Since I had this post ready to go when Cole beat me to the front page, here’s some extra context. Dude mostly seems to have been a ‘perfect’ adaptation to a very specific economic niche…
He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them pic.twitter.com/PZySdov6Po
— Carta Monir (@CartaMonir) March 14, 2020
No one but a white dude would do this without thinking once about the possibility of someone meaner than him just *taking* all that stuff
— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) March 14, 2020
(As Cole told us, in this case, “someone meaner” turned out to be the AG of Tennessee — think how delighted the libertarians must be to have their worst fears realized!)
Hoarding essentials during a national emergency is a bad thing. On the other hand, as the poster boy for this NYTimes handwringer points out, making it possible for a worried self-quarantiner in suburban Seattle to access sanitizer from a Tennessee Dollar Tree is the very basis of both capitalism as a social system and Amazon as a corporation.
Of course, once you let the Grey Lady parade your economic status in front of the world and social media, you’re in for some nasty feedback…
… Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.
These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.
As they watched the list of Amazon’s most popular searches crowd with terms like “Purell,” “N95 mask” and “Clorox wipes,” sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.
Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Mr. Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.
At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15 percent and eBay roughly 10 percent, depending on the price and the seller.
Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further on Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers…
To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California’s price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York’s law prohibits sellers from charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during emergencies.
An official at the Washington attorney general’s office said the agency believed it could apply the state’s consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren’t in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.
Tennessee, where Mr. Colvin lives, has a price-gouging law that bars people from charging “unreasonable prices for essential goods and services, including gasoline, in direct response to a disaster,” according to a state website. On Saturday, after the The Times published this article, the Tennessee attorney general’s office said it had sent investigators to Mr. Colvin’s home, given him a cease-and-desist letter and was now investigating his case.
Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)…
As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”
After The Times published this article on Saturday morning, Mr. Colvin said he was exploring ways to donate all the supplies.
This cargo-shorts wearing ingrate from Tennessee is one of those flightless birds: his world and his environment is so safe, so accommodating, that the thought of suffering consequences for his antisocial actions is foreign to him
— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) March 14, 2020
PsiFighter37
This dude, BTW, ended up being shamed into donating all of the stuff he bought. So he spent all his money on a good deed that no one will give him credit for because of his initial motives. I’m sure his family is thrilled about burning through tens of thousands of dollars in this manner.
GC
White house briefing due to start.
WaterGirl
And BG’s medium cool culture post is scheduled for 5pm. :-)
That’s okay, more posts is always good.
Jay
PsiFighter37
@GC: Someone tell me if something important happens – I refuse to watch them if there’s a chance the orange fart cloud shows up.
Cheryl Rofer
Here’s the White House briefing. At the rate new posts are coming, there seems no point in a separate thread.
Silly me – I scheduled a post for later. ?♀️
jonas
I don’t think he’s going to sweat it too much. The article states that he’s made very good money over the past several years engaging in this sort of thing — predicting what there’s going to be a shortage of around the corner and then stocking up on it and selling it on Amazon. Usually it’s something like a kind of sneaker or a trendy toy or whatever, but when people’s lives are potentially at stake, you knock that shit off. Glad the AG was all up his ass.
Naturally I expect the good folks at NRO and Reason all have the vapors at this point.
Jay
jonas
Fauci is now telling people that they had better take the social distancing way fucking more seriously. But that’s unpossible, you say! Noted epidemiologist Devin Nunes was just on the teevee explaining that we really need to spend more time at crowded bars and restaurants.
Will people like Nunes and the other idiots like Hannity telling people to go to crowded events and lick all the doorknobs to pwn the libs ever pay any price for it? Any? Probably not, because, you know, America, where the only unforgivable sin is wearing a tan suit.
Martin
Fellow Californians, please reach out to any older neighbors and offer to do their shopping and such for them. Go a step further and do a sanitation pass on anything that could carry the virus.
trollhattan
Lemme guess: they removed the obvious fire hazard (which probably would require HAZMAT-approved storage even in Tennessee, but not Texas) and left 50k rounds of ammo, because Freedom.
Jay
GC
It’s started, Trump is there, announcing an interest rate cut, and everybody is standing as close as possible to each other (for the camera presumably).
