Oddbean

If the price of the parts used to maintain a truck fleet increases with inflation, then it is logical that the price of the maintainers might also increase. Inflation often results in an overall rise in prices, by raising the price of downstream inputs, such as energy or running costs. Demanding labour suppliers swallow these price increases and therefore hide the inflation they *did not cause*, while other suppliers are free to pass them on, is to treat labour worse than other suppliers. Which would be unjust.

The worst of this was shipping costs. UPS and others started adding a line item of "Inflation" to their commercial customer's label prices. Credit card costs are (almost)always hidden to the consumer. Upstream parts MFGs simply cut margins for 3rd party sales, and some even re-opening their online stores to further drive 1st party sales. The only benefactor is the entity who takes a fixed percentage on the price... But we don't talk about that. Weird how taxes never seem to go down.

High prices are the most-efficient cure for high prices, but we tend to fall to rationing life-sustaining goods that are temporarily short, such as drinking water after a bad hurricane, because we have to bridge the time required for the market to respond. Tricky.

https://lifehopeandtruth.com/cache/images/10-Commandments-List_1_644_460_80.jpg you are promoting the violation of 10 prices go high when there is money to pay for it if the people with the need for water only have $20 and there is 100L of water that's the market situation the rightful owner of them also has a right to the lions share of what they rightfully own, or you are also promoting the violation of 8 as well

also, the switch and the rail tracks with the victims of differing number on the forks of the track is the same kind of rhetorical question why would you not sell most of your water if you were a vendor of water and you only needed some of it to get you through until there was other options for supply, you just wouldn't just as if someone is posing the train fork question who the fuck put those people on the tracks tho? probably the person posing the question

That is not true. We are not to judge someone else's salvation, as only God can know that, but someone dancing around a golden calf and sacrificing children to the fertility god is clearly doing something wrong, and we may be required to call them out on it, for their own sake and for the sake of others. Christianity should never lead to indifference.

anyhow, it is stil a dumb rhetorical question because "price gouging" means where people can't get it anywhere else, they have enough that nobody is going to go without, but that money isn't gonna feed anyone either, and what kind of an idiot is going to say that they are taking advantage of a situation in which they are also in? it's complete nonsense, typical illogical false argument of socialists who are really just trying to wedge a crack in your morals so they can eventually have you eating babies

yeah, an extremely unlikely one in which someone is not simply going to charge more because during a disaster their supply lines are cut and their own future is uncertain also which is deceptive and dishonest argumentation and something that politicians use to convince people to accept unacceptable things, that paint normal people as demons , in order to win votes and cast shadow on their probably more honorable opponents

That was the scenario he described and that I was originally responding to. This was not about buying toilet paper before lockdowns. What is going on with you, lately? You sound angry, all the time.

i'm not going to take part in some fucking stupid fake hypotheticals like trains and people tied to the tracks, these are not honest arguments and neither is the hypotheticals people cook up for these stupid price controls idea, or the idea that i can just ify stealing something from someone because reasons there is no exceptions to the decalogue and you should know that why am i angry? because people are repeating mindless garbage that erases thought and i want to do something to shine a light on how and why it's wrong and yes, i stopped drinking entirely 5 days ago, thanks to the help of our Lord and Savior maybe he'll help me ignore stupidity at some point too but perhaps i like this game

people who have water in a big pallet during a crisis were selling it before the crisis and are business people the argument is absurd you charge higher prices for higher demanded goods versus low demanded goods ie, the money is pretty much worthless in a disaster, so what's the problem exactly? not like the seller is going to go down to the casino and sniff coke off titties or anything i mean come on, it's a frickin disaster, and charging 2-4x normal prices is not putting a gun to anyone's head and equating the two things is just fucking disgusting, dishonest rhetoric used by socialist politicians to shift blame for their endless spending of borrowed money and the cosy relationship to the money printers a certain man did a bunch of table flips and whippings over this when priests and bankers colluded against the faithful there is zero relationship between someone asking a high price with low supply and cornering the market, said shopkeeper is probably going to lose their whole business anyway, or lose their shirt repairing after the damage, and so on and so on i just fucking hate socialists, and anyone who thinks that jesus was a socialist is teh worst kind of socialist

Jesus wasn't a socialist, but he wasn't a capitalist or a libertarian, either. He wasn't sent here to be an Austrian economist or to focus on helping us maximize our profits or live more comfortable lives.

A little price gouging helps with incentivising forward planning. A lot of price gouging raises the costs of enforcing property rights (a cost usually socialised by the private owner), and creates risk and fragility for the social structure. Where to draw the line and how to operationalise the decision is a vexed point.

Yeah, at some point, the property owner will expect other people to show up and defend himself and his property from the angry mob. Whether they bother to respond will depend upon how the property owner had been behaving.

My point is that wages are the price of labor. They are not something opposed to prices. They *are* prices. Labour, like all suppliers, can demand prices that are too high, but the market can correct for that by reducing its reliance on labour.