Stossel: Profiteers save lives

Via Pandagon, I stumbled upon a brand new column by that other hack journalist with a cheesy mustache. In which the devoted free-marketeer explains that the real tragedy of Katrina is altruism. And I'm not exaggerating that in the least. The continued rash of absolutely insane right-wing responses to Katrina marches on, impervious to shame:

Consider this scenario: You are thirsty -- worried that your baby is going to become dehydrated. You find a store that's open, and the storeowner thinks it's immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won't charge you a dime more than he charged last week. But you can't buy water from him. It's sold out.

You continue on your quest, and finally find that dreaded monster, the price gouger. He offers a bottle of water that cost $1 last week at an "outrageous" price -- say $20. You pay it to survive the disaster.

You resent the price gouger. But if he hadn't demanded $20, he'd have been out of water. It was the price gouger's "exploitation" that saved your child.

It saved her because people look out for their own interests. Before you got to the water seller, other people did. At $1 a bottle, they stocked up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.

The people the softheaded politicians think are cruelest are doing the most to help. Assuming the demand for bottled water was going to go up, they bought a lot of it, planning to resell it at a steep profit. If they hadn't done that, that water would not have been available for the people who need it the most.

I think this is a pretty apt example of just how out-of-touch with reality these folks are. I suspect that Stossel has a pretty sweet amount of cash in the bank. But what if the desperate parent doesn't happen to have a crisp new twenty on hand? It doesn't change the need of the infant, but it sure changes that infant's chances of surviving. And it might just be the case that the profiteer is going to have to answer to a very, very upset parent trying to save his child-- and who isn't going to tolerate a lengthy debate on why he actually benefits from the situation from a dispassionate economic perspective. What would anyone choose between beating the crap out of a 'price gouger' or saving a human life? Consider this article when you her conservatives lament the "welfare state" that somehow caused people to die in New Orleans. And how many lives would have been saved if people were charging $20 for a bottle of water.

This is right up there with the most moronic arguments I've ever witnessed. It's literally bursting at the seams with illogic and nonsensical statements. For about the hundredth time in the last week, the right-wing has left me flabbergasted with their Machiavellian sophistry.

It's also an incredibly strange time to even be making such an argument. Did the guy actually think to himself "A-ha, the thousands that have died in New Orleans provide the perfect illustration of my defense of profiteering"?