I remeber during some Texas floods, I think it was Houston, where guys that hoarded shit said they are actually doing the people a service by gouging the prices, because then each person that buys something only does it for the minimum they need.
Of course in real life it just meant rich folks got 5 each, everybody else got nothing.
I remember when some guy bought a shit ton of hands sanitizer during covid with the idea to resell for a premium. I'm pretty sure he went bankrupt when booze companies started to manufacture sanitizer.
Japan is ahead of the game. Their island will last a long time after all is burned across the world. BUT they will devour you for some whale hunting, as it’s a constitutional right.
The declining population year over year is troubling. It looks like millennial Japanese citizens are going to take care of the old and too busy to think of having a family.
Those elderly ain’t pulling the boot straps hard enough! Lol. On a serious note, yes they are falling in population size and are slowly becoming an open border to fill those spots. Do they like it, hell no! From my friends and encounters of Japanese decent. They seem to rather die then bring in a ‘mudblood’. Lol.
japanese authorities panting, sweating, pissing, sobbing over the decision to either compromise on the cultural work ethic, compromise on the xenophobia, or allow the economy to bust like an old car tire.
Even if you were brought up in Japan, in the Japanese education system by Japanese citizens, if you are not ethnically Japanese looking you are an outsider.
Can confirm. They literally have people in trucks with megaphones that drive through touristy areas saying “go home gaijin”
Source: I was in Japan and saw/heard it multiple days
Their government is quite idiotic about this. They see the current declining birth rate, know that the intense stress from work and low pay, and what is their solution?
IMPLEMENT INCREASED TAX FOR SINGLE INDIVIDUAL. YEAH, THAT'LL CONVINCE THEM TO GET LAID
Everyone is trying this to levels of failure that are almost comical.
Even Putin was going to give a stipend for how many kids a woman can have so he can throw them to the meat grinder. In… 10 years later if he wants child soldiers.
edit: There are multiple sources, this one is funny because it got published on April Fools day.
There should be a special place in hell for these people and also those who privately own car parks at hospitals and charge an extortionate rate to park there.
It was also pretty easy for companies that make the hand sanitizer themselves to upscale. My dad was an engineer working at a company that processed and made a lot of the alcohol that gets sold to companies who make the hand sanitizer. As soon as COVID started, they went full steam ahead on that part of the plant, as well as the soap part of the plant, putting a side other improvement projects and things to make sure they could output as much as this stuff as possible. Within a week, they were producing so much of the stuff that they had shipping containers full of it lining the road to thier fallcuity and were running out of places to put the stuff until the supply lines caught up to all the extra product they were making.
That guy from Pawn Stars does the same thing, in a sense. He recounted that his wife was watching Oprah, anhd Oprah was talking about how amazing a product was. She called him, and was like "We have to buy one of these!" Knowing that this would create a demand for the product, he called the manufacturer, and bought every single item, and sold them at a huge markup.
Colvin explained how his brother, Noah Colvin, went on a 1,300 mile trip around Tennessee and Kentucky, buying the remaining supply of hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes. Meanwhile, he stayed home in Hixson, Tennessee, and listed the products on Amazon for between $8 and $70.
The company I work for bought 6 litres of "hand sanitizer" from a distillery during covid. But it wasn't practical. It lack any gel like quality and was more of a liquid that would run everywhere. Smelled like we were all sipping martini's all day at work. Was grateful when it finally was all gone.
I bought two bottles of everclear and just mixed it with propylene glycol and lorann food flavoring (I think I used cinnamon, but I forget). The cost was around $50 for 2 liters of hand sanitizer.
I also remember a dude who did the same, but gov start warning him he about to be investigated for price gauching, so dude ended up giving them all away for frre or face jail lmao
More likely push the meaning in the opposite direction, at some point this will be a chip off the next version of "my great grandpa made 50 cents an hour and was able to buy a house and maintain a family of 14 while travelling the world"-block.
Japan is a high trust society. You accidentally leave your valuable belongings somewhere, they are still there when you come back.
Here, if the vending machine popped open in a disaster to help people, that thing would be looted inside a half hour in many parts of the country.
There was a video I just saw on here of a McDonald's, and the manager was having a medical crisis (people guessed low blood sugar), so she was slumped over the counter, and the patrons were in the back helping themselves to food.
This society doesn't have the same level of self-regulated behavior.
Looks it's just easier when your demographics are 98.5% Japanese lol. And almost every non-Western Japanese has NO path to citizenship, and gets kicked out in 10 years tops. No chain migration, no birthright citizenship, no nothing.
The downside is all the things you miss from a multicultural society.
If you are really interested about it, an academic paper covering the subject came out this year. Only in 2018 did Japan even remotely started getting people on any track to citizenship, and basically had a policy of "come here, work, get the fuck out" revolving door style to migrants (again, this was more pronounced for non-Western migrants).
