Here, in the Bakersfield Californian.

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), May 19, 1999

Answers

Jerkoffs like Assemblyman John A. Dutra, D-Fremont are typical of the reason the book "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross is becoming so popular. (Just enter the title into the Amazon or Loompanics search engines -- http://www.amazon.com or http://www.loompanics.com)

-- A (A@AisA.com), May 19, 1999.

Good find, Lisa. The article says:

"The bill would make it illegal for "any business to sell or offer to sell any consumer food items, specified goods or services for a price of more than 10 percent above the price charged by that person for those goods or services immediately prior to Oct. 1, 1999."

Not that I think price-gouging is a nice thing, on the contrary. But it starts with the producer, not the retail business. If the producer jacks up the price, then the wholesaler has to jack up his, and so on down the chain. Not fair to make the business person the fall guy. There has to be some other solution.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), May 19, 1999.

There's some good in gouging.



-- Prometheus (fire@for.man), May 19, 1999.

This is SOCIALISM: "No one should be allowed to profit from the misery of others!" Oh really? Is hunger misery? Let's take the land from the farmer, the store from the grocer. Is exposure to the elements misery? Let take the cotton fields away from the grower, and the sheep from the shepard, and the mills from the weavers, and dress all our children in identical green government-issue Mao-jackets so none of them get inferiority complexes. Let's nationalize ALL housing, so no one can make a profit from construction, or rental property. Is ignorance misery? Let's make private- and home-schooling illegal (or control and regulate these to insignificance), and force all youth to attend State schools, so their minds won't be poisoned by "extreme" "anti-government" views. Let's nationalize the media, so no profit can be had by something as important as the flow of vital information.

When everything you have becomes the property of the State, YOU are the property of the State. By any other name, you have become a SLAVE.

Dano

-- Dano (bookem@blacksand.srf), May 19, 1999.

The term "gouging" is a term that carries with it a derogatory connotation. As is the case with many words that conote as opposed to denote, words that are routinely and carelessly tossed about by our objective, truth-seeking media, the term "gouging" refers to the most marvelous of features of a free-market economy. That is the market's "price mechanism." Without re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, I would urge everyone that may be interested in such things to read the link that "Prometheus" thougtfully provides in his reply. The author articulates the case for "gouging" far better than could I.

Never lose sight of the fact that when you abandon the "price mechansim," as the functional means for determining value, you are left with one of the ugliest of human horrors, wherein the farce of envy, soon becomes the folly of injustice ........

-- Dave Walden (wprop@concentric.net), May 19, 1999.

The alternative to letting prices be set by market forces is rationing. The question, my brothers and sisters, is which do we want? The Federal government might prefer rationing... I do know, on the other hand, that higher prices will spawn greater supplies. The farmer who is paid three times as much for his wheat will likely plant more wheat. The generator manufacturer who can sell all he produces at a premium price will manufacture more generators. Highre prices will also provide extra incentive to restore production in oil fields, oil refineries, etc.

The question, then, is merely how we can insulate ourselves from such price fluctuations. The answer, of course, is in preparation.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), May 19, 1999.

Please tell me OIL is in the specified goods.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@aol.com), May 20, 1999.