Posted on 03/02/2011 10:15:59 PM PST by matt04
HARTFORD, Conn. -- A bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed legislation to prohibit price gouging for snow removal, flood abatement and other services.
To stop price gouging, which many say occurred during this winter's record snowfall and fears of roofs collapsing, lawmakers want to make the practice in emergency situations illegal. Those found price gouging would face a fine, according to the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfsb.com ...
Idiots. Price is the single best mechanism for efficient distribution of limited resources. Price “gouging” is a good thing.
I hear the sound of crashing roofs and cars as snow piles up on roofs and roads. The left never learns on price controls. Every leftist thinks that they have the secret to make price controls work.
So let me get this straight. They are going to make snow removal illegal in emergencies?
These legislators never worked a physical day in their in their lives.
No they would never do that ... you just can't charge for it
The public just needs to be informed.
Everyone in New England scrambled for roofs to be shoveled and raked this winter.
After the immediate emergency passed (where the MSM had scare stories of roof collapses and ‘get out there and rake your roof’) people started asking around how much each other paid for roof raking - the prices were all over the board - there was gouging - I know someone who paid $1000 - and it wasn’t a big or high roof. Others were paying $300-$500 for pretty much the same dimensions.
There were insured contractors and ‘guys with shovels’ everywhere without a clear gauge of even a ‘sort of’ fair price.
Doesn’t need to be a gouge law but informed consumers.
The marketplace should set the price, this year’s problem was there was no average market price known until too late.
I have my own roof-rake, it’s fun - rather do that than shovel the stupid driveway any day of the winter.
They passed a law like this in Texas when I lived there around 1982. It limited the amount a company could charge about the normal rate during and emergency. If I remember some plumbers were charging around $500 to $1000 show for frozen pipes. Normal rates were about $50 then.
You are so right! Prices are a measure of real value. If there had been “price gouging” for water, gasoline, and motel rooms after Katrina, scarce resources would have been allocated efficiently and supply would have increased.
When will people ever learn the basic laws of economics?
Insanity.
These are price controls, whcih lead to shortages.
While it REALLY sucks to be gouged for a desperately needed service, it REALLY SUCKS MORE not to be able to get that service at any price.
Sheer stupidity, which will certainly be cheered by the sheeple - until they are desperately in need of those services.
Too bad our NEA and govt employee union run schools don’t teach real history anymore, or people would know this...
Unlike those heathen, commie liberals...
Pretty ironic considering the Governor is raising prices (in the form of taxes & fees) during a time of economic crisis...
No they would never do that ... you just can’t charge for it
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Well you can get free phones with free air time, they are working on free internet for all, and as long as the Fed allows you to stay home and work on ‘weather days’ - (which before long that will be called a ‘perk for the rich’ cause I can’t afford a home computer and that ‘rich guy’ over there can work from home and I can’t get paid for that day) a free computer will be on everyones horizon.
So the solution for snow is if you have the equipment, you will be ‘forced’ to work for nothing...
Gee, who says anything is wrong with liberalism?
Lawmakers should get the real crooks in banking and wall street and not the little guy with no defense funds like the big boys.
“If the state can determine what is and isn’t price gouging for snow removal”
That’s easy: Was the removal done by a government employee who is a member of a union? It’s not gouging.
Was it done by an private individual or business? GOUGING!
See how it works?
It would only be a short step from this to having
to have UNION snow rakers before you could clear
your roof, of course you’d have to wait while
they clear the Mayor’s house, etc.
Premise fail. What libscum (and you apparently) call gouging is the reality of a suddenly maassively needed good or service matched to an inadequate supply.
What does “gouging” do? It rushes more supply to where ever the big bucks are to be made. Kill that, then more people starve, have their houses caved in by snow (up thread example), die of dehydration, etc.
Now can people be Christian and help their fellow man without “gouging”? Sure. But if the government puts on price controls, they simply will not be able to pick up the slack.
Want a prime example? Read some history about the bare shelves in the USSR. Or the mass starvation under Mao. Short version: price controls, even prettied up with “anti-gouging” language, literally ruin lives and often actually kill people.
Absolutely correct.
It is much better for government to set the price. That will work out great-until the sanctimonious hypocrites who lecture on the immorality of letting the market determine the price are unable to find anyone to do the job at the state mandated price.
I hope you’re in need of fresh drinking water after a natural disaster and are low on cash.
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