Pandemic profiteers are making a fortune off the deaths of Americans, while Trump stands aside

[babylonsister]

Pandemic profiteers are making a fortune off the deaths of Americans, while Trump stands aside
Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday April 02, 2020 · 10:52 AM EDT


What happens when you begin to research a story about how not-so-black market retailers are selling masks, gloves, and other protective gear at exorbitant prices during an unprecedented crisis? You get a browser filled with ads for masks, gloves, and other protective gear, available to anyone willing to pay exorbitant prices … because God forbid Google and Facebook don’t get a cut of the action.

Not only are pandemic profiteers setting 50 states and the federal government bidding against each other in a process that is costing billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives—they’re doing it openly. This isn’t secret. This isn’t idiots in a truck, scouring a state for hand sanitizer. This is major suppliers, including manufacturers, raking in profits and shipping away the products that health care workers need to do their jobs. These are actions that the federal government could stop … but hasn’t.

On Monday, Forbes reported on an extended look at the market for masks and other protective gear, and that report could not be more infuriating. Because the shortage of protective gear doesn’t exist. There are millions of medical-grade N95 masks available in the United States. Those masks, and other needed supplies, aren’t the product of last-minute enterprise; they’ve been out there all along. It’s just that the market is being driven by … the market.

Protective gear, like every other aspect of life in America, is subject to laws of supply and demand, and as with any other commodity, even a slight excess of demand can generate huge spikes in prices as the market responds by doing what it does best: maximizing profit. It doesn’t take overwhelming demand to drive prices through the roof; it only takes one more person willing to pay more than the current price, and one person willing to pay more than that, and one more person, etc.

In the case of protective gear, that “one person” is really one hospital system, one state emergency response department, one federal agency, or one other member of the retail chain hoping to elevate prices even further while taking a slice. The result is that there is genuine overwhelming demand. And it’s a dream situation for the people sitting on top of tens of millions of pieces of life-saving kit.

At this point, the only constraints on prices are the possibility of government intervention. There have been scattered cases of people being charged with profiteering, but these cases have been very few and mostly small timers. They certainly haven’t been sufficient to stop retailers from peddling masks that were two for a dollar a month ago, at $7 apiece on ads that pop up even on prominent websites. These highly visible excess prices are driving a scramble that’s making it nearly impossible to find supplies at anything less than a maximum price defined by little more than how frightened retailers feel of being made into an example.

more...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/2/1933611/-Pandemic-profiteers-are-making-a-fortune-off-the-deaths-of-Americans-while-Trump-stands-aside

[2naSalit]

1. That's been the plan

since at least Feb. That's why -45 won't nationalize the supply chain. And it gets more of us killed which seems to please the fucker.