You're starting to sound more like renovator (which I think you should be very careful of because I think you are much better than he is). Re-read your passage and you will find that you are now trying to attempt to win (or avoid) the argument without adequately proving points and establishing a sound chain of reasoning. Indeed you are trying to divert attention from the arguments at hand and attack the person who is giving them (even though you have no knowledge of my life) and are also trying to appeal to authority (in this case yourself, with your supposed massive depth of "practical" experience). I presume you know what an ad hominem attack is?
Then I take that back. (http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-618069.html#p618069) $13/hr and you need to broaden your knowledge of seafood.
There is no limit to the hypotheticals we can come up with that will eventually tip us over the edge. So what! In the real world there are checks and balances that keep us honest within a civil society. The answer to most problems is good governance, that is what we should be working towards.
Glad you agree with me that it is up to each individual to determine if they think price gouging is immoral and live their lives accordingly. I don't think silversaviour shares this view as he expressed the desire to teach everyone that price gouging is not immoral, as does the guy in that video at the start of the thread. Which is why I asked the question which he still hasn't answered.
Not a hypothetical, but a real life experience; Several years ago where I used to live, there was a fairly wide spread fuel shortage that lasted about a week. One local garage owner started refusing to sell fuel to anyone except people of his own "ethnicity". Well, angry mob soon developed, police involved, lots of shouting but as far as I can remember, no actual violence. When it all blew over, he carried on trading as normal and didn't go broke through lack of customers. Pretty poor way for him to behave though (IMO) and certainly didn't help long term relations between his "ethnic goup" and the rest of the population. [sarc]Maybe there should be a law against it [/sarc]
At the risk of putting words into SS's mouth I fear we are focussing on semantics and - like sammy said - applying generalities to all situations that you can dream up rather than the majority of situations we will actually see. I'm pretty sure he'd be totally happy for you to consider it wrong to price gouge as long as you didn't coercively force others to follow your point of view. In pretty much all (or perhaps all) scenarios leading up to the point of a handful of extreme humanitarian assistance scenarios, I believe the point of the video in the original post is to highlight that trying to apply price controls in times of temporary scarcity will actually create more problems and more misallocation of the scarce resources and that this can be regarded as immoral (as well as inefficient and wasteful). It is not necessarily immoral to withhold sale of your property but it is immoral to force sale at the prices that you deem suitable. The first should never be legislated against, while legislating the second is immoral. Quite separately from the moral questions, the purpose of the video is to show that it is not economically rational to apply price controls either as that will really create greater and longer shortages than necessary (to the detriment of the unfortunate people involved). In my opinion (not necessarily SS's) - as described at the end of this post - there will be certain extreme situations in which the fundamental protection of life will outweigh other people's negative rights. These cannot be definitively legislated against however, and it is up to the justice system to apply the reasonable man test with regards to punishment. The necessity of the reasonable man test is one of the reasons why we have trial by a jury of your peers in common law. A judge is (quite rightly) not allowed to not convict someone if they have clearly broken the letter of the law (although they usually have a fair amount of leeway w.r.t. punishment) whereas the power of jury nullification allows justice to (hopefully) still prevail in these extreme scenarios. These are part of the checks and balances for a civil and just society.
What a load of rubbish. Libertarianism says no one should be forced by others to do what they don't want to do and that makes them me me me??? What about the person doing the forcing? Isnt that much more a case of me me me? Before commenting on something it would do you good to at least make an attempt to understand that thing. I consider myself a libertarian, I also own 2 retail business' I would say on average we give away $5,000 per year per store in products to people who claim to be unable to pay for them, not to mention countless sponsorships to local sporting clubs etc etc. I do not consider doing these things makes me any less libertarian, however I would have a problem if the local footy club showed up with a gun to ask me for sponsorship. Like I said in my earlier post, a huge amount of the criticism of libertarians comes from people who just assume they have no sense of community and they are all self obsessed narcasists
I'd be the one trucking in generators and selling them at $1300 to undercut the guy selling them at $1400, or just supplying him (free exchange of goods) so we and the customers both benefit. And then asking what else the people need so I can supply it on the next trip. The trucks wouldn't be completely full of generators mind you, any charity that had stuff to give away but no means to get it there - put your boxes at the back of the truck and I'll drop your stuff off at the SES depot before I offload my generators. If my own house was destroyed, even more incentive to sell some generators to cover the costs of removing all the junk from my land and that of my neighbours. Are you equating what may happen in Australia, to what you've perhaps observed in, say, Afghanistan, East Timor or similar? There are significant differences between developed and developing countries. Even within developing countries, things are different. Compare neighbours on the same island: Haiti (no private property system) and the Dominical Republic which has good private property recognition, good for a developing country anyway. Both countries suffer the same tropical natural disasters, it is the people of Haiti that still have no means within their society to rebuild, no social capital on which to draw from. The people of the Dominican Republic, you don't hear about them, because they are more self sufficient than the Haitians and get to work. If you're going to argue that civil unrest will occur in Australia, compare the people of Haiti sitting in the ruins saying "The world needs to help us", which I remember seeing on TV, to the people of Bundaberg, who spontaneously formed what was known as the Mud Army, and just started cleaning up, well before any level of government was in a position to do anything at all. No riots, no murders of shopkeepers who had limited stock, no widespead looting like a Hollywood movie. You want to know how I'd cope "when stuff plays out" well I'd be in the mud army and proudly so. You've said that a few times, I would argue the government make it illegal as the regulators are economic illiterates.
