>...Either those hold true and for some reason these people who have invested heavily in ice distribution are for some reason deciding to stay home on a day of the highest demand because they can't increase the going rate more than 5%,
This is covered in the article:
>...But no such mass movement of resources to their highest valued use took place. North Carolina had an “anti-gouging law,” which made it illegal to sell anything useful at a price that was “unreasonably excessive under the circumstances.” This had been widely interpreted to limit price increases to around 5% or less. Each instance of violation of this law could result in a fine of up to $5,000. So, ice that happened in Charlotte, stayed in Charlotte. Why drive three hours to Raleigh when you can only charge the Charlotte price, plus just enough for gas money to break even?
>...So in your example, there isn't an issue getting ice for your insulin because of rationing _and_ you didn't have to pay a premium for it.
In the particular example I gave, it wouldn't help if people are limited to the amount they can buy - in an emergency situation like that, when there is no electricity, the demand for ice will be far higher than the local supply. The goal should be that the limited supply goes to the most valuable uses and that there is an incentive to increase the supply from other areas. In the long run, it would be even better if the local supplies of goods was more resilient to a natural disaster.
As I wrote:
>...In the long run, high profits during a shortage also mean that suppliers in general will be incentivized to keep a larger stockpile of goods that have a good shelf-life since they know they will be able to make good money the next time there is a shortage (more than the storage costs). (Or the potential for high profits will incentivize spending money to be more flexible in production in case demand increases for a short time.)
If you are going to literally make it illegal to try this, then you better have a government be willing to spend its tax dollars on creating a stockpile - when the pandemic started we saw that all the talk of the national stockpile the federal government supposedly had was greatly exaggerated.
>...your first citation is from a far right think tank dedicated to the removal of government influence on all aspects of life, and the second is a polling of economists connected to a specifc branch of economics known to be rife with groupthink.
You don't need to stoop to trying to poison the well with ridiculous comments like the above. If you have a point to make, then make it. Shallow dismissals are against the guidelines of this site.
This is covered in the article:
>...But no such mass movement of resources to their highest valued use took place. North Carolina had an “anti-gouging law,” which made it illegal to sell anything useful at a price that was “unreasonably excessive under the circumstances.” This had been widely interpreted to limit price increases to around 5% or less. Each instance of violation of this law could result in a fine of up to $5,000. So, ice that happened in Charlotte, stayed in Charlotte. Why drive three hours to Raleigh when you can only charge the Charlotte price, plus just enough for gas money to break even?
>...So in your example, there isn't an issue getting ice for your insulin because of rationing _and_ you didn't have to pay a premium for it.
In the particular example I gave, it wouldn't help if people are limited to the amount they can buy - in an emergency situation like that, when there is no electricity, the demand for ice will be far higher than the local supply. The goal should be that the limited supply goes to the most valuable uses and that there is an incentive to increase the supply from other areas. In the long run, it would be even better if the local supplies of goods was more resilient to a natural disaster.
As I wrote:
>...In the long run, high profits during a shortage also mean that suppliers in general will be incentivized to keep a larger stockpile of goods that have a good shelf-life since they know they will be able to make good money the next time there is a shortage (more than the storage costs). (Or the potential for high profits will incentivize spending money to be more flexible in production in case demand increases for a short time.) If you are going to literally make it illegal to try this, then you better have a government be willing to spend its tax dollars on creating a stockpile - when the pandemic started we saw that all the talk of the national stockpile the federal government supposedly had was greatly exaggerated.
>...your first citation is from a far right think tank dedicated to the removal of government influence on all aspects of life, and the second is a polling of economists connected to a specifc branch of economics known to be rife with groupthink.
You don't need to stoop to trying to poison the well with ridiculous comments like the above. If you have a point to make, then make it. Shallow dismissals are against the guidelines of this site.