Quinerly
@GC: and he’s bragging about the market going up 2,000 pts on Friday!
Winning!
GC
New policy announced by Pence: They are going to take it seriously.
Martin
CA all bars/brewpubs close. Restaurants limit occupancy.
Thanks Devin for your bold leadership:
Eljai
When Pence starts a sentence with “As a former governor I know first hand…” my panic level shoots up.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: Speaking of brew, after having spent the entire damn day outside cutting wood and doing other yard cleanup I am rewarding myself with a beer, and I have to send props out to the folks at Elder Pine Brewing. Pretty limited distribution area, but if you are in their area, they do really good work.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Locally, our restaurants seem to be switching to take-out only.
zhena gogolia
I made the mistake of looking at Twitter. Are we really going to make Italy look like Singapore?
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, here as well. If they have drive-through they’re closing the dining room and only doing drive-through.
Jinchi
@Quinerly: Trump really doesn’t care about anything other than winning the next 5 minutes.
What does he think the market will do when half the country is confined at home on Monday? After the shelves have been stripped at all the grocery stores in the country, and several other countries closed down all travel. Will the market’s even open next week? Because he might shatter last week’s record drops if they do.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: We’ve got a number of things working in our favor (and one big orange one working against us).
1) Our spread/fatalities are on a slower curve than Italy. Maybe younger population, maybe lower population density. That buys us more time.
2) We are relatively self-sufficient in a variety of ways. We have food independence, we don’t have large apartment blocks in most of the nation. Hong Kong saw some coronavirus spread through their sewage system in high density housing. We won’t have a ton on that outside of NYC, Chicago, SF, Miami, etc.
3) Because we are distributed, if we get things locked down, we could see minimal spread in a lot of rural states, freeing up resources – doctors, medical equipment, medicine, medical tents, etc. to ship to states with larger outbreaks.
But decisions need to be made VERY quickly which still isn’t happening at the federal level.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
I feel the governors (of some states) are doing a good job.
It’s this existential dread, since each week seems to be so much worse than the last
ETA: Thank you.
Martin
And on topic, this guy in TN and Martin Shkreli, they really are how capitalism is supposed to work. If we’re talking USB cables, then who gives a shit, they’re adding a kind of efficiency to the system. But when it is things that people can’t live without, that’s simply a place where capitalism can’t work, despite our ongoing insistence that it work.
With enough effort you can tighten a bolt with a hammer, but more often than not you’ll break the bolt. Drop your ideological fixation with hammers and use a wrench. It’s okay, using a wrench doesn’t make your hammer disappear.
Juice Box
My husband eats a banana or two every day (don’t ask me why, they are my last choice fruit). Due to apparent banana hoarding, he has had to do without for several days, but today I braved the supermarket and found a box waiting to be placed on the display. Score! I only bought five though, because that’s all we need.
Scout211
Husband and I are now in 24/7 senior curfew here in California. Oh my. This is scary.
ema
Poor NYC – don’t worry about testing, you’ve probably already been exposed, tough it out and only call us if you’re in respiratory distress:
During the Saturday afternoon briefing, New York City medical officials emphasized that New York is “in the mitigation phase of the outbreak,” according to the read-out. “This means that all individuals should assume that they have had some contact with the virus and practice maximum-possible social distancing; most cases will be mild and medical care should only be sought in urgent, worsening, or vulnerable cases.”
…
The New York city officials said that the city has changed its strategy from the early days that the virus arrived in New York, when health authorities sought to track and contain small numbers of cases. “Testing is now less important — the danger of transmission is much higher as many people have now been exposed….
ziggy
Anyone here from Ohio? I’m impressed with how forthright they are acting, just closed restaurants except for take out and delivery. What do you think of the Governor?
Martin
@zhena gogolia: If everyone could just decide they were going to do a 14 day staycation, eat through their pantry, play all of those board games and read all of those books they always meant to, then we’ll mostly be okay. Binge watch some shows you felt guilty watching. Facetime your family.
Otherwise, the outside industrialized world is busy. Leave them alone. If you can walk in the woods, do that instead. I’ve got a lot of pruning to catch up on, and the garage always could use a cleaning pass.
