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wasoxygen  ·  2015 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Three Cheers for Price Gouging During Hurricane Florence

    they don't ship them and people continue to go without

This (along with a mistrust and distaste for meddling paternalism that often does more harm than good) is my main concern. If the generator supply is adequate, gougers have nothing to do. When demand spikes, gougers respond by increasing supply.

    Additionally, in that time maybe everyone runs out of generators. Gouging takes advantage of this.

I suggest that gougers discourage running out. If there's a hurricane coming and generators are priced as usual (the word "fair" is hard to pin down) I'll buy one for sure, and maybe two or three as backups. If batteries and milk are priced as usual, the shelves will be empty. If hotel rooms are at the regular rate, a large, affluent family will happily spread out into two rooms.

If prices reflect the spike in demand, I'll reconsider, and maybe buy the smallest generator that I can get by with rather than one large enough to supply two houses. Higher prices provide incentive to use emergency goods more efficiently (while making black markets irrelevant).