I am a far left socialist. It is a fallacy to conclude that socialism = authoritarianism; that is essentially Sovietism. Karl Marx's socialist philosophy included an anarchist government, not an authoritarian one. Another example is Star Trek, pure socialist (they don't even use currency) and for the most part an anarchic society with other institutions in place. Star Fleet obviously has an order, but they are also a military organization.

A)  Actually my best arguement is... it doesn't work.  Hence why it was abandoned.  It's been tried everywhere, and never worked out.    Though yeah, time kinda is a big factor.   That and the supply issue.

B) People are willing to buy those products EVERYWHERE.  Not just the disaster area.  So why not put stuff there?  Well because you have a much higher risk of losing product.

C)  Except... they don't.  Not to a level that people find unfair.  You say this is the case yet offer no proof.

D) You STILL have yet to argue against the fact that more people die under price gouging and quantity fixing.  Supply is wasted  and people die under your system.  That's a fact you've yet to even attempt to refute.  If your willing to let more people die for your definition of "fairness", just say so, and we can end this here.

Again, i'm seeing no economic arguements, only untrue statements that have been disproven by the already provided economic studies.

In otherwords, put up or shut up.

I've provided plenty of economists papers, including a case study and a formula model and economic consensus.

You've provided.... nothing outside of opinions which are disproven by the very data and expert opinions presented... and just a logical breakdown of the situation and causes, which you haven't even refuted being the case.

All you've done is say "This way has negatives too!"

However, every system has negatives.  The positive of "more people living" outweighs any of those negatives.

Since this is off topic and gone on for a while, if you wish to continue I suggest you start a new thread titled "This is why more people won't die under price controls and quantity fixing and link to it here.  I'd suggest actually having a supply and demand formula or some economic reasoning behind your arguement that goes against the presented models and real world case studies.  Versus your current "This is true because I say it is, despite the presented evidence" approach.  You are boardering on the whole creationism style of arguement.

You are making the same mistake.  As an Walter Williams once set "Passionate issues require dispassionate analysis."

In general the experts have spoken.  Experts CAN be wrong... but to prove experts wrong... you need well evidence if not to the contrary at least to destroy their own models.

From a strictly economical POV, disregarding human beings and considering them mere figures on some table, your ideea is perfect. If that's the answer you wanted to hear then there it is. Sadly for you, it's a very limited POV, but alas, we all must chose which lords to serve.

Saving more lives is disregarding human beings?  I think we have very different definitions of what "disregarding human beings" means.

For me... it's letting people die for meaningless ideals that aren't even served by the laws inacted. (Since the poor are still likely to be screwed, and more poor will die under such a system.)

Ask most family memebers, and i think they'd say they'd rather people save their relatives then their inheretance.

Most would rather live out of government emergency shelters as a family, then be missing people and have their possessions largely intact.

The only issue is, most people are ignorant to the economic realties of the situation and don't realize that price gouging laws actually do cause more deaths... and polticians love to pander.

The difference between us is you are taking an initial emotional response to an issuse.  While I am rationally observing it, then applying my emotions to the situation to see if the rational situation is the more beneficial one... and I'd say saving more lives is emotionally more beneficial.

You are placing money ahead of human life.  Your just looking at things too irationally to see it.

Aside from which, one thing in which I think you seem to miss is, that while Rich peoples lives aren't worth anymore then poor peoples lives... they also aren't worth any less.

There are other ways to avoid the people dying situation, of course they require time, and socialism-type situations, both of which are a big no no for soem people I guess. Ironically, the research paper you quoted said that the reason products run out very quiclkly is because people buy lots due to the fear of prices increasing. In the end it's all a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

The part in italics is a typical compromise that only takes into consideration the short term. It's not about keeping you possessions intact, it's about not losing EVERYTHING. You may lose your house to the tornado, but must you lose your money to greedy speculators too? This isn't some grand Hollywood narrative where the victims are heroically save, then End Credits. Life goes on, and it's one thing to lose most of your possesstions to a natural disaster, but to loose what little you have left afterwards to immoral sharlatans? I'm sure that can be avoided.

Except... there aren't.  We've already been over this.  You JUST agreed to that.  The numbers bear out that price is the quickest and most efficent way to make the most out of supply and demand.  If government took over the local companies (what i guess your talking about?)  It's still price controls and quantity limits.  Just with even more government inefficency since they need to coordinate and take orders from Washington.  It still doesn't adress supply, heck I don't even think i mentioned the various added costs of transporting supplies to a disaster area.  (There are a lot.  Hazard pay, having to avoid ruined roads, possibly differnent trucks, higher risks of products neer reaching their destination.)

Any socialist type situations... which we do use.... take LOTS of time to put into effect.  This isn't an arguement about FEMA or any of that stuff.  The fact that stuff exists is even MORE proof for why Price controls are wrong.

