Lol, the more this thread grows, the better the OP looks.  He nailed it.

Agreed OP.



I remember having to pay $30 per aluminum GI mag during the 94-04 ban.  At least I was able to get mags when I wanted them.

Just to clarify, I agree with that.

Your choice. Your property.

I know..........just saying it's an ethical position, far more ethical then selling under market price due to being forced or coerced.

Where in the hell did you get the "force" shit??  I said nothing about "force" anyone to do anything.     I agree, we are not owed shit...... and I said that. Just wanted to check if you're down with EVERY supplier of things we want or need to have that same mindset and you said you are and that's cool. I don't believe you're being honest but we'll probably have a chance to find out in the near future when prices go through the roof on everyday items.
I don't like gougers, sorry.... never did, never will.

Fuck other people out of them?  That sounds suspiciously like those people were entitled to those magazines.  Look, you want to believe in the stuff you're saying, fine.  That's your opinion.  It is my opinion that since you say those things, you believe them.  And support them.  "Need" has no bearing.  None.  If you disagree with that, that means you are essentially saying that your 'need' to buy a mag at a price you feel is acceptable outweighs any entire 1000 mag transaction.

This

Ok comrade, 1000+ mags is the number, I'm safe.


How about this: In the area I'm in there the oil fields have been found to contain a lot more oil than originally thought, housing is limited and soon prices will make a big jump. Am I allowed to purchase a few houses and then turn around and sell them for a big profit when the boom hits? I only need one house but I see the potential to make a killing buying low right now, soon there will be a shortage of affordable housing and prices will skyrocket.

I feel absolutely certain that I would say things like, "Man, this sucks." or "I'm going to die, please help me."

It's one thing to comment that it sucks that prices are high. It's entirely another to suggest that high prices are evil, unethical, wrong, or immoral.
You're right. It is easy to hold the position I hold when I'm not in pain. It doesn't make my position wrong.
Your hunger doesn't grant you a claim of ownership over anyone else's food. Your sick child doesn't grant you a claim of ownership over anyone else's medicine. Your shivering bones don't grant you a claim of ownership over anyone else's fuel. Your pain does not grant you a claim of ownership over anyone else's time or resources.
To repeat: complaining about pain is one thing. Requiring that others grant you relief is quite another.

You're free to do business or not do business with whomever you choose on whatever basis you choose. I just think that this is a stupid basis upon which to refuse to do business with people.


That's a bull crap cop-out. He didn't say "what should someone make me do with them" or "what must I do with them", he asked you what he should do with them. You're the one in this thread asserting that he has an ethical obligation to do things a certain way, so explain what the ethical thing to do in that guy's situation is. Either that, or admit that you're just kvetching because you don't like the way the prices are now, and that you have no consistent basis upon which to determine what prices are ethical and what prices are unethical.

I never said it did.

So... you would sell it to that man at the price he was willing to pay instead of the price you were asking?  It sounds like you were persuaded by his condition and your ethics, adjusted your price, and participated in the free market.



This sounds like the idiots and morons rule:  Anyone driving faster than me is an idiot.  Anyone driving slower than me is a moron.  Sell for more than I think you should sell it for?  Asshole.  Sell it for less?  Ethical.  Then there's someone else that looks at you selling something and thinking: Oh that's way too much... what an idiot, or that's way too little, how naive.

 
 

You're right.  You didn't use 'force'.  I apologize.  However, the problem with your thinking is that when those gougers are making goods available at what you think is too high a price... those goods are at least available.  The alternative is no goods for sale at all because the 'gougers' were forced to sell at some undetermined lower 'fair' price, and now you can't get what you want/need at any price.  The socialistic aspect that would make goods available... would be called rationing.  At that point, I'd be happy to have the free market and whatever you care to define as 'gougers'.

