| > as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses not helping anyone. Having 70% of the supplies in the field and 30% sitting in a warehouse, appearing for sale, but outside anyone's budget, is not an efficient use of supplies in an emergency. If the items are "outside anyone's budget", then the price gouger will not make money and they will lower the price until someone buys them. Thus, your goal of 100% usage of supplies is still eventually achieved. > If you don't regulate it, it means the rich get essential items while the poor don't. If the items are truly essential, and there are not enough to go around, what difference does it make if the rich get them and the poor don't? This seems like you just want to find an excuse to stick it to the rich. > Instead of the people who have the greatest legitimate need for the essential items getting access to them. How do you propose determining who has the "greatest legitimate need" more accurately than just seeing who is willing to pay the most? > as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses It's interesting that you started off talking about price gouging but have now switched to using the term "hoarding". The thing is, "price gouging" discourages hoarding. If the price is not increased in response to a shortage, then everyone (rich and poor) is incentivized to buy as much as they can whenever an item is available for sale (even if it's well in excess of their actual need). This is basically the definition of "hoarding". Whereas, if the price were allowed to increase, people are discouraged from buying more than they need, and more supply is available for all. This is almost exactly what happened with toilet paper last year. Toilet paper costs about $1 / roll. Most people can afford to buy extra toilet paper, and so very quickly the entire stock of toilet paper was bought up and there was none available for sale. If the price had increased to (say) $5 / roll, people would have been disincentivized from hoarding it. As it was, the people who had the "greatest legitimate need" - those that actually ran out of TP - were unable to purchase any. Additionally, the fact that people like you demonize manufacturers and retailers who raise prices in emergencies as "price gouging" also provides a disincentive for manufacturers and retailers to invest in spare capacity for these very emergencies. If "price gouging" is illegal, there is no good way for manufacturers and retailers to recoup the cost of temporarily increasing production, or maintaining a buffer of inventory for temporary spikes in demand. |