Sometimes "shortage" means they dont want to buy more
NOT AT THOSE PRICES!
when you don't have a coordinated Federal policy nor a singular purchaser of needed goods, but rather encourage 50 stattes to bid against one another for medical supplies, price rises is the natural outcome. Supply and demand and pricing is not complicated.
It was as if our president who attended Wharton School somehow skipped all the econ claases, or he was really fucking dumb.
Or both.
The gross mismanagement of this tragedy wil be incorporated into the next version of the pandemic playbook in the "what not to do" chapter.
A post from 3/22/20
Its as if the Federal government doesn't understand how or give a shit about supply/demand and prices work. when I first heard the Trump Admin. encourage states to fend for themsleves and having several competitors compete for a limited supply (for anything) has one outcome. That the Fed/FEMA didn't orchestrate an orderly supply process is insane.