The Official Florida Discussion Board

Does anyone work on South Beach? Call me an idiot but I picture girls in Bikinis all day and convertibles? Am I in a fantasy world or is this true?

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by team player

Admin..I have to disagree with you here....being from Florida where there are hurricanes, price gouging should not be encouraged. However, what many do fail to understand is that price gouging is really only looked at when the items in question are NECESSARY for general living (i.e. food, shelter, clothing, etc.). The last time I checked, you didn't need a rental car to survive. The price hike between Christmas and New Years is simple supply and demand. You don't want to pay 129.00/day for a Tahoe? fine the next guy in line will. I can't say that I agreed with this, but when I was with the company it wasn't frowned upon that my avg daily rate was over 45/day (it helped my paycheck). I almost made 60,000 that year! whoa not bad for working almost 80 week!! not!!!

"Price gouging" is a politically loaded term, typically used by people who don't want to have to pay a market price. And defining what's "necessary" for living is very squirrely. Someone could easily claim that without their promised rental car, they can't go food shopping, or pick up their kids, or evacuate, or whatever. As soon as you cordon off some goods or services as being "too important" to let the market set the price, then it doesn't take long before just about everything has a lobby demanding what they buy be included.

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.

All other things being equal, markets do this much better than legislators. Rather than protect us from market prices we don't like, I'd much rather see us protected from real harm, like lying to your customers and pulling a bait-and-switch.

[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.

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'm not a member of Castro's politburo, but do think you're way off base with your arguments here.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

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.

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.

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.

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

[JD Dude]

No problems here brutha. Any hurricane below Level 3 is a cakewalk despite all the sky is falling weathermen we deal with.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

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.



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.

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.



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

Here's an essay from the opinion page of today's Wall Street Journal. It echoes some of the ideas I expressed:


Hawaiian Nuts
August 26, 2005; Page A12
The silver lining of this year's rising oil and gas costs has been that politicians have resisted the temptation to impose price controls. A sign of growing economic literacy, we had hoped. But now comes the Hawaiian legislature, whose members have taken one too many spills off their boogie boards.

The Aloha State has just become the first since Jimmy Carter controlled White House thermostats to impose a cap on wholesale gasoline prices, effective September 1. The state's political wizards are offended that gasoline costs more on average in the islands ($2.84 a gallon) compared with the mainland ($2.61), and so are proposing to repeal the law of supply and demand in response. King Canute, please call your Honolulu office.

The specific plan is to fix the Hawaiian price to an index made up of average wholesale prices in certain parts of the U.S. mainland. But why stop there? If low gas prices are desirable, why not dictate that the price will be no more than $1 a gallon, or certainly no more than $2? That would certainly stick it to those alleged "gougers" in the oil industry.

The answer is that if prices are capped low enough, there will be no incentive to supply any gas at all to Hawaii. Refiners -- Hawaii has two -- will stop doing business at a loss, or stop investing to increase output, and the lines of drivers waiting at service stations for limited gas supplies will start to grow. All the more so since retail gas prices won't be capped, and thus prices at the pump will still rise as shortages develop. Our advice to Hawaiian drivers is to fill up fast, and we suggest the legislators call in residents of Eastern Europe for an economics lesson. They know all about shortages.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112501973427723806,00.html

Originally Posted by JD Dude

No problems here brutha. Any hurricane below Level 3 is a cakewalk despite all the sky is falling weathermen we deal with.

A hurricane is a hurricane no matter what category it is!! Either it did not affect you directly or you are lucky enough to live in a house that is well built, but to say a Cat 1 or Cat 2 is a cakewalk is horrible! Lives are still disrupted and people are killed.

We felt fortunate when Katrina dipped south after coming a shore b/c until she did that it looked like our house would be take a direct it, Andrew 13yrs ago was bad enough and we were on the north eyewall for that one. Unfortunately Miami got hit from corner to corner 13yrs & 1 day after Andrew. A lot of people thought, "its just a Cat 1", but after this I bet more people take it seriously.

[I am a Puppet at ERAC]

Figure It Out...if You Will Not Pay $129.00 For A Large Suv And You Want To Pay $45 Only You Better Be A Hot Chick Ready To Suck Some Massive Cock At Enterprise....no One Will Roll A Deal For $45 Dollars Some Other Dumbass Will Pay This Money You Are Just A Bullet Walking In The Door And At Erac We Dodge Dumb Fucks Like You You Make My Ipc And Paycheck Small We Like Stupid People Who Take Our Coverage

[godesss4]

HI everyone! Hope everyone is ok from the storm, I'm in Sarasota so we got lucky again. My friends in Miami don't have any power. I have a quick question, I quit in July but I just heard that Steve Mays retired and gave one day notice. (group 35, Ft Meyers-Bradenton, although I know that they just switched everything around) Anyone know anything about that? Seems kinda shady to me....

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I always wondered if the radical price increases for rental cars between Christmas and New Years would qualify as price gouging. The State of Florida has all kinds of laws set up for things like selling ice at $5 a bag after a hurricane, etc. If I remember correctly the law is something like you can not dramatically increase prices for short term profits. Any thoughts on this? Would this be worth reporting to the Attorney General?

Price gauging refers to an unforseen circumstance. Christmas and New Years are not unforseen circumstances.