Non-political things that make you say...WTF?!?! (Welcome To Florida!) **NOT CV RELATED** NO TALKY!

Along those lines, back in 2004 we had a guy decapitated by a guide wire. He was leaning out the passenger side to vomit while his (drunk) buddy tried to drive them home from a bar. Someone out walking the next morning sees the headless body in the truck and calls police.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/083104/new_20040831015.shtml

 

Couldn't hear the other guy's side of the story. Did he buy up the water ahead of the storm or did he bring it in from outside?

Let's say one of us, living a couple (or more) states away, decides to buy a load of water at Walmart and drive into the crisis area and sell it for enough to make it worth our time/gas/effort.

Is that wrong?

 

In some places disaster profiteering is a crime. Your mileage may vary.

 

I didn't ask if it were illegal. Not everything that is a crime is "wrong".

 

Nothing wrong with it at all.... just not a very wise investment for the personal shame beating you will take in today's time of social media and cell phones. I went through Hurricane Andrew and lived just North of ground zero. People like this were beaten and had their supplies taken and given to the ones that needed it. And guess what there was nothing they could do about it.

 

In this case, it's price gouging and it's illegal. The state Attorney General has already started going after gas and hotel gouging. This guy has recently made the list, and they just showed that video on the news.

This is Texas, and they're already getting rope. Dude will probably drown before he can hang!

 

@CaptAmerica

How underwater are you right now, on a scale of "Florida" to "Atlantis" ?

 

This guy is a total shit bag of major proportions and his life is forever changed now as that person.....

What will be epic is if this guy turns out to be an illegal.....

 

It just seems completely idiotic to me to prevent someone with an entrepreneurial spirit from bringing in supplies from outside.

By making it illegal for him to charge enough to make it worth his while, the additional supplies don't get brought in.

That, IMHO, is a real WTF.

 

We are ok in Austin - high ground. Just southeast of us is flooding like it was just invented - breaking all records - and THEN that water heads to Houston.

Pray for those folks - it just can't drain fast enough for them. The decision to not evacuate was the wrong one, for sure. Been hanging out in the Houston BS thread - a lot of folks are taking on water.

 

There's markup, and then there's taking advantage. The dude was a local taking advantage.

 

X1000

 

Sucks. I'd take a three-day blizzard over that any day.

 

If he didn't bring it in from outside, no argument from me.

 

There are tons shit bags around here that keep storage units full of water and supplies until a disaster strikes, then start selling the stuff at a premium.

 

There were people up here who bought out the big box stores, and folks were complaining that taking more than what they could drink was wrong. Your family doesn't need 80 cases of water for 5 days, and you're now depriving someone else who needs it from having it. Sam's and HEB started limiting how much people could get just to make sure there would be enough for everyone.

I get that some church groups bought a shitload to give away at shelters (which makes no sense - Austin tap water is good, unlike San Antonio, Dallas, or Houston), but buying at $3 just to sell at $20 to desperate people trying to survive is just plain being a piss poor human being.

 

X1000

 

What does it matter where he got his water. Gouging people in need is despicable, He will get his..

 

If he bought up local supplies he reduced the amount available to others in need.

If he brought in supplies from outside, he added to the amount available to others in need.

That's the difference.

 

This does make sense, and I acknowledge the logic.