[philwelch]

I usually do too, because most tickets I buy have a face value close enough to the market clearing price to begin with. But by your very own logic, that is still unfair--it would be more fair if tickets cost less but were more difficult to buy because they sold out more quickly.

The entire purpose of prices is to help distribute scarce resources efficiently. Just like Nixon's notorious attempt of putting price controls on gasoline, government messes things up when it tries to dictate a lower-than-market-clearing price. And it's hard to get me worked up with a fundamental justice argument over luxury goods anyway.