Re: Price gouging is beneficial. Price gouging is great!

"Robert N. Newshutz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> "Robert N. Newshutz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Byron Canfield" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>If price gouging were limited to disaster areas, perhaps the support of it
>>>>>would no be so questionable, but that is typically where it occurs.
>>>>
>>>>Whenever a libertoonian posts that kind of tripe, I am moved to pray
>>>>that they are struck destitute, left handicapped, or otherwise suffer
>>>>some sort of problem wherein their mere existence requires the support
>>>>of society.  
>>>>
>>>>Whereupon society should "gouge" them.
>>>>
>>>>Then I remember that I am a Christian.
>>>
>>>On 9/11 I decided to top off my gas tank, just in case. I was 
>>>disuaded by the newly elevated "gouging" price.
>>>
>>>"Price gouging" is an effective means of countering hording.
>> 
>> I don't think it is.  Allowing price gouging merely encourages people
>> to attempt to corner the market on needed supplies, whereupon they can
>> hoard goods until the price reaches truly exorbitant levels.
>> 
>>>Do you have an alternative solution to hording?
>> 
>> No.  But hoarding is at best a secondary problem in a crisis.  making
>> sure that everyone has food, clothing, and shelter is preeminent, and
>> I for one would have no problem with government confiscation of vital
>> supplies from both hoarders and gougers in an emergency, providing
>> that compensation at fair market value is given after the fact in
>> accordance with due process. 
>> 
>> For this I will surely be called a totalitarian fascist, but I don't
>> much care.  Private property rights are secondary in a true emergency
>> where lives are at stake.
>> 
>> (If it matters, my stance on this derives from gougers who trucked in
>> water after the last big LA earthquake, and claimed it was moral to
>> turn away the thirsty. 
>
>I do not think that you have provided an example of cornering the 
>market,

I did not claim that I did.  I found the attitudes expressed at that
time to be of subhuman morality.  My own feelings on the matter, and
my utter antipathy to libertarianism, came as a result. 

>was there only one trucking firm that brought in water?

Doesn't matter.  It is possible that one could control the market
sufficiently to drive up prices due to the shortage without a total
monopoly. That one would try to deny others the necessities of life in
an emergency in the interests of profit, makes one morally subhuman.

>However, your example does show that private sources were faster 
>than public ones in providing water.

I'm not sure that they were.

>Would it have been better if they had stayed home and not brought 
>water into LA?

It would have been better if they had a shred of human decency.

>> By contrast, in the recent Isabel storm,
>> electric companies bought up all the dry ice available for hundreds of
>> miles around and distributed it for free on a rationing basis.
>
>Good for them, charity is often an appropriate response to tragedy. 

It is the ONLY appropriate response to tragedy.  Libertarians prefer
greed, however.

>Were these utilities government run or private companies?

Utilities are (in this country) by their nature private companies with
strong governmental regulation.

>> They
>> may have been less than ideally efficient on getting the power back,
>> but at least they did take the immoral corner the market and then rip
>> everyone off stance that most libertarians think is perfectly fine.
>
>Your ignorace of the libertarian position hurts your credibility.
>
>Libertarians do not think it is fine to "corner the market" and then 
>"rip everyone off", because force is needed to "corner the market" 
>and/or to prevent competition which would spoil "rip everyone off".

Libertarians aren't afraid to use force.  They're just afraid of a
more powerful force countering their use of force (i.e. government).
They also think that the only kind of force that matters to morality
is the kind that results in immediate lethal injury.

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org