Posted on 08/29/2017 7:40:46 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
What should be the reaction to price gouging for Harvey?
I believe in the law of supply and demand, the more the need the higher the price.
That being said, what I don't condone is those that create shortages by burying up the local stocks and then gouging the prices.
But I do condone person X transporting needed supplies into affected area, and getting what he can for those supplies. In fact, I would encourage that. Have the monetary incentive to get the supplies to the area, do not expect Walmart to disrupt their profit margin by changing distribution methodology with no additional gain.
Thousands were fleeing Harvey. This Texas hotel started nearly tripling room prices
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article169921137.html#storylink=cpy
Price gouging in Alabama could get you prison time. And that’s the way it should be. Creeps trying to take advantage of people in dire need should get out of the way and let those really trying to help get through.
A nearby Hampton Inn (not anywhere near Houston) is charging $300 per night over the Labor Day weekend due to the many events here in town. Is this “gouging”? Or a rational reaction to supply and demand?
Economically illiterate policy that is harmful. Plays well on CNN, though.
Economically illiterate policy that is harmful. Plays well on CNN, though.
Yeah, cause all those people running in cars and having left everything they own behind are just flush with cash.
There is no such thing as price gouging. It is an invention of the left. There is only supply and demand.
-—there is no such thing as price “gouging” —anything is worth what people are willing to pay for it—and high prices are what bring in supplies of any kind , which results in lower prices-—
That being said, in this day and age of social media, there will be long-term ramifications for such short-sightedness.
Best Western worked with the individual hotels to refund those that were gouged.
You should be hurting ...
Yep hotels do this. I travel on business a lot, and stay at Hampton Inns or Holiday Inns. The price of one of my favorite hotels doubles during the summer.
I have colleagues in Arizona traveling there, who tell me of huge price differences between summer and their winter tourist season there. Nobody wants to go to Phoenix in July, so there are some nice bargains at that time for hotels. But the same place in December will cost you a fortune.
It’s a tough call. Needless to say, the EASY WAY to deal with gouging is to BE PREPARED, rather than waiting until 10 minutes before the storm hits.
The people complaining about the price of fuel, water, and food COULD have bought a bunch of that a month ago, or even a few days before the storm...but were too lazy to do that. They wanted to ‘be sure’ that the storm was real.
There are some exceptions for this storm, but not many. The only one that comes to my mind is people needing to run generators...eventually they will run out of fuel. But just about everything else can easily be stored to survive 7 days.
Perhaps it’s time for all of us to live up to the Burning Man theme of Extreme Self-Reliance, or at least minimal self-reliance.
It’s pure evil. Locusts.
Go back to bed.
There is no such thing as price gouging. It is an invention of the left. There is only supply and demand.
Those that bought up the local stocks were probably able to do so because of price gouging rules that prevented the stores from raising their prices, thus someone can buy more than they need to sell later at a higher price.
Price gouging laws create artificial scarcity.
Regarding hotels - if you don’t allow them to raise prices at times like these, then a family gets two rooms instead of cramming into only one because it is too expensive. This leads to a shortage of rooms.
I have been hurting. Lived through flooding in Missouri and most recently in Norther Colorado.
It turns out that Louisiana has (or at least had) a law prohibiting price gouging in times of emergency. When we were picking up from Hurricane Andrew, a man came into St. Mary’s Parish with a trailer full of ice and was charging an outrageous price. A state policeman came by and reminded the man of the law. He then told the man that he could either give the ice to these nice people or go to jail - his choice. The man saw reason, and none of the locals had to “persuade” him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.