Martin
@ziggy: If anyone told me Dewine wouldn’t completely fuck this up, I’d have called them a liar. This might be his only area of competency, but he’s doing a legitimately great job.
Martin
@Scout211: If you stick to it, you’ll be fine. You have someone to do shopping for you?
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
We’re getting there. My husband has no camera on his laptop so he has to go to the office to teach his Zoom classes, at least until they get him a camera. But there’s nobody there, so I’m hoping it’s not too bad.
I feel as if I should make one trip to my office to pick up all the “groceries” that are there, since it’s my second home and even has a bottle of Purell. We’re not in a hotspot — yet.
Scout211
@Martin:
No, we don’t have anyone to help us. We live very rural with few neighbors. My husband says if we need to go the grocery store (we’re fair stocked up right now) he’ll wait in the car since I look younger than 65 so they probably won’t call the authorities on me. :)
We had been isolating already but it just feels so different when you hear the Governor tell you it’s an order
Another Scott
They’re working on ways to keep the kids fed and figure out what to do with the homeless ones.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, I have a bottle of Purell and a container of Clorox wipes in my desk. I have some chocolate there as well. They’re my emergency rations. “Enter office in case of emergency”
Martin
@Scout211: We need a pet rescue style effort for our seniors. I’ll write to Watergirl.
Any chance you’re in Orange County? I’d be happy to bring you stuff.
Martin
@Another Scott: And ways to take care of the kids of hospital workers, etc. so they can keep going.
Scout211
@Martin:
No. We are in rural NorCal. We are really okay for now. But thank you.
A Ghost to Most
@Scout211: Best of luck.
Is it time to paint blood on our doorways? Too soon?
WaterGirl
@ema:
I don’t think that’s just NYC – that’s true everywhere.
Anne Laurie
Yeah, I was trying to come up with a way to tie this into Elizabeth Warren’s “I’m a capitalist, but capitalism without rules is corruption” philosophy…
At one point, you had a great long-ish comment about the ‘tools’ of government. Wish I’d front-paged that without waiting for your permission!
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
I have Purell, chocolate (Dove), popcorn, chips, nuts, napkins, even TP (because they don’t always remember to stock it in the bathroom). I think I’d better go get it all.
zhena gogolia
God, I wish Obama (or Clinton) was president.
ema
@WaterGirl:
I hope other places haven’t given up on testing and tracing contacts.
Martin
@Anne Laurie: I’m happy to write a guest post on that at an appropriate time. I’m working on the teaching one I had intended to to yesterday.
Jay
Another Scott
The JH map now says:
USA: 62 deaths / 3,244 confirmed cases = 1.9%
Italy: 1,441 deaths / 21,157 confirmed cases = 6.8%
Drum shows a bunch of graphs that argue that many western countries are on Italy’s curve (as is the USA).
This isn’t going to be over soon. The federal government needs to take it much more seriously, rather than certain people treating it as an opportunity to throw gravel in the gears of government…
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: Might be a helpful outing at least. I wonder if anyone grabbed the roll in the staff restroom at work?
Martin
@WaterGirl: Trying to catch up on my post from yesterday. Hope to have it to you soon.
WaterGirl
@ema: I suspect the time for tracing contacts is gone pretty much everywhere. That’s what happens when you are 3-6 weeks behind where you should be.
They just announced the first confirmed case in our county at 3pm today. They say there are about 55 other tests where they are waiting for results.
They announced that they had contacted the people that person had come in contact with. So they have not given up altogether, but once you have a ton of people who have it, I think that probably goes by the wayside.
But if Martin says differently, believe him. I have a masters degree in public health, but never pursued that as a career, so this is me talking out my behind.
Anne Laurie
@Martin: Great, thanks!
FelonyGovt
@Scout211: Yes, it’s pretty sobering being in the “stay at home, you vulnerable elderly person” group, isn’t it? We made the rounds of the markets this morning and should be ok for a while. Also went out for a walk, which I guess is now frowned upon.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@jonas: Someone is surely going to pay a price, but I doubt it will be idiots like Nunes and Hannity. Most likely it will be the most vulnerable among us.
