cross-posted from: https://jorts.horse/users/fathermcgruder/statuses/113008342518705813
Instead of price controls to prevent gouging, why doesn’t the government build up reserves and stockpiles?
Most things today are shipped JIT Just In Time.
Walmart doesn’t have tons of stuff “in back”. Most stores these days don’t have a back. They have only enough to stock what was sold since the last truck.
So as others have said; stock what? Everything? And where would we keep it? Yes like the strategic oil reserves; we could have baby formula; hamburger, diapers, and powdered milk… but it is way easier to slap idiots who price gouge.
I volunteer to hold the strategic baby back rib reserve….
My feeling is that it’s better to solve a problem than to send law enforcement after those who try to take advantage of it. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t ever do the latter, but it creates problems like black markets and selective or uneven enforcement.
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On what exactly? Also where do you store it? Like I am all for government activity to collectively stockpile and supply materials but what materials and for what purpose? Also should it be a federal project/state project/both? IDK sometimes its just easier to use price controls then it is to handle logistics.
So you spend taxes for product at market rate and then depress the price using your money? The government doesn’t make anything so it would need to acquire the materials with some kind of cost that will always come from the tax base 100% of the time.
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There’s no reason the government can’t produce things, but, to your point, the stockpiles would be built up when prices are low and only sold off when prices start increasing too quickly. The program might still operate at a net loss, but that’s okay if it successfully protects working class people from price gouging.
I agree the money is going to come from the monetary supply and government acting as buyer and distributor of goods would be incredibly problematic. A subsidy of some kind for domestic production + placing a max profit markup IMO would be a more effective method.
What your suggesting had been done, and it causes a price floor and the formation of a black market 100% of the time. This is not a solution.
Then perhaps reforming the commons? Agricultural land & surplus are owned in common by the people who live in the area. Government pays for the production of those food stuffs and only gets a nominal % tax on the surplus.
The Soviets tried that and it is the root cause of some of the most serious famines ever seen. Not a good idea. Government, by its nature, is an inefficiency engine. You want the government in the picture as little as possible. This increases that and will cause more inequality not less.
Who said Gov is an inefficiency engine? That sounds more like neo-liberal dogma then actual peer reviewed work.
The Soviets tried that and it is the root cause of some of the most serious famines ever seen.
There was one famine, and it happened near the beginning of the Soviet Union’s history, after a civil war. And this was a country where for centuries under tsarist rule famines had been a common occurrence. What the Soviet Union did was end famines.
Government, by its nature, is an inefficiency engine.
This sounds like neoliberal Road to Serfdom nonsense. Inefficient compared to what, the invisible hand?
This increases that and will cause more inequality not less.
Inequality in Russia has risen since the fall of the Soviet Union. Are you unaware of the shock therapy that befell many of the Warsaw pact states? As shock therapist Jeffrey Sachs will tell you, the reason Poland was the sole “success story” is that the US chose to allow it to be a success.
And reported… to the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
In some seriousness, moves that bold haven’t been done since Nixon.
We do the opposite we pay farmers not to grow to keep prices higher.