My objection to C** is that I think they and Dicks are leaving the field when the going gets tough. When I read statements like" We are evaluating or firearms policies in light of the tragedy.(paraphrasing here)" I think Quisling. Cocksucker. Bitch. They have made enough money off of the industry to support it in its time of need. I would feel the same for journalists that don't support a free press. I feel the same for an attorney that would violate a/c privilege for money. There should be ethics in industry and those ethics have little to do with pricing.

I sell guns. I sell guns in a shop legally bound by the same laws and market forces that govern the industry. I knew what a AR15 could do before I started selling them. I thought about the moral responsibilites of the act before I started. It was a shock to those that know me best that I cared about this. But I do. I am committed to this as an honorable profession.  

I don't care about their pricing schedule; but, yeah I razz them on it. Because, I think they are loathsome. But I don't think they are loathsome because of the prices.

And yet... there you are using it.  So what bearing does need play into this?

And someone else could let him die, and that would be unethical IMO. Capitalism is just an economic system, by itself it is neither ethical or unethical. My answer was that someone could participate in the free markets and make unethical decsions or not its up to them really and their own sense of morals and ethics.

Capitalism has a built in level of ethics.





Any free market does.  





Abuse your customers without a monopoly and you will lose them.  Free markets, by their nature, are beneficent.  





Just not to the stupid or lazy.





 

That would depend:

- Is someone else willing to pay more than your asking price to get the medicine when others will pay asking price only? Then your price was too low. Demand outstrips supply at price point $x.

- Is someone else willing to pay your asking price but not a cent more? Then your price was reasonable. Supply and demand are in equilibrium at price point $x.

- Is nobody else willing to pay your asking price and this man's offer is the best on the table? Then your price was too high. Supply outstrips demand at price point $x.

And if you instead choose to insist on selling for $x and not a cent less, and get nothing for the medicine and let everyone die rather than adjust to selling at the highest offer available in the market, then you're just downright stupid.

No it isn't a different question.

And yes, it is ethical to ask for as much as you want.

I'm SURE you would say that a pharm company was " unethical, wrong, or immoral " if you had to watch a loved one go into a diabetic comma because they wanted $500.00/shot of insulin and your loved one needed 6 a day....... I could be wrong but I doubt it.... but hey, that's life and you are not owed shit..... either is your loved one.
I'm not saying my hunger, need for meds, discomfort, grants me claim of ownership of anyone else's property...... your missing my point entirely.
Here's the deal....... many here are hypocrites. Yep, they sure are..... cause IF you carried the mindset and business practices many here seem to be advocating to EVERYTHING else we want or need, you would see bitching and howling like you wouldn't believe.
If the food suppliers, gasoline companies, pharm companies etc. said " we don't owe you shit, choose what you want to buy with the money you have" ...... all the "free market/capitalists" here would be screaming their asses off.
It's human nature, it's how things REALLY work and how people REALLY react when shit gets real for them.

So it is unethical for someone to refuse a persuasion that worked on you?  Just trying to nail down your standard.  So, if death is on the line,  anything I have is up for grabs at any price they name... in order for me to remain ethical?  That any refusal by me to part with my property if I don't agree with the price is now unethical?

I hope that, even in such a state, I would be rational enough to curse my own lack of resources, or my lack of foresight in not saving resources, or fate before I would curse someone for preferring to engage in mutually-beneficial exchange rather than in charity. I don't know if I'd still be rational in a bad situation.

If all your point is is "sometimes people are irrational", then... way to go, I guess.

Also, I object to your characterization of the owners of the desired resources as "companies". Companies and corporations are just groups of individuals. Any complaint against an agglomeration of individuals is exactly the same as a complaint against the individuals severally. If you wouldn't be pissed at one person for refusing to make his life worse to make your life better, then it would be unreasonable to be pissed at a bunch of people refusing to make their lives worse to make your life better.

And what happens when that company that makes that medicine folds because it sold it for less then the cost to make and distribute it due to how unethical it would be not to sell at the dying mans price and now EVERYONE dies because no one can get it?

