Baruch Feldheim, 43, was arrested on Monday for allegedly hording desperately needed medical supplies including 80,000 N95 masks which he was selling at a 700% markup.
When the FBI came to arrest him, he coughed on them and claimed he had the coronavirus.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Feldheim was hording enough medical supplies "to outfit an entire hospital."
#1: Ada To: Horse (#0)
Ada posted on 2020-03-31 11:00:38 Reply Private Reply
#2: TommyTheMadArtist To: Horse (#0)
TommyTheMadArtist posted on 2020-03-31 11:29:13 Reply Private Reply
#3: Anthem To: Ada (#1)
That's just a stupid statement.
Rothbardians wouldn't. Y'all have no sense of community or society so properties like honor or integrity are not defended by law while physical property and the "right" to sell anything to anyone is sacrosanct. At minimum this guy deserves hot tar and feathers on his naked ass, then to be tied to a rail and run out of town by a couple of kangaroos.Anthem posted on 2020-03-31 11:52:41 Reply Private Reply
#4: StraitGate To: Horse, Ada, Anthem (#0)
That said, "price gouging" in general is good. It drives products into the market where and when they're needed, and prices quickly normalize. If masks are selling at 8x normal price, you can bet that mask manufacturers are going to ramp up production. Fast.
For another example, if after a hurricane water is selling for $6.00/bottle, every beverage distributor within 500 miles is going to divert trucks to the hurricane area, and the victims will get the water they need. (And the price will quickly drop.) However, if gov decrees that water can be sold for no more than $1.00/bottle, all the local supplies will be gone in a day, and suppliers won't have any incentive to go out of their way to re-supply the area.
Price gouging is generally beneficial on a more micro level also: it ensures that the people who need an item the most are the ones most likely to get it -- because the man who needs it most will be willing to pay a higher price for it. If my child desperately needed some medicine, I'd gladly pay 8x for it. I would rather pay 8x for it than to find that it's unavailable because people who needed it less my child does bought it all and used it all because it was inexpensive -- because gov mandated the low price.
If I could find the steering wheel cap from my old '67 Bel Air around here, I wouldn't sell it for $3.00. I'd sell it for $200.00. That way I'd get more for it, and the person who really wanted it -- say, for the classic car he was meticulously restoring -- would be sure to get it. Win-win.
If the N95 masks were truly needed to save lives right NOW -- and gov really cared -- then gov should have just bought them from the owner at a fair price. What's fair? I know.
StraitGate posted on 2020-03-31 15:39:37 Reply Private Reply
#5: Anthem To: StraitGate (#4)
There's the flaw in your argument, right there. If the shelves are emptied, then that alone is an incentive to get more product there pronto, because demand is high.
I'm not saying that a reasonable price increase due to the cost of expediting production or delivery should be interdicted. I'm saying that a middleman who raises prices by 700% during a shortage is a rent seeker, which deserves condemnation and social punishment via the law.
Anthem posted on 2020-03-31 16:11:00 Reply Private Reply
#6: StraitGate To: Anthem (#5)
To go out of their way, like 500 miles out of their way, as they would if the price were $6.00/bottle -- and wouldn't if the price was $1.00. The incentive to re-supply is strongly a function of the expected profit margin.
StraitGate posted on 2020-03-31 16:23:34 Reply Private Reply
#7: Anthem To: StraitGate (#6)
Anthem posted on 2020-03-31 16:35:04 Reply Private Reply
#8: StraitGate To: Anthem (#7)
When they come for the water or food that I have hoarded for my family, and demand that I sell it to them for a price that they deem fair, they had better be well armed.
And the pharmacy techs at CVS should arm themselves too, just in case these social punishment agents show up and demand to purchase antibiotics at less than the 5000% markup.