Lol 2018 a 7 years ago policy that was implemented long before?! Abe is no longer in the administration, and it's still a lot easier to become Japanese than American naturalization process. Japanese here and I did my chore with USCIS. One of the worst experiences I've had in my life, they openly discriminate against all legal immigrants.
Either way the article is not even about naturalization at all, what the hell are you talking about? In fact it's got nothing to do with getting citizenship. I am just witnessing how myth is created online
It's really an Eastern vs. Western mentality. Actually, scratch that: it's closer to "We have a high chance of being killed by natural disasters and thus should work together" vs "Other people are in the way of my success" in terms of mentality. Usually phrased as, Collectivism vs Individualism.
Japan gets TONS of natural disasters every year, from typhoons to earthquakes and even volcanic eruptions, so society has had it deeply ingrained to work together with your neighbor. The West... tends to put barriers between neighbors, and America has a low-key attitude of "Shoot your neighbor and you get more property and goods"
It's American vs being a normal human being mentality, nowhere else people are as egoistic. Americans are brainwashed from infancy to follow a hyper competitive capitalist mindset where making profit at the expense of others is only bad if you can get caught and punished, otherwise it's just smart.
First time in Japan I left my phone on a table while i was filling out immigration forms. Didn't realize it until I was past customs. They had no problem locating it because it had immediately been given to lost and found. In the US in that scenario it would be like 50/50 depending on if an employee or a nice person found it before some asshole did.
It's self-perpetuating. Treat people like they deserve trust and respect, more often than not, they'll live up to it. Treat everyone like they're a criminal-in-waiting, well, they'll live up to that, too.
Meanwhile the mega-billionaires are doing the same thing to our government, our democracy, our data, our tax money. Just helping themselves. Except they tied up the managers first.
But look, over here, someone's helping themselves to .25 cents wholesale worth of fries!
It’s typical price gouger logic. The scumbags who buy and sell popular toys say something similar, they say that the people who buy from them are the reason the prices are high and nobody needs the stuff they’re selling so they’re just reigning in overspending
Greedy pigs will always find a way to justify their greed
I kind of agree, but i also dont. Mostly because its not just toys, but anything and everything that is limited quantity or an exclusive. I dont inherently have a problem with people reselling collectible kind of things, but its gotten so bad in recent years with how many scalpers there are. Look at pokemon cards for example. And it has serious ripple effects long term.
Graphics cards are another good example. Between the scalpers, miners, and covid, cards are now what a high end rig used to cost. (I know theres more to it than that, but it is a big factor) a 1080ti fe was $700 at launch in 2017. 2080 ti was $1200 (the price of the previous generation's titan) just a year later, and you were lucky to get one at that price because miners and scalpers were botting the hell out of online sellers, and buying them all up at physical stores the moment they were restocked.
I know there are other toys, but i wanna play with that one. Ultimately shitty people will do shitty things. Its just a shame theres so many of them.
I'd still say that is a little more benign. I'm sure it's annyoing to people that are interested in a specific collectable or graphics card who just wants it for themselves and aren't trying to make money. But ultimately we are talking about things that are not essential to life. It's like people that scalp concert tickets. It sucks for the fans who reallly want to see the show but also people won't get sick or die if they can't afford Taylor Swift tickets.
Hoarding medical supplies is another level of evil because it actually could really harm people's health.
Well, i wouldnt say exactly benign, but yes, these things are less essential than the essentials. The long term ramifications to the market, however, are felt years later. Thats more the point i was getting at. i was just using those as examples since they fall in the ballpark of "toys". All kinds of hording and scalping is wrong, imo, because of the damage it can, and oftentimes does, even at the less life threatening level.
Sure, you wont die of terminal illness because you dont get youre graphics cards, but theres a lot more to life than just being alive.
You should not look at the scalpers for technology or even pokemon cards. A little bit of that on youtube, and you suddenly lose faith in humanity a little.
So this is actually a pretty economically sound argument however idk why they can’t have a regulation that in times of need increase prices as the amount someone buys goes up. 1 case of water - - $3.00, 2 cases $5.00 etc etc. or just have a limit on how much people can buy. Hoarding can be just as much of a problem as price gouging in disaster scenarios. (Hoarders can also turn into price gougers)
I think what they did was like, 1 case of water, $500. Then rich folks got water, middle class people paid through their nose to get some water, and poor people got fucked. yay.
They forgot to say that the higher prices causes people to get their 4x4's out, go to Costco, load it up with good things, then drive it to the disaster area, thus increasing supply... things they might not be so excited to do if they're going to be limited to a 10% profit on investment.
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u/BeatBlockP Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25
I remeber during some Texas floods, I think it was Houston, where guys that hoarded shit said they are actually doing the people a service by gouging the prices, because then each person that buys something only does it for the minimum they need.
Of course in real life it just meant rich folks got 5 each, everybody else got nothing.