@newtosilver Everyone is free to tell others their own moral guidelines, that is after all how society learns and develops common morals. I teach my kids right and wrong, we also try and teach adults what is right and wrong. Some adults still need education about lying, cheating, etc etc. Society needs repercussions to those who are immoral, social repercussions that is not legal repercussions. Hope that clears it up
I do not have knowledge of your life though from what I have seen and my limited interaction over a very limited period I would say you work for a large company or organisation and you play a small part in that organisation, rainbow capital? I would say Canberra which then leans the odds towards public servant or something similar. When you asked me if I was a thief or parasite that shows a lack of social skills combined with the amount of time you spend here, the number and length of your posts. Add the F&ck Jesus thing I would say you are younger not older which also ties in with the rainbow garden nome, changing the avitar all the time. You love the idea of capitalism making money and spend a lot of time researching it and writing numerous and long posts, I would say you are not that well off financially (no where near struggling you would have cash but not a huge amount, I would say not wealthy by any means) but really desire to be but I would say you lack practical skills, it is obvious you are very big on theory but practically I see you haveing problems. Tie that is with lack of social skills and the amount of time you spend posting I would say you do not have a partner or girlfriend, being on here gives you that chance at social interaction without directly exposing yourself in a face to face situation with other people. It also allows you to express your "knowledge and dominance" on subjects here which you could not do in the real world. Probably gives you a feeling of importance which you do not have in other parts of your life. I can not see (or maybe do not want to see) you in a supervisory roll however if you are I would say you are probably not well liked by your subordinates. Trying to assert your opinion on others, the amount of time here and a few other things I have noticed would suggest to me that you would not say to much in the work environment if you disagreed with your boss, I think you would keep quite and tell other people how you know best. From what I have noticed I would say you have a very small social circle and would not be the type of person who likes to mingle. This is stretching a long bow and I may be wrong on this one but there is a decent probability you still live with your mum? Accuracy rate on my assessment given the very limited time I have interacted with you on here I would say about 80% Have a good day, I am going out. I have no doubt there will be a lengthily reply from you when I get back, go for a walk in the park, go talk to someone have a bit of face to face interaction with someone
So what you are saying is we are entitled to think price gougers are scum sucking maggots, even if you don't. And that anybody conducting such a practice, even if it is not illegal, will have to accept whatever social repercussions that come to them. Glad you agree with me.
BAHAHAHA ! Do me do me ! I haven't been to a fortune teller before. That truly is a ridiculous and immature post. Grow up and apologise or let the record show your character. I request you make useful contributions on this forum without personal attacks. This will be reported
Absolutely. But only the I'll informed think it is immoral, and that will slowly change over time as people learn logic and reasoning. Socialists on the other hand will always be there, and as we all know socialists are completely devoid of economic sense and logic.
Just couldn't help contradicting yourself yet again could you ? :lol: ... "Yes, everybody is entitled to their opinion, but my opinion must be the right one and anyone thinking otherwise must be stupid or ill informed"
No what has happened in countries like Timor, Afgahnistan, Haiti etc would not happen in Australia. Australia would be very low level stuff, a bit of destruction of personal property, bit of rioting at the worst and the govt would have a lid on it quick smart. As I said in the earlier post this stuff can be brought back under control very quickly. As you correctly say people here join the mud army, Australia has a very strong Govt, people's mind sets are different. There are plans in place that can be activated at very short notice in Australia to get civil aid where it is needed and the reason that is the case along with price gouging laws is so the Govt can maintain control. Yep very different situation to other countries as you say.is there a potential in the future for things to go badly in Australia as they have in other countries? Yes but the odds would be very, very low. With the floods in SE QLD I saw two women fighting over milk in a woolworths supermarket (few heated words which progressed to hair pulling) there was a very short period there where there was no milk, no bread the shelves were bare and not trucks were getting through and there were people who were getting irritated. There was a group of about 4 fellas (bogans) who had words with a storekeeper about his prices in Western Brisbane and it became quite heated. Police were called and it was sorted pretty quickly and they were moved on, one of the police told me it had the potential to go south very quickly and in his words "we don't need that type of sh*t" I am not talking specifically about Australia, think the US, Thailand, India, for example, you want to use another example of say the US if you want to look at a western example. They will put the National Gaurd on the streets to maintain order as things start to spiral out of control. People do loot stores, burn them and kill shop keepers etc it happened in the last few years and there are numerous examples of it in the US in the past, there have been cases where shop keepers have shot people as well. I am heading out, I am spending way to much time on this.
Let me rephrase, in the same vein as natural rights, price gouging is not immoral. If you disagree then your views are not in line with natural rights. Is that better ?
It is not an attack, you asked me before if I was a parasite or a thief! you weren't being offensive then were you? I am making an assessment on what I have seen. I am pretty sure a lot of stuff in there is very accurate.
