2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
Mail sucks. I could do without ever receiving mail. Electronic everything is fine. And for packages, Amazon has their own trucks. And if I order from elsewhere can pay some private company.
can you define price gouging in a competitive sector then, given you disagree with laws against it? what is it?
If I usually disagree with price gouging laws, then I should be able to define price gouging? Why? The difficult of defining price gouging in an intelligent way for the purposes of such laws is part of the problem.
The decline was inevitable because numerous forces were pushing prices higher than they should have been in the first place. It couldn't continue forever.
But there is no denying that declines in property values were devastating to many, many home owners.
Why did their home value matter unless they sold it?
If I usually disagree with price gouging laws, then I should be able to define price gouging? Why? The difficult of defining price gouging in an intelligent way for the purposes of such laws is part of the problem.
Ok but you need some model in your mind of what gouging is, i don't have one in competitive sectors, it can't definitionally exist any malfeasance about pricing if there is competition.
Egg producer X decides to hike 78% because of problems in egg production, others hike 54% because that's the actual amount of the input cost shock, egg producer X goes down in price or doesn't sell. "gouging" vaguely defined as evil behaviour over some acceptable threshold can't exist with competition in any definitional way!
A crazy guy starts selling water bottles at $100 because of some marketing ploy, celebrity endorsement and whatever. Is that price gouging? what's price gouging? i don't even understand the assumptions of the crowd here.
n How Do House Prices Affect Consumption? Evidence From Micro Data (NBER Working Paper No. 11534), authors John Campbell and Joao Cocco use micro-level data from the U.K. Family Expenditure Survey to distinguish among these alternative explanations. Micro data can be helpful because they allow the authors to identify those households for which the direct wealth effect of house prices is particularly large or small. Older homeowners and younger renters represent households that are most likely to gain and lose from house price increases. Consistent with a direct wealth effect, the authors estimate a large positive effect of house prices on consumption for the cohort of old households who are homeowners, and an effect that is close to zero for the cohort of young households who are renters.
The authors also find that, controlling for economy-wide house prices and for regional income, regional house prices do influence regional consumption. This is a key result for policymakers and economists, showing that it is important to allow for regional heterogeneity when estimating the effects of house prices on consumption.
This is dumb. It is precisely that gouging is a hard to define concept that makes laws against it so bad. You're just arguing to argue on this. There's no possible point you are trying to make other than "gouging laws" bad. The same thing Rococo said that you are up in arms about.
I’m not worried about these policies we’re discussing actually getting passed tbh. It’s going to be very close and she probably will only get to pass 3-4 real spending bills, and that’s if they’re able to secure both houses. Getting 50+ dems in the senate to agree on anything is extremely difficult nowadays.
Most will just be government funding bills that will be a fight to even get passed. Honestly if I was interested in my party actually returning to some semblance of competence as a Republican, I would want Kamala to win the presidency and for Republicans to win congress+senate. Because Trump and Maga is just a stain on that party.
can you define price gouging in a competitive sector then, given you disagree with laws against it? what is it?
You want people who are in favour of measures to prevent/reduce price gouging to define it, you want those against such measures to define it...what is it you're after here? Obviously you have access to definitions, so what is it you're driving at?
You want people who are in favour of measures to prevent/reduce price gouging to define it, you want those against such measures to define it...what is it you're after here? Obviously you have access to definitions, so what is it you're driving at?
I am after trying to understand the topic because it's like we are talking purple unicorns in the meta verse for me.
I do not have access to any coherent definition of what price gouging can be, how the concept can exist, with competition.
Same as "exploitation" for me literally can't exist in any voluntary exchange
We both seem to oppose price-gouging laws. Why am I supposed to have a workable definition of price gouging when you do not?
I oppose anyone who treats the concept that price gouging can exist as real in competition, that comes well before defining it.
It's like you are saying you disagree with sexual discrimination in spaceships that go faster than light to colonize other star systems and I am like "the fuq"
I’m not worried about these policies we’re discussing actually getting passed tbh. It’s going to be very close and she probably will only get to pass 3-4 real spending bills, and that’s if they’re able to secure both houses. Getting 50+ dems in the senate to agree on anything is extremely difficult nowadays.
