Talk:Price gouging

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Anyone know any anti price gouging external links? I'd like to be fair and balanced. RJII 02:09, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 NPOV 2 Spelling? 3 One Attempt 4 My attempt 5 Fair and Balanced? To what end? 6 American English? 7 Need to restore NPOV 8 Anti-gouging arguments 9 There are more than just moral issues involved 10 Reorganized a bit 11 Minor grammatical issue 12 This article is inaccurate 13 Change to first sentence 14 Gas Prices - Does the Price of Oil Determine the Effectiveness to Gouge? 15 Bush and oil price gouging 16 Profit, Profiteering, Gouging

[edit] NPOV

This article is blatantly libertarian-oriented and pro-price gouging. Both external links are against regulation of price gouging and the whole thrust of the article defends the practice, with only "most people" weasel words going against it. I'd clean this up but I'd prefer someone with more economics background to do so. NTK 29 June 2005 02:35 (UTC)

The article isn't biased at all, you might say that the links at the bottom are, however, I dont see the problem why links should not be biased. - DJSupreme23

I have done a Google search on profiteering, a more common term [1] which shows up some of the alternative view. I would have a go but being libertarian myself I would find it hard to avoid the weasel words. Best if someone anti has a POV go then we can all work on turning this into a great article. Cutler July 2, 2005 10:40 (UTC)

• Actually, I would be in favour of merge and redirect profiteering here. Cutler July 2, 2005 10:43 (UTC)

I'm not sure that profiteering is exactly the same as price gouging. Price gouging has a very specific meaning—drastically raising prices in response to an event, especially a crisis, which spikes demand and/or cuts off supply, whereas profiteering seems much more general and more often applied to corruption-related offenses, e.g. war-profiteering. I think this is a better case for a "see also" than a merge-and-redirect, but again I am not terribly familiar with this sort of thing. 4.157.26.88 8 July 2005 17:08 (UTC) NTK

[edit] Spelling?

I have also seen this spelled as "Price gauging" which I believe to be incorrect from a spelling as well as syntax (you're not gauging the level of prices). Can someone corroborate. A google search seems to show both spelling a lot. dhitchco

• Price gauging refers to what you said -- gauging the level of prices. It's a legitimate phrase, but it's not the same thing as price gouging. --Uttaddmb 04:46, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Right. Gouging is as in "gouging out my eye", not "gauging" (measuring). - DJSupreme23

Price gouging is on google ~2,200,000 times; Price gauging ~600,000 times. If I add the words "statute" or "law" to the search (i.e., prejudicing it towards official documents) the disparity becomes more pronounced. www.dictionary.com has a definition for "price gouging"; if you search for "price gauging" it returns: "No entry found for price gauging. Did you mean price gouging?". Merriam-Webster Online defines gouge as "to subject to extortion or undue exaction" (def 3 for the transitive verb), so it would appear to be an appropriate term.

Is there any reason to believe that gauging is a regional or other alternate usage, and can it be backed up with sources? If so, we can note it; otherwise I would go with gouge. Willhsmit 02:45, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] One Attempt

I left the NPOV header in place even though I made an honest attempt at neutrality. The central point of the issue is the difference between a 'fair' price for customers and a 'fair' profit for merchants, given the nature and duration of the emergency. The article's original stance has been neutralised somewhat but I am sure there's room for improvement.

No, I don't have an Econ.101 background but I am a merchant! Ed08/09/05

[edit] My attempt

I have included the constitutional and public-good arguments for such laws, added the textbook example of the shortages during the Seige of Paris to the anti-law section and noted that the typical exceptions were written into the law in an attempt to redress the issue raised. I have also removed the NPOV tag because I believe this version fully addresses the issue. If anyone disagrees, I am sure he or she will put the tag back. Robert A West 13:15, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the article is POV now. Almost all the pro-price gouging arguments have been removed. RJII 16:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Robert, this article is much, much better now. While the advocacy has been removed, there are now policy and theory arguments for both sides. I disagree with RJII, if anything the "pro-gouging" side is better represented now, since the various rationales are explicated and not presented in a dogmatic fashion. NTK 16:50, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment. I am puzzled by RJII's statement. Actually, the entire argument against price-gouging laws has been retained, albeit rephrased a little. It just sounds less strident. The original paragraph, as I found it, read:

According to pro-libertarians, such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, high prices can be viewed as information for use in determining the best allocation of scarce resources for which there are multiple uses. The pro-market position argues that laws against price gouging serve only to restrict supplies of a good or service.

The corresponding new paragraph reads:

There is a market-theoretical argument against such laws. According to Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, high prices can be viewed as information for use in determining the best allocation of scarce resources for which there are multiple uses. They argue that laws against price gouging serve only to restrict supplies of a good or service. The famous case of price restrictions during the 1870 Siege of Paris is the textbook example.

