See? This is what I mean. It’s not the fault of the consumers at all. It’s all on the providers. They failed. It’s their fault, not the consumer’s
The only way?
No.
Maybe don’t have one pipeline providing product to 1/2 of your customers. Maybe don’t rely on “just in time” delivery of your raw materials.
These shortages are not consumers induced, and yet consumers are blamed (with words like “panic” and “hording”) and they’re penalized (with price gouging and rationing.) And, yes, @Ruken, we are debating blame and penalty.
When things like this happen. It’s always “an unfortunate situation” for the manufacturers/providers and if the consumers were to just “act rationally” they could mitigated the problem. Well, that’s ass backwards. It’s time to recognize that the system doesn’t work. It’s time to insist that the manufacturers/providers be the ones who act rationally and pay the penalties to help alleviate the unfortunate situation they created and put the consumers in.
I’d be too, which is why I asked about the rules above.
Folks clearly have different views on “reasonable”. If someone’s willing to truck it in for a buyer willing to pay for it, I don’t think you or I should stand in the way.
I see hoarding as a fault of the consumers. It’s a reaction to a problem that wasn’t originally their fault but hoarding only makes it worse. Allowing prices to go up might have stopped some of the hoarding, which would have alleviated some of the problems.
Price controls or rationing are both govt interference in the free market. Your OP doesn’t preclude rationing, it seems to criticize the govt for not doing so.
I didn’t take it to mean that, and I have no idea how you could have come to that conclusion.
I have no idea what you think is contradictory in that. 10 gallons is enough to get me through a week, unless I am making unnecessary trips. That’s pretty simple and straightforward to me, I don’t know what is causing your confusion.
I’m gonna need a cite for where I said that it is perfectly inelastic.
It’s pretty common among the consumers who need to buy gas in order to get to work. Those are the people that we are talking about.
Those are options for a minority of people, and we are talking about people in the aggregate.
Both of those are due to fear. The first is playing on the fears of others, and “getting while the getting is good” is specifically a fear that the getting won’t be good later.
Those who plan to buy and sell at outrageous prices later will take into account that the outrageous prices they can sell it for will be higher than what they are paying now.
Or a limit.
People are paying for these goods. They aren’t free. And yes, pricing does influence some buyers, but not all.
Some will make do with less, and make it work. Some will take more, because they can. And some will go without, because they don’t have access. It’s that last group that subsidizes the prior groups in a price gouging situation.
But not all consumers are hoarders. You are punishing the >90% for the actions of the <10%.
The very reason for this thread is that the powers that be are not asleep, only that they have made a decision that you (and I, for that matter) disagree with. By the same powers that they implemented price control, they could have implemented rationing.
You are making two assertions here, neither of them valid. The first assertion is that I get to choose. Most likely, if I hurry and panic buy myself, then I get part of what I want at a price I cannot afford. If I don’t panic buy, then it’s all gone anyway, or at an even higher price.
Do you think that the price will just go up once in such a situation? As the gas supplies get lower, the price will continue to climb, until that last gallon goes out for some ridiculous sum.
The second assertion is that those are the only options, there is an entire excluded middle that you refuse to acknowledge.
Honestly, if those are the only options that you can consider, then I don’t think that there is any possibility that this conversation has any further productivity. It was interesting, I thought, as we were discussing govt policy and where it failed the consumer, but since it’s just your soapbox to proclaim the wonders of price gouging, I think I have nothing left to contribute.
If in order to fulfill this temporary shortage, we pay tanker drivers the proceeds that come from $10 a gas, do we keep it at that price after the supply has stabilized in a couple of weeks? Do we pay all the drivers that wage, or do we lay these highly paid truck drivers off once the crisis is over.
One thing about this is that it is a temporary shortage. Making long term changes in order to deal with this could have consequences that last much longer than the shortage does.
I see hoarding as a fault of hoarders. If a consumer is not hoarding, then other people hoarding is not that person’s fault.
My two corner stations have no gas. I am suffering an adverse consequence, but I am not being penalized, any more than I was rewarded by the decades of low prices offered by the lean but less resilient supply chain. Nor would I be punished if they had raised prices appropriately to reflect supply and demand.
Ok, sure, but how does that help us solve the problem? If we don’t stop hoarders than a lot of consumers are screwed because no gas is available at any price. HMS contends (and I agree) that if we had let the price go up it would have limited the hoarders, resulting in more gas available for the non-hoarding consumers. Yes, they have to pay more but I would guess almost all would say it’s better than no gas.
Freezing the price and NOT forcing rationing just makes the problem much worse.
As HMS says, much of this was bought to sell at outrageous prices later. It may have reduced the hoarding a little, but not by much, and would just mean that the secondhand gas market is even more expensive when it runs out.
