[mythtv-users] Hard Disk Prices -- What Happened?

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Thu, 2011-11-03 at 20:43 +0100, Simon Hobson wrote:
> 
> But it's interesting to see how quickly supplies dried up. This 
> wasn't caused by the loss of manufacturing, it was caused by 
> speculative or panic buying. These things are shipped over in bulk by 
> sea - and that takes several weeks so there **will** still be stock 
> arriving. It's all the people buying drives that they wouldn't have 
> otherwise bought (some for speculation, some to cover planned or 
> potential future needs) that have "stripped the shelves bare".

And that's _exactly_ my point.  We are talking about drives which have
already been manufactured and distributed, magically going up in price
from $80 to $140.  That's $60 in pure profit from people doing nothing
more than increasing prices and "cashing in" on the natural disaster.

It's really no different than the grocery store that jacks up prices
after an earth-quake or some such event -- which AFAIU is actually
illegal in civilized parts of the world.

b.