FEMA+ "Price gouging" = the best solution.  Once FEMA (or whatever your disaster agency is) hits the ground, prices will go down but still remain high... and then people have the choice between wasting their time, or their money... while before they do hit the scene the product that is there is best utilized and those there is tons of incentive to increase supply there, including people who normally wouldn't deal in such supplies.

Yeah, the way to avoid that is.... dieing... well that or robbing people.  You say your sure it can be avoided, yet don't have an idea of how it can be avoided... a logical person would concede they were wrong until they did have an idea of how it could be avoided and would want to go with the way that saves more lives until such a system could be found.

It would be like being against seperating conjoined twins to make sure one lives when the chances are both will die, because at some point in the future we're sure there will be a better way to save both twins.

All that kind of thinking gives you is a lot of dead twins.

I thought the following were de-regulation i.e removing forced Federal and State regulations of the free market (and all three contributed to the financial crisis)

Community Re-investment Act- Made credit default swaps legal. This was not regulated at all and free market did not introduce a self regulatory body to oversee it.

Rigele-Neal Interstate Banking Act- Allowed banks to operate nationawide. Surely de-regulation of the financial sector?

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act- Allowed security, insurance and bank companies to operate in all financial sectors and not just their own specific areas. I can't see how this can be described as anything but de-regulation of the financial sector.

All of the above were initiated and passed because the Senators and others in power (like from the Treasury) who advocated such acts were generally speaking from the financial sector. Massive conflict of interest if you ask me. Between serving the good of your nation and it's majority inhabitants and the good of Wall Street. Key word again here is 'externalities'. I can't see how any of the above can be blamed on Keynesian economics. I mean it's like the last 6-7 administrations kept parts of the Keynesian economics that would make them and their buddies in the financial sector wealthier but ditched all the regulatory part thanks to the work of Friedman and co. Cronyism I call it.

If you look at the growth of the US during it's Keynesian years, it was much more egalitarian (though it rocketed post war and decades after that), wages were relatively speaking better and the average American had a better quality of life. For the last 30 years though, wages have stagnated (relatively speaking) and most of the wealth generated through deregulation and monetarist economics have gone to a small yet very powerful elite. The US economy pre 2008 Financial crash was more free market then it had ever been though some would argue not enough and not a 'real' free market as I'm sure a lot of mega corporations such as the big banks must of known they were too big to let fail and hence there would always be a golden parachute waiting to rescue them in a worst case scenario.

What I find unbelievable is Obama is hiring the very people who liberalised the financial sector to put the house back in order!

I think your pulling facts out of acts that offered de-regulation, without the other aspects of the laws which sought to incentivize bad market behaviour through Keynesian economics. All of the acts which had de-regulation also included new guidelines for these larger banks to follow.

For example, the CRA did make credit default swaps legal, but its primary goal was to ban redlining.

Or in other words, if you want federal loan guarentees, you must follow their low-income (e.g. risky) loan regulations. Further CRA revisions did offer some de-regulations, but many came at the cost of adding more incentives for loaning to low-income citizens. For example, Riegle-Neal act also added new TILA regulations which were immediate (whereas the allowance for mergers was fully adopted at a latter date - 1997 - while the data may suggest that the new TILA regulations had a far more immediate effect). Additionally, during the same time period, you had Executive Order 12892 which expanded the reach and abilities of HUD, which again likely contributed to the housing explosion in 1994.

That is my whole argument: We have to look at the explosion of 1994 which created the boom, which led to all the major problems such as the subprime lending crisis, which with the assistance of credit default swaps resulted in the crash. Therefore, my view is that such deregulations as you mentioned did not cause the inflation which led to the problem, although they assisted in it.

I believe that the problem is that we've enabled a hybrid Keynesian-Friedman alliance in which markets were de-regulated, but risk was socialized in order to spur consumer demand, which has created a screwed up market with fewer risks than what are needed to keep the market honest. The question then becomes an argument of which came first: the Keynesian policies or the free-market policies.

I thought I'd be more right. I usually tell others that I'm moderate but I only do that to avoid confrontation. I guess I am kinda close to moderate. I guess being bisexual had some effect on my compass.

The problem you are seeing is government itself.  The private sector can never fully service the market if the government is offering much the same services.  In fact, the government corners the market in some facets making it extremely difficult for the private sector to offer services at all.  Not to forget the red tape involved.  The government gets in the way to the point that for many people they feel it's not worth the BS.

But the real kicker is that the government at times of emergency will actually ban non-government aide and support.  I recall during Hurricane Katrina that FEMA forced dozens of full sized 53' trucks to turn around and dozens already there to leave.  They were actualy from Wal-mart, full of food and supplies and were there long before FEMA showed up.  The Department of Homeland Security also prevented the American Red Cross from supplying food.