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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (321686)	1/18/2007 8:50:27 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1574882

"There may not be more supply of some of what is needed soon, or "soon" may not be soon enough." We aren't talking about Antarctica you know. No, but "sooner" is better than just "soon", and while FEMA could be a lot better, it will never be perfect even at doing its assigned job, let alone at meeting all the new demand from the effected area. If they have X amount of stock and X+Y number of customers, they are going to sell out unless it is priced so high that only X have enough cash. Period. You are talking about maximizing the merchant's profit. Which shouldn't really be a goal. The goal isn't maximizing the profit. One goal reducing demand from people who don't need the good quite so soon, or quite so desperatly (so they can either wait or do without) so that the good is available to people who do need it sooner and more desperately. The other goal is encouraging additional supply. And that is what it boils down to. At least with first come, first serve, everyone has an equal chance. With the highest bidder scenario, it only means that those with enough ready cash gets the goods. In first come first serve only the first to arrive has a chance. How badly he needs something doesn't matter. If he has any level of desire for it he gets it. Highest bidder is far from perfect at getting the good to the person with the most need, but its much better then first come first serve. Of course under either method we would hope that charitable impulses would result in the orange going to the person who needs it to live. But for something less then life and death charity may not be as much of a factor. Each person looking at the other one might not see how much more or less the other guy needs the good. But if you need it bad you'd be more willing to increase the amount you pay. Need doesn't move you up in the line, but it might cause you to pay more. I agreed its imperfect (you might not be able to pay more), but the possiblity that you could increase your bid exist, as opposed to being stuck with the place in line that you have. Its true the poor are less likely to be able to outbid the rich for goods in short supply, but ration them by other means and the poor might still be at a disadvantage. So even if its all about how the means of rationing goods effects the poor (rather then my opinion of what it should be how it effects everyone) price controls can still be very bad (and that's ignoring the increase in supply that can come about with higher prices) That point is well argued here cafehayek.typepad.com