StraitGate posted on 2020-03-31 17:03:41 Reply Private Reply
#9: BTP Holdings To: StraitGate (#8)
Did you ever see a picture of the Bianchi Man? He has about a dozen pistols hidden on his person. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-03-31 17:52:10 Reply Private Reply
#10: Anthem To: StraitGate (#8)
I'm talking about the guy who grabs up the available local supply and sells it off the back of a truck or a rented warehouse for a huge markup.
This whole discussion illustrates why there are anti-gouging laws. Keeps the vigilante outrage under control.
In Texas the law has plenty of leeway to allow for increased costs of production or delivery, and some allowance for supply and demand pricing.
Anthem posted on 2020-03-31 20:34:59 Reply Private Reply
#11: StraitGate To: Anthem (#10)
Yes, after reflecting a little I can see that my examples probably aren't the best in the world.
If I had owned (or hauled in) a truckload of bottled water in New Orleans post Katrina, I would have appreciated being able to sell it for whatever price I chose -- to whomever I chose. I would have charged an arm and a leg -- or not sold at all -- to anybody who I suspected was simply going to jack up the price and re-sell it. People of apparent modest means I would have charged a modest price. And to them with need but no money I would have given some for free. But I suspect that AGWs of various stripes would have tried to forcibly prevent me from doing that.
StraitGate posted on 2020-03-31 21:19:42 Reply Private Reply
#12: Anthem To: StraitGate (#11)
Yes, I'm completely opposed to FEMA taking over disaster sites. The American people have a long history of volunteering to help in an emergency or catastrophe. FEMA is far less efficient and equally less effective because they take bureaucratic control and keep out the independent parties offering aid. FEMA is useless for anything other than federalizing law enforcement, which makes even that function less effective.
Anthem posted on 2020-03-31 21:59:31 Reply Private Reply
#13: Horse To: Ada (#1)
Horse posted on 2020-04-01 06:53:46 Reply Private Reply
#14: NeoconsNailed To: Ada (#1)
Others are getting arrested for crisis scalping and we cheer it. Not here?
NeoconsNailed posted on 2020-04-01 06:57:26 Reply Private Reply
#15: NeoconsNailed To: TommyTheMadArtist (#2)
Pleasexplain.
NeoconsNailed posted on 2020-04-01 06:58:18 Reply Private Reply
#16: X-15 To: Horse (#0)
Kikenvermin doing what they do best......
X-15 posted on 2020-04-01 08:30:33 Reply Private Reply
#17: X-15 To: Ada (#1)
Show me the Jew and I will show you the crime. Or something like that....
X-15 posted on 2020-04-01 08:32:23 Reply Private Reply
#18: Ada To: X-15 (#17)
Its the duty of Jews to be a light to the gentiles
In defense of price gouging
Ada posted on 2020-04-01 10:18:45 Reply Private Reply
#19: Esso To: Ada, 4um (#18)
Are you sure it didn't say, "...set the gentiles alight?"
Esso posted on 2020-04-01 10:54:38 Reply Private Reply
#20: TommyTheMadArtist To: NeoconsNailed (#15)
I watched a few different videos on how the stuff seems to operate and oddly enough it operates more like a biological weapon or chemical weapon than a virus.
TommyTheMadArtist posted on 2020-04-06 18:08:30 Reply Private Reply
#21: BTP Holdings To: Esso (#19)
The Buddhist monks in Vietnam were known to self immolate as a protest of the war. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-04-06 18:35:36 Reply Private Reply
#22: Esso To: BTP Holdings, 4um (#21)
Esso posted on 2020-04-06 20:39:53 Reply Private Reply
#23: BTP Holdings To: Esso (#22)
Chieu Hoi my boy! ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-04-06 20:45:42 Reply Private Reply
#24: NeoconsNailed To: TommyTheMadArtist, Ada (#20)
www.nytimes.com/interacti...coronavirus-us-cases.html
Is it just because counties occur in grids in some places?
NeoconsNailed posted on 2020-04-07 00:06:00 Reply Private Reply