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(Please don't flame me for this...just trying to give others a different perspective.)

I'm not against "price gouging"...I studied Marketing, believe in supply and demand pricing and was also an Ebay Powerseller selling collectible toys for obscene amounts of money.

If demand suddenly goes nuts and prices aren't allowed to increase to meet, you get a few early ppl who hoard (point proven); however if price goes up to match demand...let's say tp doubles in price...then the same hoarder has less interest in buying 20 packs and more likely would buy 7. Then next thing you know, there's 3x the supply to help meet demand. Is this ethical for low income ppl? No, but look at our situation now...can those same ppl find any tp at all? Additionally, the crazy-high demand creates more underground price gouging MUCH worse than what you see online and thus further encourages those with connections to interrupt supply (like they work in a tp warehouse) to make an easy profit...this has a viscious cycle effect and the short supply continually feeds the frenzy.

Plus only the "lucky" ones or those willing to wait in line for a long time get the item and others who are sane shoppers don't.

Even with price control and limiting # available to each customer (something stores should've done from the start), demand still remains so high and people are so panicked it can take months to return to normal. Time to look for old newspapers/phone books/Sears catalogs. o_O

BTW - I've argued with my wife over TP twice...I told her we should stock up before it's gone and she refused. I even have pics of fully stocked tp shelves at the Target by me. This was killing me since I'm a quasi-prepper. She would only let me buy 2 packs from each of the two stores we visited. She has since given me permission to say "I told you so".
 
And I will add, if this were to happen the black market would open up with pre 1964 coins (actual silver in them) and goods. There will be currency, it just may not be federally approved cents and dollars.

Also, if someone had stored up quantities before this no money goes into effect, and they still go to get more of TP or Eggs or bread who is going to know how much they have stored.

And since all this what if is caused by a little bug scaring everyone into staying mostly inside and away from work, what is going cashless do in this situation? The only reason some of the people at Walmart and the grocery store is there is because they have bills to pay. No reason to pay a bill, I would bet you may get 3 out of 100 that would actually show up for the possibility of getting ill for no pay.
 
All of this talk about overcharging in a crisis reminds me of a pipeline break years ago in Arizona. Gas disappeared in minutes as people found out and bought all they could, filling cars and gas cans. I was listening to a radio talk show the next day when a caller complained that she had driven from station to station looking for gas. No one had any. Then she finally found one that had gas but she was outraged that they were charging twice the price from a day earlier. She had to pay the outrageous price because she needed gas. It didn’t seem to occur to either her or the brain dead talk show host that the only reason she could buy her gas was that the station raised its price enough to prevent hoarders from buying it first. They had done her a favor and she didn’t know it. Price increases in response to a shortage can be a good thing.
 
A marketing consultant who I once worked with told me

"In a capitalistic system it is immoral not to charge what the market will bear"

The premise is that this allows the efficient allocation of capital and products and encourages innovation and new market entrants and supply which ultimately brings prices down to the economic minimum.
 
Oh, and the reason why free everything cannot work is because no one would bother to go to work.

Which means you would have no supply of water, power, medicine and food with the result that you would die.
 
Woman goes into a butcher shop to buy pork chops.

Price is $4/lb

She cries, “$4/lb! The guy across the street was selling these for $2/lb!”

Butcher says, “Why didn’t you but them from him?”

“Because he’s out of pork chops,” she replies

Butcher retorts, “Lady, when I run out I will change my price to $1/lb.”
 
jderimig said:
A marketing consultant who I once worked with told me

"In a capitalistic system it is immoral not to charge what the market will bear"

The premise is that this allows the efficient allocation of capital and products and encourages innovation and new market entrants and supply which ultimately brings prices down to the economic minimum.
Click to expand...


I never argued against capitalism, all I said was a plan for an emergency to keep industries up and running
 
Wow, this thread.
Just want to throw in my 2 cents here (couldn't resist) for the OP about what currency is. Currency is nothing more than a baseline for a barter system. Consider an isolated society that eats bread as a staple. With bartering alone, sometimes trade negatively impacts people who's goods are not in demand at the moment. So this society trades in wheat grain, and the standard unit is about half a pound.
Wheat berries will keep for 10 years or more without much special care. So a woodcutter can sell planks and firewood while stocking up on grain. He can share a portion of it with a miller to make him flour, and likewise provide grain to a baker to make bread for his family. But...he still needs to "sell" wood in the winter to keep those other people warm in their huts.
This is a naive example, but it's intent is to consider the source of money. Money, even fiat currency, isn't some arbitrary concept without a cause. We use it to determine the relative values of hard work, production, food, raw goods, consumer products, etc. If you make $100 per day, and buy a $300 rocket kit, then you are in essence trading 3 days of work for your rocket kit, and you don't need to spend those three days working at a rocket supplier.
So this concept of "free?" That's why communism seems to fail everywhere it goes, because free can't really exist. Even beggars spend their time to obtain goods (money or otherwise), and time is our most precious resource.
Venezuela has an interesting economy that you might look at as a sort of communist/social example. Gas was 10cents/gallon the last time I was in that part of the world. They have certain government controlled and regulated industries.
 
