Friday, October 10, 2008
Profiteering is as profiteering does
If I drive to a disaster area with a pick-up truck full of plywood to sell at a mark-up I am an evil profiteer. So if I buy stocks today from panicked sellers, what am I?
Uh, a dethumbed knife-juggler?
Good point, though.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Oct 10, 02:04:00 PM:
Oh, I've been thumbless for a week now. Hasn't hrt my typng, thogh.
TM
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Fri Oct 10, 04:13:00 PM:
Poor comparison, IMO.
In one case, you're taking advantage of someone's misfortune to charge them more money than your goods are worth for a product that they now need, and wouldn't need had there not been misfortune.
In the other, they are actually trying to sell their stuff and the price will fall further the less success they have selling it off. (if no one is buying it at the low price, then it is obviously still over valued, right?)
By , at
Fri Oct 10, 05:25:00 PM:
Wrong, Dawnfire. An item's worth is determined by what the buyer is willing to pay for it. As much as you hate the "gouger," I doubt even you would insist he give away his property merely because somebody else is unfortunate, nor would I expect you to claim it more just that the person in need go without because somebody might profit by selling the item.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Oct 10, 06:05:00 PM:
I fail to see the difference between, "An item's worth is determined by what the buyer is willing to pay for it" and "if no one is buying it at the low price, then it is obviously still over valued, right?"
If no one will buy it at the given price, then it isn't worth the given price.
You seem to be operating under the idea that there are two options: give it away, or artificially inflate the price to take advantage of a local situation. That isn't the case.
In 2005, when Rita blitzed my home town, my father paid about $1300 for a gasoline powered generator. That was the cost of the generator two weeks earlier, before the storm, and the price two weeks later. It was a fair price. He got his profit from the sale (the guy made lots of sales that month, actually, My grandfather bought one from the same guy the following day) and no one got screwed.