Just what argument am I alleged to have deleted? Robert A West 21:45, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Bennapgar's edit was supposed to increase neutrality. I don't see a meaningful distinction, but I accept that another editor did. The edit resulted in a sentence that was a bit clumsy, IMO, so I cleaned it up a bit. Perhaps greater clarity will help. It also occurred to me that the connection between restricting supply might not be obvious to everyone and should be explicated. Also, even many (most?) legislators who vote for such laws recognize the danger of price controls -- they believe that the short-term nature, exceptions, or both guard against them. Robert A West 18:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fair and Balanced? To what end?

I have been browsing through the edits of this article and find it interesting that a great description about the problems with Price Gouging as a pratice was deleted. It is stated that this was done to be Balanced or Unbiased. However, I think a more effective way of presenting this Item would be to provide the arguments for both sides. Removing an argument against Gouging is not the answer and serves to lower the quality of the article to a reader who wants to understand the topic. The absence of others abilities to provide the missing arguements or, in turn, external links is NO reason to limit the presence of an argument for the other side.

Personally I have had many discussions about Price Gouging and my arguments against are almost always met with "Its unfair" or "Its immoral." If that is the extent of the other side's arguments than so be it. I have seen many articles in Wiki with the same problem (one side has a very large argument, while the other has a very small argument) Removing the writers argument because you don't agree, or do not see an ample representation of the other side is simply unfair to a reader trying to understand the topic. 70.185.243.67 21:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Please give an example showing an argument, any argument, that was deleted. Robert A West 21:50, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] American English?

I´m from the UK and the first time I heard the term "price gouging" was when watching CNN´s hurricane coverage. Maybe it is used in English-speaking countries other than USA, but if not that needs to be mentioned at the start of the article.

Please sign your comments by putting four tildes ~~~~ after your contribution. While it is easy to verify international usage, lack of usage is a somewhat taller order. I do not think we should make a claim of "U.S. Only" usage without something more than one person's say-so. Robert A West 22:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The OED's first citation is from the Guardian. Septentrionalis 05:17, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Need to restore NPOV

While I see the point of some of the recent edits, others seem to go overboard into advocacy. By expanding the pro-gouging (does anyone who defends it actually *like* that term?) arguments, and leaving the arguments for the laws a summary, the article has IMO lost balance. I don't want to just revert ... that would be inappropriate, but I think it now has some of the problems it had when I first saw it. Robert A West 23:27, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the article is not (currently) neutral, but for the opposite reason. Indeed, this article almost cannot be neutral because the term itself is so strongly and deliberately insulting that it seems intended to cut off rational discussion in favor of emotionalism. Nevertheless, the term is widely used and we can't make it go away. But within the article, phrases can be (intentionally or otherwise) slanted to one side or the other. For example the recent addition "price ... that is much higher than necessary to obtain a profit" implicitly suggests the point of view that prices "should" reflect the sum of the costs plus a grudgingly granted but secretly despised pittance of profit. There is another very prevalent view in economics that prices are the point of agreement between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept. Further, in this view of economics, any attempt, no matter how emotionally compelling or well-intentioned, to set the price through mechanisms other than the consent of the parties, only results in excess or insufficent supply. If you set the price too low, more people will buy it and fewer people will sell it, so there won't be enough. If you set the price too high, lots of people will be eager to sell at that price, but few will be willing to buy, so there will be too much. If you are going to claim to be neutral, please keep multiple points of view in mind with your terminology and try not to favor one side in the body of the article.--Chauncey27 18:00, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree about the bias built into the term "price gouging." It would be hard to bias this article in favor of price gouging. I disagree with Robert West that this article is biased in that way. If West thinks that arguments in favor of price gouging are too convincing then he should work on the anti-price-gouging section instead of cutting the other. RJII 18:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-gouging arguments

The section on anti-gouging arguments is far more sophisticated than the argument normally presented in favor of anti-gouging laws. The justification is normally just that "it's not fair" or "it's immoral to exploit someone else's emergency for profit".

[edit] There are more than just moral issues involved

Price gouging leads to starvation, which goes far beyond mere moral discussions.

People who cannot afford food at the new, much higher prices, starve and die, with few exceptions.

Example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081001946.html

Under price gouging with regards to food, people starve and die with food sitting out and no one able to buy it. This is killing countless people in Niger, for instance.

The argument in favor of price gouging is basically, "if you don't have enough of a piece of highly valued paper [money] to pay for food that I am charging ten times as much for now, then you and your children deserve to starve and die."

