Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 518
Parent poster is not postulating "at the same time". "If the market crashed" is a conditional that itself indicates there are two times being considered, a before and after. "If the market crashed" also sets a condition - if the market for some item crashes, it can't be simultaniously stay in oversupply (it can theoretically start off in oversupply, it just can't possibly stay there). The supply drops precipitately, as nobody with the item wants to sell at those prices. Supply is therefore elastic (extremely so for organs - they'd make a great textbook example).
Demand, in this case, is inelastic if we are speaking of human need, but somewhat elastic if we are using formal economic terms the way some economists use them, as in some economic models only people who can afford what they want to buy at the current prices are considered to count as demand, and not the ones who are 'demanding' the item, but only at a lower price. If 'demand' means everybody who needs an organ, it's just about perfectly inelastic, while if we use the other definition, demand is elastic, but goes UP if price drops.
What, I think, is confusing about the original post is the phrase "and good luck getting a donation when you can buy one on the market.". I suspect the original poster meant 'good luck getting a donation when until recently you could buy one on the market'. This is more reasonable - massive price drops usually create a great deal of lag. People will stop donating gratis thinking the sales market is handling need, and they won't rush to fill out donor cards as the price drops because they will be thinking that dropping prices means the demand is lessening. The demand may in fact not be lessening at all, if the price drop is driven by other factors, (such as vendors evading anti-trust and trying to collude in driving prices down), but organ donation requires a lot of those organs come from people who don't know economics and simply don't act as "rational entities" the way an economist usually means that term.