Yesterday some dude posted a video to shame apparently Indian gas station owners charging $10 a gallon around the Hurricane Helene disaster area. The lolberts answered with rebuttals that free market pricing is the best rationing mechanism in a time of scarcity.
People are saying that the gas station could ration gallons per customer and keep the same price, and the lolberts are saying this is communist price control.
I'm not really sure how much merit is held by either position since I've never really thought about this with respect to a disaster area. Clearly the 1973 price controls were a bad idea, but this is a debate over what a private business owner should do after a hurricane. My gut feeling is that gas should be rationed by customer, not by pricing. But maybe the gas station is passing along supply chain pricing to a certain extent?
edit: Texas punished gas price gouging in 2019 after Hurricane Harvey.
Price gouging is good because it allows you to fund people actually bringing in more of that supply into the area.
That's the definition of price gouging. When the supply cuts, and demand spikes, what else is supposed to happen?
I remember the TN state police arrested a man who was "price gouging" hand sanitizer in NY, physically driving it to them for $35 a bottle.
The police arrested him, he was sent to prison, they confiscated his truck and the bottles and did nothing with the hand sanitizer. NY residents who needed it didn't get it. Cops in TN who had no need of it, got years of supply by theft.
That is the purpose of anti-price gouging laws.