I got the impression that in countries where charging interest is considered immoral, they have somewhat suffered from the consequences of people not being able to borrow money.
I'd go with the principle that one should have the rules that seem to produce the desired effects, and so some kinds of price gouging are okay and others are not. I don't think it's okay to charge prisoners so much for their phone calls that the service providers are making a huge profit, because it seems to work against the idea of keeping people in touch with their families so they can re-integrate to society. But it's fine to charge millions for some artwork, because there's plenty of free or low priced art that people can look at.
I would think that stores already have some financial incentive to stock up, since they make a profit even when things are selling at the regular price, and they know certain items are going to be big sellers in some situations. I guess the question is how much more would they need to charge during emergencies in order to actually improve the supply due to a change in how much they preorder or try harder to make available. It may be the case that it wouldn't work at all for some items - gas stations can't really stock up ahead of time, and they are probably already trying as hard as they feasibly can to get resupplied. My impression is that many retail businesses rely on just-in-time stocking in order to be profitable, so it would be hard to get them into the idea of stocking up just in case, especially for things that expire or are bulky to store. In terms of discouraging hoarding, it seems like it would just be more direct to impose quotas or rationing, since many stores already do this for special sales, and so have a process in place for doing it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-11-01 09:37 pm (UTC)I'd go with the principle that one should have the rules that seem to produce the desired effects, and so some kinds of price gouging are okay and others are not. I don't think it's okay to charge prisoners so much for their phone calls that the service providers are making a huge profit, because it seems to work against the idea of keeping people in touch with their families so they can re-integrate to society. But it's fine to charge millions for some artwork, because there's plenty of free or low priced art that people can look at.
I would think that stores already have some financial incentive to stock up, since they make a profit even when things are selling at the regular price, and they know certain items are going to be big sellers in some situations. I guess the question is how much more would they need to charge during emergencies in order to actually improve the supply due to a change in how much they preorder or try harder to make available. It may be the case that it wouldn't work at all for some items - gas stations can't really stock up ahead of time, and they are probably already trying as hard as they feasibly can to get resupplied. My impression is that many retail businesses rely on just-in-time stocking in order to be profitable, so it would be hard to get them into the idea of stocking up just in case, especially for things that expire or are bulky to store. In terms of discouraging hoarding, it seems like it would just be more direct to impose quotas or rationing, since many stores already do this for special sales, and so have a process in place for doing it.