Ok, I was watching the Sunday (18 August US time) episode of Meet the Press and what frustrates me was the way in which the issue of ‘banning price gouging’ was being reported – drawing the conclusion that ‘banning price gouging’ equals price controls even though nothing is mentioned regarding price controls. It also completely ignores the fact that 39 out of the 50 states have ‘anti-price gouging’ laws on the books that have been made use of during times of natural disasters. Not to long ago a state prosecuted retailers (the name of the state escapes me since it was a few years ago) engaging in price gouging before a natural disaster as people were stocking up on bottled water, food that could be stored without refridgeration etc.
To those complaining that you should ‘let the market work’ – why? if there is a limited amount of something there is another option, limit the number that one can buy of a given product to ensure that there is enough for everyone. Go into the local supermarket in New Zealand and it isn’t uncommon for a supermarket to run a special on soft drink but then limit it to 6 bottles per person or another example would be the shortage of potatoes which flowed through to a shortage of oven fries – again, the supermarket limits it to maybe 2 bags per customer.
Side note: Dear marketing people, what you call ‘cold outreach campaigns’ is spam so stop trying to dress it up as if you were doing something respectable.
Side note 2: Maybe he was onto something.
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