If I make a good six figure income, then $2 or $20 gas doesn’t make that much of a difference to me. What makes a difference is if I don’t have it, so I’m willing to pay $20 to buy as much, or more, as I would in normal times.
There will always be someone willing to pay for it, all price gouging means is that those who need it won’t be able to get it. The idea that it only goes to who needs it most is a fairy tale. It goes to who can afford it, which doesn’t align often with who actually needs it.
Well, like I said, rationing should be in use, not enforcing rationing is the failure. But that’s apparently not what the OP wanted to talk about. So, I think I’m done.
Maybe some other point we can start up a thread like Resolved: Price gouging can be prevented by the government by enforcing rationing during a crisis.
“We” don’t do anything because neither you nor I are part of that decision, outside of interference at the consumer price level. Temporary work often carries a premium. But if folks can still make a buck paying that premium, they will. Which is why I’m currently employed.
“We” never do anything at all, we debate on a messagebaord what other people should do, and in that process occasionally pretend that we are those people who have the power to implement the things that we discuss as a rhetorical device.
But, anyway, these are people with jobs now. What pay could you offer to get them to work for a couple of weeks, with no guarantee of going back to their old jobs once this gig is over?
It’s simple and straightforward to me that a consumer could economize as you’ve described. Actually my whole thesis rests on the notion that consumers can (and will) adapt their consumption when prices are higher. So I’m confused by the other 97 places in the thread where you insist that consumers can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t have to do just that. Can’t cut their mileage, can’t carpool, can’t change their scheduling, can’t take high prices on the chin for a week or so, can’t take a bus. Nothing.
Which leads me to this strange nugget:
It’s true that free will is an illusion, but here in this message-board thread we’re discussing scenarios we prefer. It’s a free country, you can choose what your preferences are! I’m just attempting to discern yours!
I can’t rightly acknowledge it if nobody mentions it, now can I? What excluded middle are you talking about? Are you talking about rationing again, which I stated I’d energetically support but didn’t include because it’s neither in my hypothetical nor real situation that I’m discussing here?
Maybe you’re right, maybe a better thread title would be “The government should use a heavier hand in rationing spot shortages because the alternatives are tolerating price gouging, and total outages, which I have listed in descending order of badness.” Having Kemp in mind, I thought it obvious: rationing isn’t on the table, therefore by announcing cost reductions he made the problem so much worse than it needed to be. First by by precluding rationing, second by signaling alarm, third by stoking demand via lowering the cost, fourth by imposing price controls. And I guess fifthly by doing all that, and then begging people not to hoard, which… dude, come on.
The same as any job: the market clearing one. Nobody is going to give a specific number here. And it’s not even really temporary anyway. Finished gasoline production peaked just under 10.4 MMBPD two summers ago. It was back up to 9.6 MMBPD earlier this month after dropping 40%. So down <8%, but 25% of the trucks stabled. Sounds like the shipping companies, like the restaurants, need to up their game. Which I expect will affect both my gas and restaurant bills.
These kinds of events simply throw a very very sharp spotlight on all the tradeoffs inherent in our normal day-to-day capitalist economy. Which, as the debate here shows, has one hell of a lot of major failings that we all just accept as “the way it is.” Until we have to look at it up close and personally then suddenly it seems too evil.
If we assume, arguendo, a completely accidental short term and local supply disruption on a short-term inelastic commodity, then the real issues are that:
a) Hoarding and private citizen wannabe profiteering make all the real world consequences much worse.
b) Modern media, both traditional and social greatly increase the incremental amount of desire to hoard. And greatly increases the rapidity with which the hoarding phenomenon gets going and quickly becomes catastrophically self-reinforcing even among consumers not initially disposed to hoarding or simply early (panic) buying of their usual volume of product.
c) Any attempt to increase justice of distribution (however you want to define that) in the face of widespread anti-social (=hoarding) behavior needs to stop the hoarding first before vouchers, rationing, or any other intervention stands a chance of making a dent.
d) “Just in time” and all the rest of modern supply chain efficiencies increase the likelihood of these kinds of events, and continues to make them ever more likely.
e) Any effective government intervention must move very very quickly to beat the baying horde to the punch. Which implies having all the mechanisms already up and running before the surprise disruption happens.
The part I don’t understand is that it seems to me that the shortage, then coupled with anti price gouging laws is what causes the hoarding in the first place. There is a shortage, the price must be the same as yesterday. I’m going to go get mine while the getting is good, so I am going to fill up my vehicles, any gas cans I have, any gas cans the neighbors aren’t using, etc. and go get mine while the getting is good, and also I might get into a fist fight with the guy who took my place in line.
But if gas jumps to $8/gallon, there will be no hoarding. I’m taking inventory of how much gas is in my vehicles and listening to the news about how much longer this will last. I’m not filling up any gas cans. The lawn can grow for right now. Maybe I usually fill up once a week. I’m going to get just what I need today at those prices. I was going to drive to the mountains this weekend. Not now. We’ll ride this out.
