>>11614464It's simple, whether he knows it or not, he wants price controls on action figures.
Since Action Figures are not essentials, it's actually a good area to experiment with types of price controls to see how the market/manufacturers would react. Price controls can totally wreck an industry if done wrong and there is very little room for error. But that is the plus side for doing it with action figures--it's not an important area like food. If the industry collapsed it wouldn't really matter.
I propose legislation that requires all domestic action figure manufacturers to submit their balance sheets and reveal costs per figure to manufacture and ship in to the US within one of 3 types (standard, deluxe, super deluxe). This information would go to a government body, which would then make sure these data were truthful and enforce a cap on the wholesale price on these action figures at 5% higher than the median cost per figure in its category, and cap the price the wholesale merchants could charge customers at 5% higher than that, effectively meaning the maximum profit that could be earned by the manufacturer and the retailer would both be 5%.
This would be the price customers would see as the Government Mandated Retail Price, replacing MSRP. This would prevent retailers like Amazon, Walmart, etc. from upcharging on figures.
Furthermore, to prevent scalping, a mandate would be placed on all resellers to be enforced by reselling platforms like ebay or third party marketplaces that no reseller would be allowed to sell action figures at higher than GMRP for the next 3 years that directly followed the year it was released, effectively stopping widespread reselling for 3 years. This would turn reselling into what it was meant to be--selling of older, out of circulation figures; not figures that were just released. Little cliques/groups would exist, but it could not be as widespread as it is now since it is endorsed by major platforms that make it easy to resell.