Most will just be government funding bills that will be a fight to even get passed. Honestly if I was int
Checkraise if Dems get a trifecta (25% approx in betting markers right now) there is no sinema or manchin left, you are going all in and nuke the legislative filibuster. And court pack and so on.
It's the biggest domestic threat to america since independence.
Sinema isn't running anymore, manchin either.
I do want Harris to win and republicans to hold the Senate btw but not for the same reasons you think, I guess.
I am after trying to understand the topic because it's like we are talking purple unicorns in the meta verse for me.
I do not have access to any coherent definition of what price gouging can be, how the concept can exist, with competition.
Same as "exploitation" for me literally can't exist in any voluntary exchange
Okay, so you're being intentional obtuse to make some sort of point. Nothing new here. Carry on.
Okay, so you're being intentional obtuse to make some sort of point. Nothing new here. Carry on.
I am not, some concepts might be obvious when implicit for some groups of people, i can vaguely imagine what they mean when they talk about that, but they aren't part of the mental model of what i consider as something that exists.
Like the soul, or being "non binary", or "baby killing" if a 1 centimeter zygote dies, or "exploitation" in voluntary arrangements, or "price gouging" in competitive markets.
I ask for clarification when the crowd around me talks as if it's obvious what those things mean, because i live in a different model of the world, where a 1cm zygote cannot be a baby, and you cannot "gouge" with pricing if competitors exist.
I oppose anyone who treats the concept that price gouging can exist as real in competition, that comes well before defining it.
It's like you are saying you disagree with sexual discrimination in spaceships that go faster than light to colonize other star systems and I am like "the fuq"
We both appear to oppose price gouging laws. I stated explicitly that the difficulty of defining price gouging was one of the problems with such laws. Therefore, I'll repeat my question. Why am I supposed to be more capable of coming up with a workable statutory definition of price gouging than you are?
Here is a suggestion. Ask someone who is defending such laws for a workable definition, not me.
We both appear to oppose price gouging laws. I stated explicitly that the difficulty of defining price gouging was one of the problems with such laws. Therefore, I'll repeat my question. Why am I supposed to be more capable of coming up with a workable statutory definition of price gouging than you are?
ok my bad, you oppose price gouging laws because like me you think it's absurd to talk about price gouging as existing distinct from antitrust considerations. So we agree.
You're aware that there are laws in most states that specifically ban price gouging and at least some have definitions for it right? It took me all of 30s looking at wikipedia to discover this fact.
Based on my understanding from reading said wikipedia article I think talking about price gouging outside of disaster/emergency situations isn't particularly useful but in those situations it is somewhat well defined.
I am after trying to understand the topic because it's like we are talking purple unicorns in the meta verse for me.
I do not have access to any coherent definition of what price gouging can be, how the concept can exist, with competition.
Same as "exploitation" for me literally can't exist in any voluntary exchange
I’ll try giving you an extreme example as there was some of this going on during the pandemic. One easy example of price gouging would be buying up all of a certain item from every store in your area and then reselling them at a 10x markup. this form of price gouging is already illegal.
“Unfortunately, as the severity of the pandemic became apparent, some individuals sought to take advantage of the national crisis, and they accumulated these much-needed products in excess of their personal needs for the purpose of selling them at inflated prices—an action known as “price gouging.” As a result, federal law enforcement agencies were tasked with investigating and prosecuting hoarding and price gouging so that these critical supplies could be best utilized to safeguard public health rather than enrich those who attempted to exploit the dire situation.”
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gover...
But your caveat of “with competition” is an important one. We all know that perfect competition doesn’t exist in any western democracy, so we are left to contend with economies of scale. We can point to historical monopolies and cartels though as examples of price gouging.
Checkraise if Dems get a trifecta (25% approx in betting markers right now) there is no sinema or manchin left, you are going all in and nuke the legislative filibuster. And court pack and so on.
