Posted on 05/24/2006 11:44:31 AM PDT by grundle
John Sheperson is a hero. When Hurricane Katrina struck, he turned on the news and learned that people in Mississippi had lost electric power. They desperately needed generators. He decided to help them, while helping himself.
He borrowed money, bought 19 generators, rented a U-Haul and drove it 600 miles to Mississippi, where he offered to sell the generators for twice what he paid for them. Eager buyers surrounded his truck. "People were excited," he said.
So did the generators go to hospitals? To nursing homes? Did they save lives? Did Mississippi officials give Sheperson a medal?
Nope. Instead, they locked him up — and his generators, too.
"Nobody got any use out of them," said Sheperson.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
So much for capitalism and free market in the police state of America.
John Stossel is the Ron Paul of media. Bless 'em both.
Government sucks. Law of supply and demand you idiots, let the market do it's job.
I'm liking John Stossel more and more. Too bad there aren't more like him in the lame-stream media.
If a bunch of other people had shown the same initiative and brought more generators to the area, he wouldn't have been able to demand such a price.
I'm afraid that socialism is overtaking America at an alarming rate. These people already had billions "donated" by other American taxpayers thanks to Congress. I guess they expect everyone to "donate" to them.
I am ashamed of Mississippi.
People who could afford to buy such generators could also afford to leave the area as they are not cheap to start with. IOW this was not an absolute necessity for survival such as food, drinking water, etc he was selling at twice the cost but a luxury for those with the money to leave who stayed behind or came back early. It's overkill. Who was to say if the man had not seen someone in medical need of such he would not have sold at cost, well below cost, or even gave one as it was his to do with.
Maybe Hood ought to focus on the big-time scam gougers first. Like the federal government, which had already collected colossal amounts of tax money from Mississippi residents, in part to fund money-pits like FEMA, which was nowhere to be found when the hurricane-ravaged residents needed delivery of the goods and services that they'd already paid through the nose for.
" He priced the product fairly high $1.50 a bottle."
Dang, water at a six flags is twice that price. This fellow could have gone a lot higher.
Right after Hurricane Floyd, one local tree skinner parked himself at a store in a rich town that had been hit pretty hard. I'm guessing he did a land office business and probably had himself a nice vacation. And nobody was damaged by it.
"Profiteering" is how you kick-start supplies of something scarce.
If you've got a supply of something thats scarce and hard to get, how are you going to replace your supply once its gone? At great cost and effort; but if you can get enough money for what you sell, it'll be worth it to go and get some more.
If your prices are ridiculously high, other folks are going to get into the game, and as supplies pour in, the price levels out at some reasonable figure.
If you don't want "profiteering", then you've resigned yourself to wait until the powers-that-be get around to solving your problem. You'll be standing on the corner with your hands in your pockets a long time at that rate.
More proof that the government does a horrible job at handling a disaster. I fear socialism is creeping ever so in America.
Givernment IS not "A" problem, Givernment IS the problem..
i.e. MULTIPLYED BILLIONS to rebuild an underwater city..
The Ingles stores in my area sell the small bottles {8-10 oz for $1.00 out of Coke machines. Sams Choice at Wally World vending is $.35 cents and taste better.
"I am ashamed of Mississippi."
Isn't Mississippi the state that has Cory Maye on death row for resisting home invasion? And a Republican governor?
After Ivan hit P-Cola I loaded 8 generators up and took them over there (along with my chain saw). When I got there I found gulf Breeze city hall and signed up for a business license (they decided not to collect the fee) and asked where to go with them. They said to make a sign and stand on the corner. I had GBPD, County & State Police as well as office of attorney general from Tallahassee stop to check my papers within the first hour (I sold two of them to LEO's).
I gave out copies of the receipts to each person who purchased them. I asked for selling price and anything extra to help with my gas for the trip, turned out I got about $50 per which was less than 10%. There is a cap on mark up, it makes sense.
What really pi$$ed me off was on my way out of town I stopped at little down town P-Cola hardware (been there for ever) and they were selling the exact same models for more than 200% mark-up (that's right). I traveled all the way over there to help the community and this guy was screwing his community. I whent through so much red tape and was told to stand on the side of the highway to sell them. Highway 29 was packed and there was no room on the shoulder for people to safely stop. I recommended that they establish a vendor market where folks like me and this guy could get a license, show purchase price +costs and sell in a controled environement.
Gotta go... more later.
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