Re:Amazon sellers marking products as collectible to get aro...
by ggreer on Friday May 29, 2020 @11:49PM
(#23358312)
People used to do this as recently as the 1990s. They'd buy supplies like ice and generators, transport them to the disaster area (often clearing any debris in the road so they could get in, which helps everyone, including emergency vehicles), then sell them at market prices.
They were arrested for their efforts: https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging....
So now instead of letting incentives help them, people in disasters have to rely on charity and the state. (Both of which can do their job in addition to market incentives.) The end result tends to be more shortages rather than fewer.
I don't think the hospitals that are in the midst of an outbreak that is at the same time destroying their normal revenue streams are the ones most able to purchase gouged merchandise, and yet they are most certainly examples of where it is needed most.
>It absolutely does. Before the anti-gouging laws, when there was a hurricane, people outside the zone would fill up all their gas cans, get supplies, etc., then drive into the zone and sell them for high prices.
I have never heard of such a thing. In fact, what I typically see in disasters is something nearly the opposite: groups of people outside the impacted area often gather donations, pool them them, and bring them to the impacted area to donate them.