Price gouging during natural disasters when people are loosing relatives and livelihoods just ain't right. Price gouging = 0 empathy. I think the airlines were also jacking up rates for certain flights in Florida ahead of Irma as well. That kind of opportunism is just disgusting.
Btw, I never really understood the whole "occult number" thing. And what is occult anyways? Something hidden from ordinary perception? Something evil - if there such a thing in the first place?
Price gouging literally saves lives while well-intentioned laws preventing it means goods go to lucky first-comers, meaning the worst for those who need it most, plus price signals don't tell the rest of the economy to shift activities toward relief efforts. You can't legislate away supply/demand any more than gravity. If dollar prices not allowed to move, time/rationing will, which is a far crueler response.
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I didn't say gouging should be legislated away! Just saying that under extreme conditions, gouging isn't the right thing to do from a humanitarian/moral perspective. Not everything is numbers and statistics.
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Price gouging due to actual scarcity (guy stores water bottles to flip because he lives in a hurricane zone) and price gouging due to enforced monopolism (State-mandated licenses to fly) are two different things, though.
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