It's the biggest domestic threat to america since independence.
Sinema isn't running anymore, manchin either.
I do want Harris to win and republicans to hold the Senate btw but not for the same reasons you think, I guess.
Who told you this? Although some congresspeople and senators support filibuster nuking, the vast majority don’t. Court packing is not going to happen either, it’s just too extreme and unpopular. Although if the Supreme Court keeps making horrible rulings it might become more popular with the average person. Even the Trump appointed judges are trying to pretend to be more moderate because they’re afraid of the American people turning on them for their arbitrary decisions.
Meanwhile the Republicans are not so secretly plotting to institute Christian Nationalism, ban abortion, ram through more crony judges than ever before, oh and by the way their candidate wanted to overturn an election and got his supporters to storm the capitol building because he was mad he lost.
You're aware that there are laws in most states that specifically ban price gouging and at least some have definitions for it right? It took me all of 30s looking at wikipedia to discover this fact.
is the thinking that the states aren't adequate enough to handle it, and it should be a federal issue?
You're aware that there are laws in most states that specifically ban price gouging and at least some have definitions for it right? It took me all of 30s looking at wikipedia to discover this fact.
Based on my understanding from reading said wikipedia article I think talking about price gouging outside of disaster/emergency situations isn't particularly useful but in those situations it is somewhat well defined.
https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/consume...
Here is an overview of state price-gouging laws for anyone who is interested. As you might expect, the statutory definitions are relatively amorphous in most cases.
No it is not true that "many private entities hold huge amount of houses, especially not hedge funds lol.
I wrote the solution, 1) let people build in their land 2) let people convert commercial property to residential
But it's a local matter not a federal one. Some states, depending on their constitutions, might have power on the topic over their own localities, some might not, but anyway this is something the federal government can't deal w
It’s getting annoying that you speak with certainty like baham on things u totally wrong …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/...
Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades, according to the realty company Redfin.
Those purchases come at a time when would-be buyers across the country are seeing wildly escalating prices, raising the question of what impact investors are having on prices for everyone else. Investors were even more aggressive in the final three months of the year, buying 15 percent of all homes that sold in the 40 markets.
Brown took direct aim at private equity firms and corporate landlords in particular.
“They bought up properties, they raised rents, they cut services, they priced out family home buyers, and they forced renters out of their homes,” he said.
Investors have been snapping up homes in and around downtown Cleveland at a staggering rate, putting three of the city’s Zip codes among the top 15 nationally in the rate of investor purchases last year.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/real-estat...
Housing in Tampa Bay is becoming increasingly corporate-owned, a Tampa Bay Times analysis has found. Large companies have amassed around 27,000 homes across three counties. More than 70% of these properties are linked to institutional investors backed by Wall Street and private equity.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/h...
Herrera is not alone, as many other Las Vegas Valley real estate agents are decrying new players in the game — multibillion-dollar Wall Street hedge funds and cash-flush investors — buying up properties and pushing regular homebuyers out of the market with aggressive buying and rental tactics.
Investors and hedge funds currently own roughly 80,000 single-family homes in Clark County, which is about 14 percent of the county’s housing stock of 563,000, according to Shawn McCoy, director of UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate. These same groups have made nearly 10 percent of all home purchases in the county since 1988.
Redfin estimating in the first quarter of 2022, investors or Wall Street hedge funds bought one out of every five properties in metros across the country, racking up $50 billion in home sales. Redfin estimates the high water mark may have been 2021’s third quarter, when investors bought close to 100,000 single-family homes in the U.S.
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You're aware that there are laws in most states that specifically ban price gouging and at least some have definitions for it right? It took me all of 30s looking at wikipedia to discover this fact.
Based on my understanding from reading said wikipedia article I think talking about price gouging outside of disaster/emergency situations isn't particularly useful but in those situations it is somewhat well defined.
I am aware of the defintion under a natural disaster occurrence (i disagree about applications but it's a different topic), but given that has nothing to do with current times and inflation, i didn't think that a definition used in a situation that has literally nothing to do with august 2024 america could apply.
