First of all, JD Dude, I seem to recall you live in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area so I hope you're doing well in this current hurricane. The fact that you're online, with power and Internet connectivity, is a good sign.
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| Originally Posted by JD Dude "I stand by my argument. Ice costs $5/bag after a hurricane? Put the word out, and I guarantee people will stock up on ice before the next hurricane and people will rush from neighboring counties with truckloads full of the stuff"
Come on admin, where's your compassion? When you have a hurricane, you lose power, thus the ice you stocked up on is now water. That's a pretty conservative argument for someone from San Fran! lol. |
Anybody who tries to predict my politics based on my zip code is drawing conclusions where they're not warranted. A more liberal response to my problems with Enterprise would be to sue or to demand the government step in on my behalf. Instead, all I'm doing is making honest public statements about my personal experiences and trying to effect change that way.
I'm actually a fairly compassionate guy, and that's why I prefer letting markets handle problems like this. Sure, if you were to mandate price caps on ice after a hurricane, some people would get ice cheaply, but the supply would quickly dry up, and you'd have an awful lot of people getting all the benefits of low-priced ice with the only problem being there is no ice. There is a 4,000 year history of price controls leading to shortages and shortages are most uncompassionate.
If we were to apply the same logic to the currently high gasoline prices, the story would go like this: somebody passes a law saying that gasoline can't go over $1/gallon. They argue they do this out of compassion for people who need to buy gas. What happens? Refiners and suppliers stop producing. Sure, gasoline costs only $1/gallon, but there's simply none available. Everybody's screwed, and arguing "But gasoline is only $1/gallon!" is no solace when there's no gas to be had.
You can mandate that ice prices not rise, but if you're not also willing to also mandate that ice suppliers are forced to supply it (which would really be crazy), you're going to have shortages.
So we get to make a public policy choice here. I think it's better to have $5/bag ice available rather than $1/bag ice with none available.
Also, the rumors of $5/bag ice will lead to a greatly increased supply of ice, which will bring the price down. Government is particularly ineffective after a disaster, so what we need is a system that encourages citizens to help out. Using a profit motive to encourage people to flood the area with trucks full of emergency supplies sounds like good public policy to me.
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| Originally Posted by JD Dude What about the gas stations that charged $6 a gallon right after the 9-11 attacks? There was no shortage of fuel, yet they seized on this tragedy to stick it to the consumer. |
I don't know about this example, but why didn't people just go to another gas station? This problem seems like it would be self-correcting.
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| Originally Posted by JD Dude I'm not a member of Castro's politburo, but do think you're way off base with your arguments here. |
I believe I have an argument that out of compassion for hurricane victims, we should let the market set the price for ice, chain saws, flashlights, batteries, plywood, etc. because that's the best way to ensure an ample supply and efficient use of these critical resources.
Putting price controls on these emergency supplies is effectively saying that out of compassion for people of the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, we're going to saw off those rungs.
Again, I'm glad to see you survived Katrina intact. What was it like when it came ashore?
Admin