So last Thursday I bought six bags of candy (for about $15), the good stuff, thinking that would be enough for the number of trick or treaters we get in this neighborhood and I even sprang for the good stuff (snickers, butterfingers, peanut butter cups, etc...). Only my roommates/friends went and ate 90% of it. So, anyway, I go to the Supermarket this evening to buy some more candy, about six bags, and suddenly the price had jumped up to ~$40! Those damn capitalists know that the cheapskates shop early and look for bargains but if you're shopping for candy at 4:15pm on Halloween night then you're stuck paying what ever price they feel like charging. That's almost a 300% mark up over a week ago.
A little perspective here … this is Halloween candy we're talking about, not water or life-saving medicine.
a little more perspective here... I'm (mostly) making a joke. Still, it's a pretty shitty thing to be doing.
Supply and demand. The stores don't make money by NOT selling candy, so if there are takers at that price, it isn't gouging...it's what the market will allow. You may not like it, but unless you think you have some RIGHT to have candy, and that the store's owners can't charge what they can get for it, that's just how it is (and, I'd argue, should be). Here's some advice: don't buy bottled water in the middle of a desert, gasoline at the only station within 100 miles, or candy in the afternoon on October 31st. If you do, don't complain about the price.
Absolutely. Seats are cheaper well in advance, when they are plentiful. The airline is happy to sell those at a lower price to make sure the flight is full. If you wait until the last minute to buy a ticket, there are lots of people competing to get those last few seats and the price, naturally, increases. Generally speaking, it is unreasonable to expect the price for a good to remain the same when its demand increases, its supply decreases, or both.
I bought some as well, in case there might be some visitors at the door. None came, so I have to eat it all myself now.
No one wants candy from a communist. You probably poisoned it so you could make false claims about business.
Why is it that when you use this argument, I'm always reminded of the cartoon where the umpire says "There's nothing in the rules that says an elephant can't pitch a baseball."? Sure, you can mark up the price... but it's gonna be months before I'll shop at your store again, and I'll probably take a few friends with me. Perfect example with the Kom Jug Yuen restaurant here. For years they had a well priced lunch menu and a line up to get in. New manager raised prices by 50% and started charging to refill the tea pot with tea, now it's empty.
Good .That's exercising your right as a customer. More than likely that new manager will alienate his regulars and lose more money than he gains with the higher price.
Except an elephant pitching baseball would be, to put it mildly, unusual. Behavior associated with supply and demand is perfectly reasonable and, in fact, practiced by everyone (but only complained about when they perceive it doesn't work to their own advantage). If you sell something, you want to get as much as you can for it. If you buy something, you want to pay as little as possible. People who sell stuff want to get rid of all their inventory at the maximum possible profit. People who make stuff want to get the best return on the money invested. Just knowing those few facts allows us to predict a great deal of economic behavior with stunning accuracy. Completely your prerogative. And the storeowner might do well to consider that when marking up his prices. But, in the end, he does what he believes in the best interests of his business. If he believes he'll make more money selling at a higher price than he'll lose from offended customers, he'll sell at a higher price. And this is what some people don't get: that's absolutely the right thing to do. Why, to satisfy the owner's greed? No, to provide the maximum value to society. If the storeowner will receive more from people willing to pay the higher price for candy than he will lose from those boycotting the store in disgust, then society--at least in the local sense--is showing that it highly values that candy and should therefore pay accordingly for it. If the owner does not raise the price? He still sells out of it (so people still go without), but receives lower value from the marketplace then supply and demand conditions would suggest. A price increase is only justified by high demand (or low supply). If the restaurant has SO MANY customers that it is turning people away much of the time, then a price increase would be warranted. But if there are few customers in the place, either prices are too high or something else is wrong. And, honestly, who charges to refill a teapot in a Chinese restaurant? That's like charging for water. Sounds like a business headed for failure.
I think airline seats are a bad example, actually. They seem to be seriously underpriced all the time, even tho they get more expensive closer to flight time. This is partly why airlines are larding up on fees for everything from checked bags to packets of pretzels. If the tickets were priced more realistically, a lot of those other things would be "free" like they were ten, fifteen years ago.
Generally I don't check luggage and we bring our own food. I'll take the $100, let you pay for the services you want.
FYI as long as you put the little bottles in quart size ziplock bags, you can take your own liquor through security. Just be sure to buy the right brands for your airline: http://www.alcademics.com/airline-drink-menus.html
As a very frequent flyer, let me say that I fucking hate cheapskate prick bastards who bring their own stinky food on the plane. It's okay if you bring a bag of chips or the like. I'm talking about the assholes who pack a full meal. Just last month, I flew to Vegas and some dickhead brought on board some kind of stinky salami sandwich that I'm pretty sure almost caused the oxygen masks to drop from the cabin ceiling.
I'm loathe to go there, but you do realize, this is the exact opposite of the argument you've made in the "cancellation" thread.
Its usually ham or turkey sandwiches, but I think I'll start bringing cans of smoked oysters and sardines, with some homemade garlic and onion spread, just in case you're on the flight.
Heh, that guy was one of my roommates in college, always good to see his blog get a shout out. Very good info for the seriously curious drinker.
How so? In this case, the seller wants to increase the price because market conditions support it. In the "cancellation" case, the seller and buyer were content with their transaction until the law forced the termination of their contract. I don't see how they're at all similar.
The seller wants to do something that the buyer doesn't like. The seller should be free to do so. But that is not the argument you made in the insurance thread.
Even if that mattered--it doesn't--that's not accurate because in the cancellation case, the seller has NO CHOICE. The seller WANTED to sell a health insurance policy to the buyer and only cancelled it because the law forced it. Absent the law, the buyer and seller would've continued with the existing arrangement. The seller is NOT free in the cancellation case (and neither is the buyer). The law requires the seller to terminate the contract. The two cases are completely different and the buyer being unhappy in both doesn't make them equivalent.
Don't want to hijack the thread further -- apologies to Dinner. Suffice it to say, you are wrong, feel free to enter the other thread again if you wish to argue that I'm mistaken.
We're already having the discussion here, and you've claimed that the case in this thread (raising the price of candy on Halloween) and the cancelling of non-compliant health care plans are somehow the same and that my arguments are inconsistent. I disagree and have stated why. So, how am I wrong?
Fuck off with that shit. The half dozen ACA threads are more than enough, no need to pollute another thread. Gul recognized this and said to move the discussion over, why the fuck can't you do that?
Because his point was that my opinion on the topic in THIS thread was inconsistent with my opinion in another thread. Gul's under no obligation to engage in the conversation in this thread, nor am I under any to go argue in some other thread.
