Price gouging

[dead0man]

Hypothetical

Say there is a bad hurricane.  A guy in Dallas rents a U-Haul, buys 10 generators for $200 each, drives to the region without power and sells the generators for $400 each.  Is he an asshole or a saviour?

[SPC]

Neither. While I don't accept the liberal argument against price gouging, I don't buy into Randian egoism either. I will just say that he is providing a necessary service, and making a profit with it too.

[??????????]

It's ignorant, imho, but it's not really the states business to force him to stop. Use the media to warn the public about such an individual.

[John Dibble]

Well, some might say he's an asshole of the opportunist variety, but nothing he is doing is illegal nor is it necessarily unethical. Everyone has to make a living. So I would say neither.

[dead0man]

Damn it, why no red states?

[Ban my account ffs!]

The guy is a first class asshole, but I don't think it is immoral.  I mean.. he could stay home and not help anybody at all.  But he could sell the generators for that price to people with the means and then use the profits to go help those without... now that would be my kind of charity... everybody is happy in the end.

[tik 🪀✨]

He's an opportunistic jerk, but he's just an individual. I'd have a bigger problem with all of the local businesses getting together and deciding to gouge prices. That, of course, is illegal in many places.

[7,052,770]

He will answer for his sins on Judgment Day.

[dead0man]

He's an opportunistic jerk, but he's just an individual. I'd have a bigger problem with all of the local businesses getting together and deciding to gouge prices. That, of course, is illegal in many places.

I don't think local businesses should "get together", but raising prices during an emergency isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Think about it:
If your local store normally sells a 2pack of D batteries for $2 and an emergency comes, the first 3 or 4 jackasses into the store are going to buy all the batteries.  If the store doubles the price, maybe 7 or 8 jackasses can buy batteries.  Hording is a HUGE problem before and after emergencies, raising prices on oft horded objects reverses that. 

Consider hotel rooms inland of a hurricane landing.  The first family to the hotel is going to get 2 rooms for themselves, like they always do on vacation.  If the price of the hotel is double (or whatever the market will bare), that first family there is more likely to "toughen up" for the emergency and just get one room, clearing up a room for some lucky family later on.

The hotel and the store aren't doing this because of kindness, of course not, they are doing it to make money, but the end result is there is more to go around for everyone.  There would be ten fewer generators at the emergency if the guy in OP hadn't brought them there.  Greed can make people do a lot of good work.

[Ban my account ffs!]

He's an opportunistic jerk, but he's just an individual. I'd have a bigger problem with all of the local businesses getting together and deciding to gouge prices. That, of course, is illegal in many places.

I don't think local businesses should "get together", but raising prices during an emergency isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Think about it:
If your local store normally sells a 2pack of D batteries for $2 and an emergency comes, the first 3 or 4 jackasses into the store are going to buy all the batteries.  If the store doubles the price, maybe 7 or 8 jackasses can buy batteries.  Hording is a HUGE problem before and after emergencies, raising prices on oft horded objects reverses that. 

Consider hotel rooms inland of a hurricane landing.  The first family to the hotel is going to get 2 rooms for themselves, like they always do on vacation.  If the price of the hotel is double (or whatever the market will bare), that first family there is more likely to "toughen up" for the emergency and just get one room, clearing up a room for some lucky family later on.

The hotel and the store aren't doing this because of kindness, of course not, they are doing it to make money, but the end result is there is more to go around for everyone.  There would be ten fewer generators at the emergency if the guy in OP hadn't brought them there.  Greed can make people do a lot of good work.

Or you could just refuse to sell 35 packs of batteries to a customer.. say.. limit them to 3 or 4.

[dead0man]

He will answer for his sins on Judgment Day.

So you'd rather have no generators available to buy at all?  If you can't afford it, nobody else should be able have it either?  Are you suggesting he should have done it at cost?  But nobody was doing that and even if there was, is another 10 generators a bad thing?

[dead0man]

Or you could just refuse to sell 35 packs of batteries to a customer.. say.. limit them to 3 or 4.

Sure, that would be a nice thing to do.  Or keep a lot more batteries in stock.  And maybe some businesses would do that, but I don't think they should be forced to.

[War on Want]

Most people like that are super assholes but there are certainly worse. Pretty much the equivalent of an ambulance chaser lawyer that does it for all of the wrong reasons.

[Jake]

Is he allowed to add his transport costs on top of the cost of the generators? Driving a U-Haul from Dallas to the Gulf Coast will certainly add something to the price. What about the hours of labor? Is it price gouging if he sells them for $250 instead of $200?

[7,052,770]

He will answer for his sins on Judgment Day.

So you'd rather have no generators available to buy at all?  If you can't afford it, nobody else should be able have it either?  Are you suggesting he should have done it at cost?  But nobody was doing that and even if there was, is another 10 generators a bad thing?

Well I think the government should provide electricity in these situations.  If the government is incompetent and not doing it, then the guy may be doing them an overall favor, but he's still an asshole (and being an asshole is unquestionably a sin) for gouging them.

[Dan the Roman]

I think that provided you are not the only player in the market it is fine. On the other hand, if this guy bought up all the generators right before the hurricane and is refusing to sell them except at an incredibly exorbitant rate that is speculating and I believe it should(and I think is) illegal.

[Sbane]

I do not really care if he makes a modest profit just as long as he is not making exorbitant amounts of profit. But really think about the cost of the u-haul and gas prices. Just to recoup those costs he would have to sell the generators at a price some would consider price gouging. But doing something like that is actually good because he is providing a necessary service, as long as he isn't an asshole about it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He's not an asshole, but only because $400 is probably around what the price would be after shipping costs, etc. Now if you made it something like $1000, yes, he is.