I am beyond furious. Just found out my twenty something great niece has taken her family to a big tourist attraction in a really big city. She will bring the three kids home where her mom — my niece with BP and respiratory issues — and her grandma — my 70+ cancer survivor sister — act as her unpaid child care all week and many weekends. How the fuck stupid is this woman? Is she setting out to kill Mom and Grandma? No doubt she and hubs have been listening to Trump, Pence and the idiot governor of Oklahoma.
i don’t normally have BP issues, but this much anger, on top of the anxiety for my nonagenarian mom, can’t be healthy.
Heywood J.
It’s about time these garage arbitrageurs learned that only HMOs, insurance companies, and Big Pharma are allowed to profiteer obscenely from everyone’s misery and panic-buying.
Mai naem mobile
One of my neighbors is having a party. Probably 10 cars. Don’t know if it’s for him or his teenage kid but don’t think it’s a good idea. Loud rap(I think) music so I am thinking its for the kid. This is not a direct neighbor. Several houses over on the other side of the street and I can hear the music. Anyhoo I am getting bored already.
MoCA Ace
@Martin: copying my comment from an earlier thread… this blog is moving fast theses days.
Mnemosyne
@Scout211:
If you have food delivery services available (like DoorDash), you can tell them that you want a “no contact” delivery so the delivery person will just leave it on your doorstep.
Mai naem mobile
I forgot what I really wanted to post about. Okay, so the AZ primary is on Tues. Do I vote for Warren or Biden? Does voting for Warren hurt Biden at this point? Does it help Bernie?
Mnemosyne
@Scout211:
Just saw your response. You may be able to use Instacart to have the grocery store assemble your order for you and then bring it out to your car, but I would wait for at least a week for them to restock.
Mnemosyne
@Mai naem mobile:
IIRC, if Warren ends up endorsing Biden, her delegates would go to him, so I think you can still vote for Warren if that’s where your heart really lies.
Elizabelle
Vive la France. From a NYTimes recap:
Robert Sneddon
A kid was sent home from school here in the UK for selling squirts from a bottle of hand sanitiser to his schoolmates for 50p each.
SWMBO
The state of Florida Department of Education has shut all schools in the state for two weeks.
https://wsvn.com/news/local/florida/department-of-education-announces-closure-of-all-florida-public-schools/
Mai naem mobile
Now a direct neighbor is having a party. This one I believe is either an evangelical or a Jehovahs Witness so probably a Fox News watcher. I also remember seeing a Kelly Ward sticker on one of his(I think, he works from home some) cars when we first moved here. She was the wingnut who ran against McCain from the right in the primary. It’s usually another neighbor who has parties. Maybe there’ll be a third party on the street tonight. Jeezus.
Mai naem mobile
@Elizabelle: in this country it would be surge pricing because flea markets and freedumb and all.
Eolirin
@Mai naem mobile: Nah, in this country it’s prisoners getting paid 65 cents an hour.
Gin & Tonic
@MoCA Ace: I was out working in the yard and my next-door neighbor was wheeling his trash cans to the curb. Odd, since Tuesday is trash day. He said he’s setting them out because he and his wife are flying to Florida to visit his mother.
I decided not to get into a discussion. He’s a firefighter and his wife is an RN, so I’m sure they’re aware of the current situation.
satby
@Martin: people were stealing the toilet paper from the restrooms in the Farmer’s Market. Just ridiculous.
zhena gogolia
@FelonyGovt:
Going for a walk is frowned upon? I thought it was okay.
Anne Laurie
Benefit of the doubt: They’re taking the personal risk so as to be *in* Florida, closer to his mom, if (when) feces really hit the fan down there. RNs and firefighters are liable to be in very short supply in those Florida communities!
Scout211
@Mnemosyne:
Thank you for that suggestion. Drive-up groceries are available at several stores a few towns over. We’ve never done that before but that would work. Nice to have so many smart and helpful people here. Thanks!
Mai naem mobile
@Mnemosyne: yeah, think I am going to stick to Warren. I looked at the polling and Biden has the majority. Bernie’s lowest is 16 so sounds like he will get delegates but I don’t think I am going to hurt Biden.