Josh Kellogg said:
I never argued against capitalism, all I said was a plan for an emergency to keep industries up and running
Click to expand...

A less flawed but still flawed plan nevertheless is to print money out of thin air to keep industry going. (which in the long run is equivalent of working for nothing)
 
Let’s look at TurboTax “free, free, free, free” commercial.

Intuit, the company that makes TurboTax, obviously doesn’t do your taxes out of the goodness of their hearts. For every return they process, the federal government awards them a fee. Where does the federal government get the money to pay that fee? From citizens like you.

Now, government may SAVE money compared with having to hire federal employees to process paper returns. But in any case, be VERY suspicious when anyone says something is “free.”
 
NateB said:
I didn't think troll bait right away, but thought of the post-scarcity economy of Star Trek. Even temporary, I don't think it work as selfishness and greed are survival traits of most animals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics
Click to expand...
Yeah, the Star Trek complete lack of any clear economic system was right up there with every ship including the shuttles having artificial gravity as more fantasy than sci fi.
 
BABAR said:
Yeah, the Star Trek complete lack of any clear economic system was right up there with every ship including the shuttles having artificial gravity as more fantasy than sci fi.
Click to expand...


My goodness, I didn't even realize it was a star trek thing. Im not really a star trek guy. Goes to prove to me that though it may feel like I came up with something new, someone has already been there. Dang.
 
In the Star Trek universe, resources are plentiful and many tasks are automated or created out of thin air. Roddenberry imagined a world where people would work only for the respect of others. Of course, respect then becomes a form of currency and would still generate a class system.
 
NateB said:
In the Star Trek universe, resources are plentiful and many tasks are automated or created out of thin air. Roddenberry imagined a world where people would work only for the respect of others. Of course, respect then becomes a form of currency and would still generate a class system.
Click to expand...


I never even knew it was part of star trek. I've only seen a couple of the movies years ago, and never realized this was a thing. So much for an original idea. Guess we gotta wait a little longer to solve the worlds problems :p
 
Josh Kellogg said:
So I am not attempting to point any fingers, or attack anyone. I'm not saying that this is how it should be. I'm genuinely asking this because I just thought of this and wonder whether it would work to help people out during this crisis.

What if, during a crisis like this, and a crisis only, the government mandated that in order to keep all industries from going bankrupt and the world economy tanking, that everything be free?

Everyone works all day like normal for free, and also gets what they need in life for free. Products get sold for free, and can get the needed supplies to be made for free. And of course to prevent people taking advantage, be limited to how much they can get, and have to prove that what they want is a necessity as dictated by the private company.

Could currency be temporarily suspended during a crisis in order to keep society functioning properly, and just have currency be reintroduced when the crisis is over? And I'm not saying government seize everything, I'm saying that everything is private and operates as normal, but without the need for currency temporarily?

I don't intend this to push any perspective. I'm honestly just curious if it could even work, and y'all are smart.
Click to expand...

As said before, this has been tried before and failed. Someone has to make it and someone had to carry it the stores. Someone has to stock the shelves and run the register. All will need to and rightly expect to be paid. Our economy is not some Star Trek Utopian society. People are motivated to work and it is stimulated by the dollar. Things will not end well if we suspend or freeze the value of the dollar for any extended period of time.
 
Josh, you sound like a young, idealistic guy. Have you studied communism at all? Its a system that has killed close to a quarter BILLION people since it was introduced, and nobody has ever gotten it to work - maybe it works for the guys at the top of the ladder, but for the common man? Just creates misery and suffering, and kills people in huge numbers.

If, after studying it, you are still an advocate, perhaps consider taking a year-long vacation in such paradises as Venezuela, North Korea, or even Cuba. See how it really works, not how it goes in some college textbook from a socialist professor. I hear the climate there is nice.
 
Bill S said:
Josh, you sound like a young, idealistic guy. Have you studied communism at all? Its a system that has killed close to a quarter BILLION people since it was introduced, and nobody has ever gotten it to work - maybe it works for the guys at the top of the ladder, but for the common man? Just creates misery and suffering, and kills people in huge numbers.

If, after studying it, you are still an advocate, perhaps consider taking a year-long vacation in such paradises as Venezuela, North Korea, or even Cuba. See how it really works, not how it goes in some college textbook from a socialist professor. I hear the climate there is nice.
Click to expand...


Did you read the thread dude. Trust me, I don't advocate for it. It doesn't work, and I never said it did. The idea isn't communism or socialism and I explained it clearly in the thread. Apparently the idea is trekonomics from star trek and I didn't even realize it. Already discussed. Trust me, I know what failures those countries are.
 
In time money will be eliminated. Look at the way Society is now we hardly use any Hard Cash for anything it's debit cards credit cards online banking. The world is coming to an end whether you guys believe it or not.
 
AfterBurners said:
In time money will be eliminated. Look at the way Society is now we hardly use any Hard Cash for anything it's debit cards credit cards online banking. The world is coming to an end whether you guys believe it or not.
Click to expand...
None of those things do anything whatsoever to eliminate money.
 
KenECoyote said:
(Please don't flame me for this...just trying to give others a different perspective.)

I'm not against "price gouging"...I studied Marketing, believe in supply and demand pricing and was also an Ebay Powerseller selling collectible toys for obscene amounts of money.

If demand suddenly goes nuts and prices aren't allowed to increase to meet, you get a few early ppl who hoard (point proven); however if price goes up to match demand...let's say tp doubles in price...then the same hoarder has less interest in buying 20 packs and more likely would buy 7. Then next thing you know, there's 3x the supply to help meet demand. Is this ethical for low income ppl? No, but look at our situation now...can those same ppl find any tp at all? Additionally, the crazy-high demand creates more underground price gouging MUCH worse than what you see online and thus further encourages those with connections to interrupt supply (like they work in a tp warehouse) to make an easy profit...this has a viscious cycle effect and the short supply continually feeds the frenzy.

Plus only the "lucky" ones or those willing to wait in line for a long time get the item and others who are sane shoppers don't.

Even with price control and limiting # available to each customer (something stores should've done from the start), demand still remains so high and people are so panicked it can take months to return to normal. Time to look for old newspapers/phone books/Sears catalogs. o_O

BTW - I've argued with my wife over TP twice...I told her we should stock up before it's gone and she refused. I even have pics of fully stocked tp shelves at the Target by me. This was killing me since I'm a quasi-prepper. She would only let me buy 2 packs from each of the two stores we visited. She has since given me permission to say "I told you so".
Click to expand...

I'm in full agreement here. There's actually no such thing as Price Gouging. Free Enterprise should be left alone and if it were then the following would have happened:

1) As people started to stock up on toilet paper the shelves would begin to empty and the grocery stores would increase the price, maybe doubling it.
2) More people come in to buy toilet paper and see the increased price and decide that instead of getting 20 packs maybe they could do with only 5 for now.
3) The shelves eventually empty so the price goes up when new stock arrives, and now it's about 3 times as much as it was.
4) Toilet paper still sells a lot, but shelves aren't empty nearly as quickly and more people now have toilet paper in their house. This is the point where people against this happening have to ask themselves, would you rather have zero toilet paper available at the original price, or some available at 3 times the price?
5) Toilet paper manufacturers go into overdrive to make more toilet paper because it's now selling at a much higher price and the grocery stores will definitely pay more to them. Now the supply increases to meet demand.
6) Eventually, probably within weeks of the "hoarding" starting (which others call stocking up so they can responsibly stay at home and away from the store), the price comes back down to less than 2 times the normal price but still higher than normal. People have as much available to them as they want. Customers are happy to have toilet paper, grocery stores are happy to sell it, and manufacturers are happy to make extra.
7) Finally the price settles back to normal and everyone continues to buy toilet paper normally because everyone has plenty. And those that stock up for long periods of time do so spread out over time instead of on the same days so the shelves never empty again.

I can do a similar break down with anything else where "price gouging" is prevented. Hurricanes hit an area and power is out for a month - gas generators will go way up in price and more will be brought in to sell at these higher prices. Eventually price comes back down and anyone that wants one has some available. However, if prices are artificially kept low the generators will sell out quickly and no more will be available at the regular price or any price. Potential customers sit at home in the dark, happy that they weren't "gouged".
 
Last edited:
Capitalism, like republican (small r) form of democracy, is far from perfect but over the long run it tends to be better than the alternatives. It is also the system that fits human nature the best.

In short term crises, capitalism can be slow to “catch up.” Printing money and sending checks to everyone under a certain income isn’t “capitalism”, it is in a way what you are suggesting, a suspension of the current system that is both compassionate and practical. It isn’t “free”, either the dollar gets devalued and/or the debt (CONTINUES) to increase, so somewhere down the road “somebody” is going to pay the piper, but right now we HAVE to keep people fed, clothed, and housed as best we can (and our record on that certainly isn’t perfect even in a booming economy.)

To my knowledge no one is being denied care for Covid 19 infections (part of
Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA)
), so we have suspended Capitalism there as well. Some of this may be recouped by those with insurance, much is going to be “written off”, and that’s okay for a crisis situation, it is not sustainable over decades.

There are now and always have been opportunities for people with more to share with those who have less. This is called “kindness” or “charity” when it is done voluntarily, it is called “communism” or “socialism” or better described as “theft” when money is forcibly taken from one group and given to another.

Stay safe, practice social distancing, keep in phone or FaceTime or whatever contact with the elderly and isolated, donate to local food banks, do what you can to be part of the solution. We WILL get through this, although we are going to lose some precious people in the process, we can reduce the number we lose and support each other as we go through this crisis.

Air Force Academy lost two cadets due to suicide. Don’t know the details, but the isolation from social distancing probably didn’t help. So reach out to those you can to let them know they are thought of and important. Make a difference. In the words of Churchill, this may be our “finest hour.”
 

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