Eric Boehm reports on just how much it would cost to make toasters in the United States.
But back to Teachout’s arguments for anti-price-gouging laws: she claims that “short-term demand cannot be met by short-term supply.” But an economist would point out that producers do not need to “spin up” new factories or increased capacities in the short term. Instead, they need to respond to price-signals. In such cases, resources bound for other parts of the country would be redirected to the area where the price is higher. This is what happened with lumber during Hurricane Katrina and bottled water during Hurricane Sandy. Trucks carrying these precious resources were recalled and rerouted to New Orleans and New York City, respectively. This reduced the supply in the “low-demand” areas of the country and provided the increased quantity-supplied in the area experiencing temporarily high demand.
Lest we think that this phenomenon is isolated to natural disasters, we saw the same happen in Flint, Michigan during its water crisis. Because the price of bottled water rose, more bottled water was sent there to people in desperate need of it rather than other locations where it was less necessary.
George Will makes the case for stopping Putin’s incursions into Ukraine. Here’s his conclusion:
The West, including Germany, has given Ukraine substantial succor. But absent many more weapons, with fewer restraints upon their use, the West might be purchasing protracted defeat, thereby vindicating Putin’s estimation of the West’s inability to persevere.
Arnold Kling is frustrated with large language models (LLMs).
Juliette Sellgren talks with GMU Econ alum Nicholas Snow about prohibition.