People dying because they don't have enough of a piece of paper with some President's name on it, is more than a moral problem. It is negligent homicide. This is why price gougers outside the United States tend not to feel very safe, because of armed robberies, riots and ultimately, civil wars. People WILL kill and steal to feed their babies, and that is a law of nature. Survival instincts always trump profits. The longer price gouging goes on, the more likely you are to see a collapse of a society.

Also consider that if you think counterfeiting is bad during normal times, price gouging inspires even more of it.

When price gouging comes as a result of a shortage, your problem is not price controls or price gouging, it is the shortage itself. The 1970s oil crisis in the US would have happened without price controls; but the working class would have been crushed early on as the rich would have bought all the gasoline and used it up. Long gasoline lines had a silver lining: everyone had an equal shot at getting gas, not just the rich.

Price gouging is the ultimate weapon of Malthusian life boat ethics: it's social darwinism and the golden rule... he who has the gold gets to live, and the rest are left to go without. When it comes to food, Nigerians can tell you personally that this means death.

[edit] Reorganized a bit

I looked back on this and thought, first, that the balance is pretty good after all. I think my real objection was not POV, but clarity. So, mostly I moved stuff around. IMO, a first paragraph should say what a term means to most of those who use it, and precise meanings should have precedence over fuzzy ones. If the first paragraph is long, then "not everyone believes this" belongs in the second paragraph. I think that makes for a clearer article.

Also, I replaced "rough legal terms" with a fairly precise explication of the elements of the crime. While no one (sane) uses Wikipedia for legal advice, people are apt to click on this article after they have heard about someone's being arrested for "price gouging," and it would be a disservice to leave a false impression that one can be so charged any time the local sheriff doesn't like your prices.

I hope this is an improvement and that I have avoided goring any oxen. Robert A West 10:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor grammatical issue

I'm unclear as to what is meant by the word "obtains" here: "In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a felony that obtains in some of the United States only during civil emergencies."

Is that left over from a previous edit, is it precise legal language I don't know, or is it a grammatical mistake and should be another word? (Perhaps "occurs" or even just removing the words "that obtains"?) Davebug 23:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:obtain, meaning #3. A law obtains in a jurisdiction when it applies as substantive law and is generally enforced. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is inaccurate

Someone needs to edit it. Price gouging is common practice and isn't uniqe to emergencies.

[edit] Change to first sentence

This edit [2] changed the usage from "nearly always" pejorative to "frequently pejorative". I think this is misleading. Also, the term is of highly-variable meaning and this should be made clear early on. Robert A.West (Talk) 12:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gas Prices - Does the Price of Oil Determine the Effectiveness to Gouge?

Since the 1973 oil crisis, shutting oil production has yielded higher oil prices to which the consumer is affected. Close to a decade ago, it was uncommon to locate $.99 for a gallon of regular unleaded until OPEC forced production cuts. Production cuts = exorbitant price fixing.

Does gouged oil prices equate to profittering? Yes. Exxonmobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP have to purchase oil from Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Bush and oil price gouging

Why americans can vote Bush that is ruining the USA (including using the petroleum prices)?. --193.145.201.52 10:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Profit, Profiteering, Gouging

At the root of the meaning of profiteering and gouging, we should consider "profit" from a historical point of view.

Consider the etymology of profit: pro = forwards, fero-fere = carry, which can be extrapolated as that which is carried forward into the future, i.e.: when one produces in excess of what's needed this year, or in excess of what's expected to be consumed, you have left over for the future. This is logical in an agrarian society, where harvests were often lost, and droughts made it necessary to save products for future lean times.

Check this ref for the Latin etymology: http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?stem=fero&ending=

As we move forward in history, Islamic law, and later the Christian Church were significant influences on the concepts of profit, interest, and prices. See Thomas Aquinas, and other historical economic documentation: http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/ancients.htm During the middle ages the matter of ethics economic behavior was guided on religious concepts of morality. (It is interesting to note that in Islamic practice, it is forbidden to charge "interest" on loans, which has spawned a whole new breed of banking services that are "Islam compliant.")

As we move into modern times, profit appears to have become detached from the idea of "excess production" and tied to "the highest price the market can bear." This faces up against the basic tenets of modern economics, based on banking and currency creation, which would make a direct application of the ancient concept quite difficult, because currency (or purchasing power) is not clearly tied to real products directly, but through derivation. If we were to translate ancient concepts onto modern economics, we might say, real profit, or fair profit is the excess income obtained or earned from surplus production, after adjustment for inflation.

As it is clear in the article itself, there is no such economic rationale for "fair" profit, beyond which we could say we have profiteering and gouging. The standards for "fair" becomes somewhat subjective, unless is specifically stated in law.

I seriously doubt that a consensus on a mechanical meaning of profit, profiteering, and gouging can be achieved, unless some of the underlying foundation of the modern system are revised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whit3hawk (talk • contribs) 07:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)