Yep, scrolls are in short supply on K, in my area. I have 16 million + gems, mostly from players offering gems for scrolls. If I offer the same trade -- gems for scrolls -- I have to discount my gems by 1/3 or more. So it's costly. My other option is to stop taking gems for scrolls offers....but that's difficult for those players who are sticking to the 2 star measure of how many gems are worth how many scrolls. They are usually smaller players (smaller than I) and I hate to see them have to wait a long time for their trades to be picked up. So in essence, since I'm getting the satisfaction of keeping the smaller players in my trading area going, it's "fair" to me. On the other hand, at some point I will have to consider it too costly. But as long as somebody is picking those two star, gems for scrolls trades up, well, why ask for fewer scrolls than you can get?
In the end I've taken to asking some players to recognize that gems are in overwhelming supply and scrolls in very short supply. Some have shifted and began asking for fewer scrolls for their gems, and that is helping. But there are quite a few doing the gems for scrolls 2-star thing so that's that.
In the end, the problem can be seen as a restrictive social conditions, and untrained or poorly trained trader base. Instead of trading based upon supply/demand, they rely on the star system. And as long as larger players, like myself, keep taking the gems for scrolls type 2 star trades it's probably going to stay that way. If all were to abandon the star system and trade based upon supply/demand the markets would be more volatile, but also more responsive to changing conditions. Which would mean "corrections" in supply/demand would take a lot less time to arrive.
Just my thoughts.
AJ