October 31, 2005
U.S. Investigates Sale of MREs on eBay
In the aftermath of this year's devastating hurricane season there is, yet another, valuable lesson to be learned.
The lesson: Markets will and do develop in spite of government rationing.
Just as markets developed in the former Soviet Union amongst individuals who traded the goods they were rationed for the goods they preferred, so also, markets have been formed for buying and selling the goods that have been rationed, by the state, to this year's hurricane victims. Big surprise.
Markets can’t be stopped. Furthermore, as is beautifully demonstrated in the case of the eBay MRE’s, modern technology makes it that much easier to circumvent the state and for markets to thrive.