Curse your lack of resources?? You mean curse the fact that you don't make over $3000.00/day?? Insulin has a short shelf life and can become useless if proper temperature is not maintained so stocking up isn't an answer to the problem. The insulin/diabetic is just an example.
How is not gouging fellow shooters making someone's life "worse"?  

You seem absolutely positive about other people's behavior. Since you're on this kick of the 'high road' of 'I know how things really are and almost everyone is a hypocrite except me', here's a reality check for you: When I have a limited supply of something, and people are dying off because my prices are 'too' high, guess what happens? Demand goes down, and nobody buys. Then I lower my prices so I can make money, and it stabilizes again.



Lesson: I use my time and talent to make property in the form of money. I am a bread dealer. I buy bread at a certain amount and sell it at a certain amount in order to make the most money I can for my time. Normally I buy 8000 loaves of bread at $1 each every month. I sell them for $4 each. I spend $8,000 and get

$32,000. Every month. Every so often I have a sale. I sell bread at $3.00 a loaf. Now I would only get $24,000. Now I buy extra bread because I still need to make that $32,000 in order to stay open. So I sell an extra 4000 loaves. Now my sales total $36,000. Cool. Then I'm at home watching the news and I see a segment about a wheat disease that wipes out a large portion of the upcoming crops. I realize that I'll run out of bread (see current mag situation) unless I raise my prices. So I order what I can possibly get my hands on at $5 per loaf and add it to my stock: 50,000 loaves total. I show up to my bread shop and see a massive line waiting, so I make a sign that says $10 a loaf. Half the line goes away. I sell 10,000 loaves that day. 20% of my stock is gone with no way to replenish it. That evening I see my shop on the news with the $10 price, and the competitor's shop at $6. I realize that I'll run out the next day if I leave the price at $10. So I go to my shop with 40,000 loaves and I see another huge line of people. I put a sign in the window that say $25 a loaf. I sell only 4,000 loaves that day. I continue like this each day until I'm selling enough bread to maintain my stock, keep selling bread, and still have enough money (value) to live on... and hopefully have bread available for sale at what I can bear and the market can bear, until the next crop comes in.



Should I sell out my entire stock at $6 per loaf in the first day? Be unable to buy $10 per gallon gasoline? $6 per gallon milk? $5 per dozen eggs? $20 per pound of butter? Etc...



Maybe, just maybe, the ethical thing to do is to keep force out of free trade. Look at what the mere implication of a government ban is doing to the shit now. I cannot even imagine what it would be like if some people decided that a flu shot should only 'cost' some lesser fraction of what someone paid for it. Or if the government decides that the profit margin is 'x' no matter what.

I want to know which fellow shooter was forced to pay (some amount you deem inappropriate) and what or why he was forced ('gouged').  Go ahead, name names.

Why are people calling everything they disagree with "socialism" now?

As long as we're being all hypothetical, it amazes me that some of you don't seem to get that calling you out for being a dick isn't the same thing as suggesting that you should be coerced into any theoretical transaction.  You have the freedom to be a dick, doesn't make you any less of one.

Yeah, that's what I said. You can either be mad that you're too poor to survive your problem, or you can be mad that nobody will make their life worse to make your life better. The former is tragic, but reasonable; the latter is understandable, but unreasonable.

I have ten widgets. I can sell ten widgets at a price of fifty dollars each. Total revenue: 500. Instead, I choose to sell them for thirty dollars each. Total revenue: 300. By choosing to sell for a lower price, I have 200 fewer dollars than I would have had otherwise. My options are diminished. I can no longer buy things that cost five hundred dollars, I am restricted to buying things that cost three hundred dollars or less. My customers are very happy: they were willing to pay five hundred dollars, but have paid only three hundred and now have two hundred dollars surplus which they may enjoy.

By cutting my price for the sake of charity, I have reduced my options for the sake of giving my customers more options. My outcome has been demonstrably worsened in order to improve the outcome of my customers.



A: I bought this thing for ten dollars. Lots of people want it very badly now, though, and are willing to pay a lot. You can have it if you give me fifty dollars.
B: I want that thing more than I want fifty dollars. Here.

