"Entrepreneur" or "Profiteer"?

[Kephalos]

I came across this teenager that's made a lot of money peddling goods that became hard to get because of the pandemic:

A 16-year-old entrepreneur reportedly brought in $1.7 million reselling video games, outdoor heaters, and above-ground swimming pools at sky-high prices during the pandemic

I'm conflicted about this. Middlemen like this kid do provide a valuable service by moving goods from A, who has them, and B, who want/need them; the more middlemen there are, the difference between the bid price and the ask price becomes narrower. Discouraging middlemen or wiping out their gains through price controls or taxes can end up creating shortages and preventing the bid-ask spread for goods not to narrow.

But, this kind of activity seems wrong, like taking advantage of people, even if it's willing buyers. It's certainly wrong to celebrate this kind of activity, even if it's legal as "entrepreneurship" -- a fraught term as it is. There may even be a serious, economic reason to put limits on the prices negotiated in markets with very few buyers and sellers:

In Defense of Thomas Aquinas and the Just Price | History of Political Economy | Duke University Press

If you understand who the author of that paper is, you will understand why I paused to consider this. Even David Friedman writes in favor of the "just price".

 

[JocktheMotie]

I view this more as rent-seeking than entrepreneurial. The kid isn't contributing any kind of productivity or service, since the items he buys are already available on easy, widely available platforms. He just buys them first, likely aided by some script/bot to lift items as soon as they're available. So, personally, I think this is shitty.

 

[ceecee]

I came across this teenager that's made a lot of money peddling goods that became hard to get because of the pandemic:

A 16-year-old entrepreneur reportedly brought in $1.7 million reselling video games, outdoor heaters, and above-ground swimming pools at sky-high prices during the pandemic

I'm conflicted about this. Middlemen like this kid do provide a valuable service by moving goods from A, who has them, and B, who want/need them; the more middlemen there are, the difference between the bid price and the ask price becomes narrower. Discouraging middlemen or wiping out their gains through price controls or taxes can end up creating shortages and preventing the bid-ask spread for goods not to narrow.

But, this kind of activity seems wrong, like taking advantage of people, even if it's willing buyers. It's certainly wrong to celebrate this kind of activity, even if it's legal as "entrepreneurship" -- a fraught term as it is. There may even be a serious, economic reason to put limits on the prices negotiated in markets with very few buyers and sellers:

In Defense of Thomas Aquinas and the Just Price | History of Political Economy | Duke University Press

If you understand who the author of that paper is, you will understand why I paused to consider this. Even David Friedman writes in favor of the "just price".

Yeah, this is shitty. It also reminds me of this kind of thing.

NY Duped Out of $69 Million for Ventilators After Man Tweeted at Trump: Report

On March 27, as the novel coronavirus was surging through the US, Trump urged Ford and General Motors on Twitter to "START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!"

Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, replied: "We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT."

And someone did call. So much like the 16 year old, they just took advantage of the opportunity/situation without contributing much if anything. All it really accomplishes is yet another contribution to the fucking hellscape.