I think it is wrong to jack up the price of something just because people are desparate for it due to a disaster. I'd feel the same way about someone charging $50 for a bottle of water when there was no other way to get water, or lumber increasing in price 50x immediately before or after a hurricane when people are desparately trying to protect their homes or at least what is left of them.
Doesn’t the very fact that they are desperate, in your words, prove the market price is higher?
Of course I believe the market should dictate the price of things. But in disaster situations, taking advantage of people's desparation is simply immoral. If the airlines always made the profit margin they made on these seats, then so be it. But to jack up the price so significantly during a crisis is plain wrong.
What do you want, exactly?
I'd like to see people in the United States have better morals.
For the airline to ration seats but not profit from it?
Oh, please. The airlines were profiting at their normal prices. As to "allocating" the seats, they should have handled it like always - the seat goes to the first one to purchase it.
Wouldn’t that just be the winners exploiting all remaining desperate people?
I have no idea what "winners" you are talking about. If you are refering to the people who purchased a ticket before the seats were sold out, that is nothing new, and it is not exploitive.
I can understand why that’s necessary, given the delusions of people like you over the phantom distinction between profiting and “profiteering.”
So taking advantage of desperate people in a natural disaster situation is simply "making a profit" to you. Good grief.
They are not jacking up the price because people are desperate, they are determining a price that, if met, will compensate them for being able to offer a service that no one else can offer.
It will encourage other suppliers to do the same.
That's a perfect example of why prices fluctuate in free markets. If the price of lumber didn't increase, a few people could buy up all the available lumber in a local market without concern for waste. Price changes in such circumstances are not so much for profit, but to allocate scarce resources.
Someone could go out and buy 200 flashlights. If the price of flashlights rose in times of emergency, maybe that person buys only 3, which leaves 197 available for others.
Or hotel rooms. Maybe a family of six would like six hotel rooms, but with increased prices they share one or two rooms. The hotel can then take in a lot more people.
Read Thomas Sowell's book on economics -- the beginning is all about scarcity of resources and how to best distribute them. There are different economic theories, and a popular one in the United States is a free market.
So you think economic laws should be suspended in times of “desperation” and “disaster.” Leave aside for the moment who defines what’s a disaster and the fact that I think we’ve officially been in an emergency as a nation since 1933 to justify government saving us from the evil market. You don’t seem to realize how it would hurt the desperate fir prices to take no cognizance of supply and demand in time of disaster. I don’t think I can explain it, except to say that there’s no reason why, for instance, airlines should suddenly become charities because of desperation. That’s merely a redistribution of suffering.
You think the market should dictate prices, just not during a disaster. Well, I say that’s immoral because it’s all the more important for markets to be free when need is most acute.
Better morals to you sounds like stupider morals to me. I do not worship the god Efficiency. For instance you should not be able to hire a murderers just because you’re willing to lay. But for the things we should be allowed to buy, I recognize no moral principle restricting what sellers can charge. Buyers can take it or leave it, and if they’re willing to pay that is the market price. Yes, even in a time of disaster. Especially in times of disaster.
“The airlines were profiting at their normal prices”
Not to profit from rationing seats according to the market conditions at the time, obviously I meant. Which means by charging a higher price and thereby profiting more. You wouldn’t want them to do that, though, which means you don’t want them to ration. You may not realize it, but that’s exactly the outcome of your supposedly moral stance in favor of customers. You would virtually guarantee less desperate people would crowd out more desperate.
“As to ‘allocating’ the seats, they should gave handled it like always—the seat goes to the first one to purchase it.”
Okay, so you’re not a lottery advocate like some.
The “winners” are the ones who won the lottery, should there have been one.
Yes, taking advantage of people is making a profit. That’s what businesses exist for: to take advantage of need. Airlines jack prices up during disasters to take advantage of demand just like the grocery store takes advantage of your wanting to eat. This doesn’t suddenly become a bad thing just because you really, really want it instead of wanting it.
Oh please. You are completely deluded. It is actually immoral NOT to jack up prices. The rise in prices guarantees a wider distribution to those who have the greatest utility for the product.
Keeping prices low encourages hoarding and results in less product being available.
Please spare us from your inflated sense of moral superiority lololol
Would you load up a truck with lumber, drive all night into the path of a hurricane to deliver lumber to people "desperate" to save their homes if you stand the change of getting arrested for "price gouging?" And yet, that is EXACTLY what people "desperate" to save their homes need people to do.