Dicketry in action, I guess?

Calling someone a dick for doing something is to suggest that they've done something wrong or evil or dicketrous, and that they should stop doing that thing, and possibly do something else instead. What should A be doing in the example given in order not to be a dick?

So would you say I am a bad person if I sell an AR that I built for $850 for $1700 ?
Also, if I had a bunch of beat up old Colt 30 round mags that I got for less than $10 a piece if I sold them for $30+ a piece would that make me a bad person?

If someone is willing to pay the money, I am not forcing them to buy it, I see no problem with what is going on. Right now, it doesn't matter if mags are $10 or $50, they are still flying off the shelves.

^this.....they sound like card carrying members of the FSA  

it only seems to be unethical to those who don't have a shit load of mags

 wtf is this share? this isn't kindergarten where five of us use out of the only play dough can.

That was the intent of my statement.

Late to the game knowing you should have been there a long time ago is not the fault of anyone else.

it's not about "need". nobody "needs" pmags.  the only thing a human "needs" is food, shelter, water and air.  the people paying $100 for a pmag are doing it to themselves. they're not forced to buy them.  I've been telling people for years to keep a good supply of mags and ammo. they all say about the same thing, "I just need one til it breaks". these are the same retards that have been in our shop all week whining that there's no mags left. it's hilarious.

Ethics my ass. I looked up ruger sr556's on gunbroker. The same gun that cost $1,400 a few weeks ago was going for $2,500. There were like 20 bids....

If a hurricane wipes out supply lines for gasoline, the price will go up due to increased demand and lower supply. Have a Derf like Chris Christie ban "price gouging" and there is a mile long line outside the gas station and it soon runs dry.

Right now, this is basically like a futures market. There is a chance that our supply of ar's will be haulted by an unconstitutional Federal Law. If this hault in production happens, it would mean reduced supply for increased demand.

It's the same reason you have to pay through the nose for a Class 3. There are only so many, per 86 mg's.

And it is still wrong to steal those from someone else.  It is unethical to presume that others should automatically extend charity whenever you wish it.

hell yes.......buy all the houses and all the land you can. then profit $$$$$$

yes you did...look at the blue part.

No, no, NO!  But, but, BUT... what about all those people that will deprived of shelter at the price they want?!?!?  How dare you even consider taking away what those people are entitled to, and driving up the prices of the market!!!!  

Yup and its gonna suck when the ATF is crawling up there ass.

exactly....I didn't see the sarcasm til now (back pain meds have my head a bit messed up)

they can put their shit in a sack and start walking. like Sam Kineson said to the starving Ethiopians.......... 'MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS YOU STUPID FUCKERS!!!!!!!".

Agreed, OP

What do I know? Seriously.

As it has been repeated thousands of times.

Supply and demand.

Who the FUCK is going to keep prices at 15 bucks/unit if suddenly there is over 200 percent greater demand than at the previous 15 bucks/unit price.

Oh shit, supplier A, B and C raised their prices to 20 dollars/unit.
They're getting sales?
Selling out you say?
Well, shit. Lets be ethical
OH NOES! I'm SOLD OUT. I can't get any more in for another 3 weeks?



Also

No one is force pricing, being forced to buy, forced to shit, eat, sleep, jack off.

etc

be gone

this past week in our shop, it wasn't the usual guys who were flipping out over mags being sold out everywhere. it was people I've never seen before, mostly younger types who were more worried about weed and pussy a few weeks ago than getting their shit together with a few Fudds mixed in. the Fudds being old guys I've known for years that up until Obama got elected turned their noses up at black rifles and did nothing but talk shit about them. several of them had quit coming in the shop over the years because we had EBR's.  fuck them.

If people in desperate need of specific things prepared like those with an abundance of those things  there would be no problem. One should make sure that they have something to offer and  prepare according to their needs.

Nobody owes it to you to put your needs in front of theirs.

I'm wasnt talking about mags, I was talking about all those hypotheticals above about insulin etc.