[exolymph]

> The CDC and other well-educated organizations believe they should go to hospitals and other health care providers first, infected people second, vulnerable populations third, and others last.

> Popular greed combined with ineffective controls are upsetting this logical ordering, and increase the overall risk for the population as a whole.

Look, it's not my fault that gov't didn't prepare for this situation — high demand for masks — and that I did.

[otterley]

It's fine to be prepared, but if your local hospital rings you up and asks you for your stash, are you going to refuse?

[scarejunba]

A reasonable deal to me sounds like they can do one of three things:

* Procure from someone else

* Procure from me at my price

* Sign an irrevocable deal that at any point I will give them any N95 and P100 masks I have they desire and in exchange they will give me any healthcare I desire at any point. My life is no less valuable than theirs so I think this is fair.

[otterley]

The correct formula isn't what your lives are worth in absolute terms, though. It must be risk-adjusted. Specifically, one must calculate what lives are worth, multiplied by the probability of the hypothetical victim's vs. the current possessor's death due to not having a mask.

But again, this isn't so much an economic question as much as it is a moral one.

[scarejunba]

Oh it most certainly is a moral one, which is why I'm asking that you commit to save my life when it needs saving. Unless you somehow imagine that letting me die is morally desirable? At which point, it'll take a lot more to convince me.

If my life needs dollars to save, so does yours. And if you will take your pound of flesh, so will I. But I'm making an offer in good faith in your hour of need. I will not take a pound of flesh. I will take no thing. And in exchange, all I ask is that you do the same for me. Your reluctance to accept this tells me all I need to know about your so-called morality.

[otterley]

Huh? Your implicit assumption seems to be that if you don’t have a mask, you are 100% likely to die. That is just not so, and borders on paranoia.

[scarejunba]

No, I do not believe it requires any such assumption. I am 100% likely to die, as is everyone. That's the nature of living. We all have an expiry date. When I'm wheeled in for whatever reason, car accident, fell in the bathroom, tomorrow, next month, ten years from now, exercise your morality and save me if I can be saved - no questions asked. That's all.

Listen, it's pretty obvious I never assumed I'd die in the near future without a mask, only that I might be put in a life threatening situation at some point - mask or no mask. I don't see how this is supposed to be such a hard choice to save my life. I'm rate-limited on HN, so this might be my last post, but if you find it so hard to say you'd help saving my life maybe you shouldn't be moralizing on how I should be saving others'.

[waterhouse]

Well, how much will they pay you for it?

Seriously. If they pay something good for it, then that gives a decent incentive for forward-thinking people to do some stockpiling for situations like this. If they don't, and if they go as far as trying to punish "price gouging", then there is no such incentive beyond stockpiling for personal use or for sale on the black market.

[otterley]

Let us assume for the sake of argument, up to the manufacturer's suggested retail price. They're asking because they believe people will probably unnecessarily die if they don't get more right away.

[waterhouse]

Well, if people's lives are at stake, why not pay more? ("Why not accept less?" It's the hospital's job to care for its patients—not to mention its workers.) I suspect the cost of one of the healthcare workers getting badly sick one week earlier is worth many times the cost of one box of masks.

If you offer the retail price, then that effectively covers the case of people who accidentally bought too much and would have otherwise wanted to return the masks (but were too lazy until now?). It doesn't incentivize anyone to make any forward-thinking stockpiles; their net profit would be zero, minus the transaction and storage costs.

[otterley]

Yup, you're right. And yet it doesn't matter because this is a moral issue, not an economic one. Not everything comes down to the cold, hard logic of economics and incentives - nor should it, for the sake of humanity.