The objection seems to be that rich people will be out there hoarding at $8/gallon I think that is incorrect because there are simply not enough people out there either with that much money or foolish enough to hoard a commodity that has a temporary price increase. Sure if you are a multi-millionaire, you still take the boat out this weekend and don’t interrupt your lifestyle on bit. It must be nice to be that rich.
But letting the prices float gives everyone information to gauge the severity of the issue. I agree that possibly the poorest couldn’t get to work while the richest are still flying their jets, but as was said upthread, we don’t make policy on the single poorest person we can find; we do it in the aggregate. And although it would suck for the poorest guy not to be able to afford gas that week, at least he has the option of carpooling, borrowing money from grandma, taking the bus, and I’m sure his boss will understand as his co-workers would be having the same problems. With the current system, he can’t make it to work because he wasn’t first in line at the gas station and the shortage continues longer because of full five gallon gas cans sitting in garages all over the community.
First off, having a price ceiling makes predatory reselling MORE profitable so people would be more likely to do it. If the market clearing price of gas is $20/gallon, then if price is fixed to $3/gallon people can make a $17/gallon profit by buying up all the retail gas and selling it on the black market. If the retail gas is $20/gallon, there is no profit to be made reselling. If you’re saying that people will buy it at $20 so that they can resell it for $25 - then the actual market price is $25 and that’s what it should be retailing for. With a proper floating price there should be no such thing as predatory re-selling.
While I think rationing is probably a fairer solution to allowing the price to float, it’s not like it is a perfect solution. Anyone who needs more gas to do their commute than their rationed allocation is still screwed, and anyone who can operate comfortably within their ration has no incentive to try to conserve their use. Proper rationing also would require a more complex system to be put in place to actually limit the amount of gas that could be purchased per person per day/week, because if it was just a per-transaction limit people could just drive from gas station to gas station to fill up as much as they wanted. Then you’re just shifting the hoarding from people who can afford the price of gas to the people who can afford the time to drive from station to station.
If the government institutes temporary anti-hoarding rules, there will be no hoarding.
The issue with managing the demand with high prices is that the burden falls on the poor. The middle class to wealthy can weather a temporary $8/gal price with little impact on their lifestyle. The poor cannot. They are the ones debating how to get by with this change in price, having to find a new way to work, borrowing from friends and family, asking their boss to ‘understand’ why they’re late. They bear the burden. We’re cutting back on overall demand by making them change their lifestyle, while others do not have to.
Anti-hoarding rules affect everyone roughly the same.
People keep making this argument… and it’s true, consumption pricing falls heaviest on the poor, whether it’s gas or express highway lanes or whatever. It’s a drawback.
But every single person making this argument wants to ignore the fact that total outages - not shortages - also fall heaviest on the poor. They often have less-flexible work arrangements, managers who are less likely to tolerate “there was no gas”.
Without rationing (again, to reinforce the OP hypothetical of no rationing, which is another way of saying “anti-hoarding”) - without that, the poor are facing this choice:
I can only get a little gas because the price is high
I can’t get any gas at all because the price is normal, causing others to hoard it, whether for their own fuel security, or to resell on the black market.
Which do you choose? I say that if people have an option to get a little gas due to high prices, then it encourages people to take only what they absolutely need.
It’s an unfair situation, but it’s a physical reality. If there’s not enough gas to go around, either someone has to forcibly ration it, or we let prices float so that consumers can self-regulate, or we just accept that it’s going to be fistfights in the gas line because some people won’t get gas at all.
And again I want to emphasize, if you oppose price gouging because it’s “unfair”, then you’re still consigning the poor to the Mad Max all-or-nothing battle to be first at the pump. That doesn’t seem any fairer to me.
Whoever “the rich” are, I didn’t see them at the gas pump this week. Everybody was solid working/middle class. You can’t make the argument that “the poor” have no commuting alternative except driving, implying that the rich do have more alternatives (like telecommuting or time off), and then argue that the rich are going to forego those alternatives to sit in line for an hour to buy gas like a plebe. It just doesn’t add up.
That is no more so than the way life always is harder on the poor. So you are saying it already sucks to be poor so nobody should care if it gets worse for them.
I never respond to “what you’re really saying” comments because the answer is inevitably “no, I’m not.”
If it helps reframe the question, consider that we had absolute outages of gas. At least in my area. That made the price infinitely high. Do you think the poor make out better under infinitely high prices than finitely high ones? That’s a basic violation of logic.
When I point out this fact, we regress to “I don’t like this scenario, I’d like to discuss a different one.” Fine. This thread is to discuss what actually happened, zero government intervention to fairly regulate supply. I didn’t cause that problem, the governor of Georgia did (as did every leader in history who reacted to rising prices by freezing them).