feel like the worst ones are those that act like they care about the plight of others but add that "but that doesn't mean that the government should steal my money TAXATION IS SLAVERY" poo poo at the end. At least the one guy on my facebook feed that's super libertarian has the balls to straight up admit that he gives zero shits about anyone other than himself. If you're going to be an rear end in a top hat at least own it, don't act like you care when you don't.OxySnake posted:6) South Park has taught me that really both sides are equally wrong. Yeah, this is the other big one. The people who feel like declaring either (R) or (D) means you're a fool and think they're an intellectual because they sit on the side and scoff at people who have an opinion.
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Sep 8, 2017 19:18
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Have you ever been to libertarian summer camp though? http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/28/534735727/episode-286-libertarian-summer-camp For some reason the guy with the bacon omelets thing really sticks with me because he's almost a distillation of it all, including the conspicuous overconsumption which is claimed to be justified by the market - 10 slices of bacon is like a pound and a quarter.
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Sep 8, 2017 19:25
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I was a libertarian in high school (Though this was before I knew what that was so I didnt call myself that) and in retrospect my thought process was that by just allowing everyone to live life on equal terms without interference, things would just magically work out. This was of course before I understood issues like systemic racism and income inequality (I was middle class, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?) and if I had a time machine I'd go back and punch high school me in the face. Anyway heres this: 
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Sep 8, 2017 20:22
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RagnarokAngel posted:I was a libertarian in high school (Though this was before I knew what that was so I didnt call myself that) and in retrospect my thought process was that by just allowing everyone to live life on equal terms without interference, things would just magically work out. this is arguably true because if you just take some humans and put them on an island somewhere one of two things will happen 1) they will form a small government to handle their needs and disputes 2) everyone gets murdered libertarianism is just questioning whether the government past humans felt was necessary enough to construct, is still necessary. it's a bit like questioning if you really need a parachute when you've already jumped from the plane
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Sep 8, 2017 21:26
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Which is what everyone always thinks anarchism is, even though that's usually more about building non-heirarchical non-state structures for groups of people who are being failed by the existing structures. And loving with landlords and banks.
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Sep 8, 2017 21:31
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I read a lot of hacker magazines and other alternative media zines and stuff in high school and followed the Sovereign citizen stuff a whole bunch but I still knew it was really stupid bullshit that would not work. I would like to thank Robert Anton Wilson for that.
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Sep 8, 2017 21:38
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Some regressives are just arrogant assholes that believe if they don't know it than no one else can know it. Like how Bill "fucks chickpeas" OReily doesn't believe in The Moon. Therefore Bible.
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Sep 8, 2017 22:05
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I guess reading an ironic version of Atlas Shrugged by RAW was really a good inoculation for me despite how close I played to the fire of conservative libertarianism and fiscal responsibility.
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Sep 8, 2017 22:20
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