Trump Aska Suprene court to enforce transgender military ban

[Lilith7]

Shortages of basic items are not a good reason to increase prices. Doing so smacks of greed.

Someone selling overpriced bread  in times of shortage of ingredients to make bread is making their profit at the expense of others. 

Greed tends to happen often with what was sometimes called the 'black market'.

it's not nice I know but ultimately this comes down to the question "why would I sell my short supply and in demand XYZ widget to someone for this amount, when I can sell it to someone else for twice the price"  - as long as there is someone willing to pay twice the price price, the higher price it shall be. 

And then, there is the whole responsibility to the shareholders aspect - management couldn't sell for a lesser amount because that responsibility requires that they maximise profits for the shareholders...

I cringe when I think of how much a paid for a box of disposable gloves in the height of the covid pandemic, compared to now...

Because you have a conscience, & quite like being able to sleep at night...?

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JIT has been in use in many industries for decades, car manufacturers for instance... It's primary benefit is reduction in stock holding and associated costs...

JIT inventory is essentially the model used for our major supermarkets. The stock held in a supermarket is typically 3 days worth of sales. The system works well to keep storage and handling cost mitigated but falls down if there is a break in the usual supply chain such as in the case of natural disasters or other civil disruption. Those that use the supermarket as their pantry by shopping every day or two put themselves at risk of exhausting their grocery supplies as they have delegate resilience of supply out of their immediate control.

One of the major dangers faced by city dwellers in contrast to those living closer to production systems (rural areas) is that fragility of supply of consumable items and especially food is far greater. The most recent demonstration of this was during the COVID epidemic and lockdowns.

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Shortages of basic items are not a good reason to increase prices. Doing so smacks of greed.

Someone selling overpriced bread  in times of shortage of ingredients to make bread is making their profit at the expense of others. 

Greed tends to happen often with what was sometimes called the 'black market'.

Indicative of greed, or a baked in survival mechanism? Back in primitive times the last remnants of the most recent mastodon kill would have been a prized asset and flippantly allowing the neighbouring cave dwellers to consume it would result in hunger or worse so its worth increases until a successful hunt could replace it. But if your neighbour had a pot of honey they'd squirreled away you might be tempted to trade some meat for it, especially as the meat was at risk of spoiling. Supply and demand in its most basic form.

In some circumstances it's probably  a little of both. 
But when you have a group of landlords descending on a smallish town & buying up rental properties, & then renting them out at Auckland rental prices so that locals have the choice of whether to pay what are to them, exorbitant rents, move away, or become homeless then that's fairy clearly greed.

I was recently reading about WW2 & the effects immediately after Germany lost; no shortage of desperation, hoarding & profiteering even in such dire times.
 Human nature is deeply unattractive sometimes.

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Here's a good real world example of landlords exploiting the system and raising prices when the government injects money into the system, what's required is regulation and punishment for transgressions.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside...-what-will

Interesting sideline - this government has capped and stopped funding for social housing subsidies. How that has affected our pensioner flats, run by a pp.partnership between Selwyn Trust and Ak Council, is for Haumaru to decide to rent to people who don't come from the social housing register at higher rents than existing tenants. They are now refurbing older units ( like mine) with that future in mind, in an ongoing three year process. So, the next tenant to move into our latest refurbed flat will pay more than anyone else, for a similar but updated space, under the same rules, but may well have more assets, better savings, better lifestyle. And Haumaru will collect more rent from them. But, consider the social costs. Someone with a higher level of need misses out. The chance of social friction increases. Homelessness doesn't actually fall, and a private landlord loses a tenant. While it might put downward pressure on rents it is on such a small and specific scale it probably won't impact...

The world is changing. Everywhere, not just here. My question though is given a change of government, will these changes be reversed?

Probably not, I suspect.

I suspect that if any political party had the sense & guts to stand up & say that if voited in, they intended to immediately start dismantling Neo Liberalism & that if they had failed to do several stated things within say their first year then they would stabnd down & call an election, then that party might have quite a lot of support.

Housing is a basic human need & as such should be provided to every last person; we have got to do better.