This Just Makes Me Sick

[pipesmokingtom]

Hell with capitalism even. It's how investment works.
Why would I buy gold if I didn't think the prices would go up?
If I KNEW it would go up like THIS, I'd buy a lot more of it if I could. Does that make me shady because I've deprived someone else the opportunity?

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Are people buying and flipping houses right now shady because they're earning unprecedented returns on the flip?
They don't intend to LIVE in the houses (just like the tobacco "flippers" don't intend to smoke the tobacco.)
The logic doesn't follow here.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Just ignore these schmucks and enjoy what you have. Personally, I have only ever sold pipe tobacco once and that was to a new pipe smoker and I sold it at cost. I just can't see doing it myself. That said, when I saw these kinds of prices it did make me eye the 66 tins of Christmas Cheer in the cellar, amongst others. That feeling passed very quickly however.

 

[beefeater33]

I don't know Tom, looking at our avatars, we might be shady!........... :rofl:

 

[sablebrush52]

While I find this personally distasteful, I don't consider scalping unethical or immoral, rather amoral. Ethics and morality do not enter into it. To paraphrase George Washington Plunkett, "They seen their opportunity and they took it!" It's certainly not generous or giving, and it's certainly opportunistic.
But the opportunity wouldn't exist if there weren't buyers willing to spend what scalpers are asking. All anyone needs to do to end this is to not be a customer. Customers set the price by buying. And anyone who is a customer to a scalper and complains is a fool.
As has been pointed out, these are not basic survival items. Scalping on tobacco isn't the same as scalping on life saving medicine.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

I don't know Tom, looking at our avatars, we might be shady!.

Much more likely than "might."
Peck - no one believes you. We all know that you have orders of magnitude more tobacco than you could ever possibly smoke. If you weren't intending to resell SOME DAY, then what's it FOR?! :rofl:

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Scalping on tobacco isn't the same as scalping on life saving medicine.

I'd argue that it's not even scalping which I see as creating an artificial scarcity to manipulate prices. This I DO have a problem with as it is inequitable to promoters, venues and artists. This tobacco scarcity happened the good old fashioned way by a company going out of business. These are different things.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

I wouldn't call it shady, but it does evince a certain degree of opportunism that can rub people the wrong way at times. People understand and expect that speculators looking for a quick flip will be involved in the stock market or the housing market, for example, but it rubs them the wrong way when it comes to other things that they enjoy and have a more personal and even emotional connection with, like concert tickets, sporting events or pipe tobacco.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Peck - no one believes you. We all know that you have orders of magnitude more tobacco than you could ever possibly smoke. If you weren't intending to resell SOME DAY, then what's it FOR?!

Two options:
1. Gift it to friends, or
2. Get naked and bathe and frolic in a tub full of tobacco.
You will be the first to know which door I choose.

 

[briarbuck]

Well said Sable. Non essentials. Price it what you can get for it. You'd be a fool not too.

 

[derekflint]

but there's nothing unscrupulous about supply and demand

Really ? How about after a big snow emergency the hardware store that was selling shovels for $15 normally,ups it to $80. Or the chain saw that was $300 is now $550-$600. Or when a towns electric is out and the gas station next town over triples the price per gallon!! That's supply and demand and you see nothing wrong? Those are not life saving items.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Two options:
1. Gift it to friends, or
2. Get naked and bathe and frolic in a tub full of tobacco.

Hopefully you don't decide on 1. AFTER 2.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Really ? How about after a big snow emergency the hardware store that was selling shovels for $15 normally,ups it to $80. Or the chain saw that was $300 is now $550-$600. Or when a towns electric is out and the gas station next town over triples the price per gallon!! That's supply and demand and you see nothing wrong?

If you can't reason the differences here out for yourself, I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Well, no. I can price my tobacco sales (nil so far!) at 10%, 100%, 500% above cost, or at cost—or below cost and not be a fool. There's more to pricing than to getting absolute maximum revenue at one point in time.

 

[azpipe]

@ derekflint did you even bother to read his entire post......sheesh

Really? The goods are not something essential to life (though I might and we might argue differently).
It's unfortunate and unpleasant, but there's nothing unscrupulous about supply and demand.

Its pipe tobacco we're talking and jpmcwjr even made the distinction between it and the examples you are using to get yourself worked up over.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Really ? How about after a big snow emergency the hardware store that was selling shovels for $15 normally,ups it to $80. Or the chain saw that was $300 is now $550-$600. Or when a towns electric is out and the gas station next town over triples the price per gallon!! That's supply and demand and you see nothing wrong?

Most of those situations are what economists call situational monopolies. In a situational monopoly (as with any monopoly), free market dynamics by definition break down, as they do with any monopoly. When the situational monopoly involves a necessary good or service (the proverbial fresh water in a hurricane or rescue services rendered to a distressed ship in open water), legislators can rightfully intervene to prescribe legal conscequences to those who take advantage of a situational monopoly over a necessary good or service. Pipe tobacco is not a necessary good. Moreover, there is clearly an open market for pipe tobacco and no monopolistic seller.

 

[derekflint]

If you can't reason the differences here out for yourself, I don't know what else to tell you.

I can reason them out....I just don't like it. I guess we'll see the same thing soon with Dunhill.......

 

[peckinpahhombre]

I can reason them out....I just don't like it. I guess we'll see the same thing soon with Dunhill.......

I expect you will, though I would anticipate not as pronounced because it won't be as sudden as MC.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Not "liking" something but not being able to justify or articulate why is what has confused me about this entire fiasco.
We aren't entitled to "like" everything - that doesn't mean someone else should be berated for their actions.

 

[derekflint]

Boy oh boy...I got all worked up !! Sorry fellas........... :roll: Can't take me anywhere !!