Ya wanna increase fuel economy and reduce our dependence on oil? Let high gasoline prices do their work. From an article in the Press Enterprise (registration required), an inland Southern California newspaper: Amid soaring gas prices nationwide, Californians are paying the most to fill up their vehicles, causing many people to cut back on recreational …
I haven’t focused on it much here, but the FERC had set the wholesale “soft price cap” in California to rise from $91.87 to $250 today. As this article reports, the new price cap has been delayed a month to allow officials to incorporate changes from a computer test of manipulation possibilities. Of course, this …
What’s New With The California Wholesale Price Cap? Read More »
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has been active fighting against price gouging during the pandemic emergency. Actually, she was on the case even before the governor issued a stay-at-home order on March 23, 2020. Three days prior to that AG Healey added anti-price gouging regulations to the state regulatory code under emergency powers. She has …
Consumer Complaints in Massachusetts Fell in the First Quarter of 2020 Read More »
Over the past week it’s been hard to keep up with the news about Uber. Uber’s creative destruction is rapid, and occurring on multiple dimensions in different places. And while the focus right now is on Uber’s disruption in the shared transportation market, I suspect that more disruption will arise in other markets too. Start …
The Political Economy of Uber’s Multi-dimensional Creative Destruction Read More »
The New York Attorney General (AG) had an op-ed in the New York Times presenting a curious mix of resistance to change, insistence on regulating new things in old way, acknowledgement that web-based businesses create some value and regulators can’t always enforce rules intelligently, and sprinkled now and again with the barely disguised threat that regulators will not …
New York Attorney General Grapples to Regulate New Web-based Businesses in Old Ways Read More »
Flooding in Colorado has caused damage across nearly 2,000 square miles of the state. While many businesses are chipping in to help people affected, some people are concerned that lack of a state anti-price gouging law leaves consumers exposed to unjust price increases. A Denver Post story begins: Flood-ravaged Colorado is one of only 15 …
Michael Giberson “Price gouging” is by intent a pejorative term. Nobody wants to get gouged, by a price or in any other manner. Analysts advocating or defending price flexibility for key goods and services in disaster struck areas are burdened from the beginning by the derogatory term. In an editorial essay advocating for post-flooding pricing …
Legalize Sustainable Pricing to Promote Recovery from Disasters Read More »
Michael Giberson Last week the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General announced settlement of two of the 24 post-Sandy price gouging cases the state has pursued. Shiv Shivam Inc., doing business as Lukoil in Piscataway agreed to pay $20,000 to the state; C.S. George & Sons, Inc., doing business as George’s Gulf Station in …
Gasoline Retailer Getting Gouged by New Jersey Attorney General? Read More »
Michael Giberson Jeffrey Tucker at Laissez Faire Today points out Peter C. Earle’s blog on the emergence of a black market in gasoline in northern New Jersey and New York City during the post-Storm Sandy period. A few days after the storm swept through, when politicians began reasserting their willingness to enforce price gouging limits …
Notes on the Post-sandy Nj/nyc Black Market in Gasoline Read More »
Michael Giberson At least the Governor understands that emergencies can drive costs up. We’ll see if this understanding goes beyond the expenditure of public funds to include excess costs faced by small business in New Jersey once the state gets around to prosecuting price gouging cases in earnest. Christie tax story here. One example of …
Headline: “Gov. Christie Expects Property Taxes to Rise in Sandy-ravaged Areas” Read More »
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive