wolfchild

An act or practice of increasing prices and charging an unreasonable amount of money for consumer goods and services when supply is low and demand is high...Eg of this would be: Charging $ 50 dollars for a small bottle of hand sanitizer or a bottle of bleach during an emergency such as a pandemic when normally the same product sells for $ 10 dollars during normal non - pandemic times...price gouging is a criminal act here and is punishable with up to $ 100 000 dollar fine and / or 1 year in jail.

Lombard

You're forgetting that KN95 masks were a necessary item during the worst part of the Covid pandemic. Same can be said for gasoline, home heating oil, natural gas and toilet paper when it was in short supply. These are all necessary items for most people. So when someone on Amazon decided to charge $50 for 6 rolls of TP when stores were sold out, that was indeed price gouging. Unless you have a bidet, you need TP.

High end bike tires are not a necessary item. You can't say someone is price gouging Conti 5000 tires because there are plenty of other much less expensive options if you need a bike for commuting. If company A charges $100 for a product and people buy it not because they need it but because they think that product is good enough to pay $100, that's a fair market price. In a world with so many choices of road rubber at all price points, if people think $100 for Conti 5000 is too much, they won't buy them and then the price will have to come down.

Sy Reene

Simple. It's charging more for a product or service than I'm willing to pay.

veganbikes

Not trying to derail the conversation but get a bidet, they are awesome. Love TP don't love TP doesn't matter the bidet is really nice and keeps things cleaner downstairs and you cannot clog a toliet with extra water. I will say yes a blast of cold water takes some getting used too.

I personally got one of these and took a short time to install it and mine was $40 (though it looks like some nicer models are on sale and around that same price)
https://luxebidet.com/
However there is probably other stuff out there. It just happened to be on sale and well recommended.

Y'all can go back to talking tires, I just have really fallen in love with using a bidet and wanted to put it out there.

terrymorse 

Of course I can say that jacking up the price of a GP5000 when there’s a supply chain interruption is price gouging (just try to stop me). It’s just not illegal price gouging—yet.

PeteHski

I can't say I've actually seen GP5000 prices being jacked up by retailers. They are selling at RRP or even slightly discounted in the narrow widths.

I'm pretty certain "price gouging" on premium road racing tyres is never going to be made illegal!

indyfabz

Heh. Demolition Man just ended on Sundance.

https://screenrant.com/three-seashel...-man-function/

Lombard

Well yeah, you can say whatever you want. That doesn't mean what you say is correct.

Koyote

Note that your linked page includes no definition of 'price gouging,' and you've still not offered one. That's because it is subjective, a matter of opinion rather than of fact or formula. In a market economy, people make transactions voluntarily; if you think a price is unreasonable or exorbitant, you don't pay it. If enough other people agree, then the price will come down. That's how markets work.

As for temporary cases in which demand shoots up and prices consequently also shoot up -- what would you expect? When more people want something, the price rises. If that didn't happen, we'd have shortages left and right -- actual shortages in the economic sense, in which people are actually willing to pay the (artificially low) price but can't find the goods. Then the goods will be allocated to those who stumble on them first, whether they have the most pressing needs or not. Do you really think that would be more efficient than letting prices rise?

Example: I was in SC in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo came ashore and wiped out electrical infrastructure, water supplies, etc. Literally overnight, the demand for generators and jugs of water shot up, as did their prices: there were reports of little generators selling for $2500 and one-gallon jugs of water selling for $10 -- over 10x their pre-hurricane levels. And that's a good thing, as the high prices ensure that those items are obtained by people who can put them to their most valuable uses -- e.g., a restaurant would buy a $2500 generator to save $5000 worth of meat in its freezer, and a family might pay $10 for a gallon of water to mix baby formula. If the prices were capped at pre-hurricane levels, I would've bought a generator to keep my beer cold and bottled water so that I could wash my hair every day...And those other users, who (I think we can agree) would put those items to better use, wouldn't get them.

Oh, and another thing about those 'exorbitant' prices: they provide a profit motive that attracts those in-demand goods to where they are most needed-- if the prices didn't rise, why would any businesses have any incentive to ship (at great cost, since they are heavy) things like generators and water in from other areas? And that leads us to the third piece of the puzzle: those high prices don't last long, as they invite competition, which drives the prices back down -- generally faster than any misguided municipal government can do it through laws that outlaw 'price gouging' without providing an actionable definition of the term.

The above is really just a lesson in how markets operate. Most of us don't have much problem with that, every day, as we buy and sell things. Prices respond to changes in supply and demand all the time. However, when those changes are large and sudden, and the price swings are large and sudden, and all of a sudden we're being charged more than we want to pay for items (or more than we're accustomed to paying), some people will scream about "price gouging." Because, as in so many other things in life, it's easier to imagine conspiracies and leap to satisfyingly simplistic conclusions than it is to actually learn about the world.

terrymorse 

Gad! No wonder Economics is called the “dismal science”.

Phew! Here is a summary page of anti-price-gouging laws. Note the multiple clear and specific definitions of what qualifies as illegal price-gouging:

Price-Gouging Laws

Koyote

Did you actually read that page? It perfectly illustrates my point -- that there is no definition of 'price gouging.' That's why all of those states have different definitions, and why many of them use squishy, subjective words like "exorbitant," "unconscionable," and "excessive." Words that are the opposite of “clear and specific.”

PS: I also noticed that you did not address a single thing I wrote about price controls and price gouging laws. I’m interested to read your thoughts on the efficacy of such policies.

RCMoeur 

Back on topic (kind of): High-pressure narrow 26" 559 tires aren't easy to come by anymore. But I was fortunate enough to be at the Tucson bike swap today, and was able to find 5 NOS or gently used tires (all non-crunchy, all with lots of apparent service life) for an average price of about $5 each. Not complaining.

tomato coupe

According to the document you linked, almost every state law that makes price gouging illegal contains phrases like "declared state of emergency", "state of emergency", "within an area declared to be a disaster", etc. So, what state of emergency exists right now that makes the price of bike tires gouging?

PeteHski

Are you suggesting that government doesn't care about the "extortionate" price of premium road tyres?

Maelochs

Crap

Sure restaurants were buying those generators. Crap. The people buying those generators were rich people who wanted air conditioning.

As for formula. What, poor people don’t have babies? Or it is okay if they die?

Again , who bought the stuff were the people with credit cards with high limits Absolutely nothing to do with who needed what.

You are not the only person who has lived through that…… nor are you the only person I have heard claim that people who have more money are more deserving.

Koyote

You're certainly correct, to some degree. However, a price ceiling would not fix those problems, and would probably exacerbate them since it would reduce the incentive for people to ship more of those items to the stricken area. It would probably also lead to a black market in which those who nabbed those items at lower prices (who just happened to be first in line for them) would re-sell them for profit to those who are willing to pay market price. Just look at concert ticket pricing: whenever an artist insists that Ticketmaster charge below-market prices for their tix, third-parties snatch them up and re-sell them at whatever prices the market will bear. Same thing.

The problem you've identified won't be fixed with price ceilings; it'll be fixed with a different income distribution or with direct-to-consumer subsidies.



And still no one has shown us an example of a reasonably common bike tire that can't be bought for <$100.

Jughed

I just paid $105 for a set of 28mm GP5000s.

Less than the cost of a blah/so-so dinner out with the wife.

tomato coupe

The government is in the pocket of Big (Little?) Tire.

terrymorse 

Maybe all the states will get together to agree upon a single definition of price gouging, then rewrite all of their price gouging laws to use that single definiton, to satistfy you.

Because that's what happens in the real world, on all the other state laws. <eye_roll>

How can it not be correct or incorrect, when "there is no definition of price gouging"?

Money saving tip: The "regular" (not TR tubeless-ready) GP5000 is cheaper than the TR version, and they often go on sale (probably because consumers no longer think non-tubeless is cool). I've seen them on sale for as low as $35.

The "regular" GP5000 also has better puncture resistance and traction, plus it's lighter with lower rolling resistance when used with a latex tube (per bicyclerollingresistance.com).

I recently pointed out these facts on another bike forum that sounds like "Schmeddit", and the tubeless bros downvoted my posting. Tubeless bros can't handle the truth.
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momoman

Do you use camelcamelcamel? I track a dozen bike parts and am alerted whenever there is a price drop below the threshold I’ve selected. This morning I got another alert the price of the Conti GP5000 700x28 black walls dropped again.

It’s under $40 at one retailer and just above $40 at Amazon. There’s an additional 5% cash back if you use an Amazon Visa card.

The trend appears to support the price has been declining recently, at least for the Conti’s. I’ve recently bought 700x28 Transparents for a couple of dollars over $40.

Here’s what I’m seeing for the 700x28 black walls:



You can set your price alert threshold.

Camelcamelcamel shows the Amazon price history.

About $40/ea with free shipping now for Conti 700x28 black wall.

SkinGriz

The law?

Thank God for the black market. Seriously.

Jughed

Thanks... I will look more often. I got the regular version and latex tubes... I looked in 3 or 4 places and only saw 25 & 30mm. Found the 28mm for a little more.

I will have to set up a camelcamelcamel thingy. I'll put my strike price for a Time Scylon at 2k and see if it flys
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PeteHski

I thought the S TR version had better sidewall protection - which was a relative weakness of the original. Rolling resistance is within the noise. Tread puncture resistance is slightly better on the regular tyre, but that's what tubeless sealant is for.

genejockey 

If I'm selling it, it's supply and demand.
If I'm buying it, it's price gouging.

Koyote

It's a recession when your neighbor is out of work.
It's a depression when you're out of work.