Price gouging is beneficial. Price gouging is great!

     Price gouging is good! Misguided criticism of price gouging followed
the earthquake in California, as it followed the Hurricane in South Florida,
and flooding in the Midwest.
    Price gouging provides extra money for suppliers to buy larger shipments
of necessities and pay added costs for urgent delivery and extra employees
under crisis conditions.  Wholesalers and distributors quickly reroute
supplies to disaster areas where increased demand covers the added costs and
permits a greater profit.  To defeat price gouging further hurts those who
are already hurting.
    Price gouging is great! Higher prices cause people in non-damaged areas
to delay purchases of building materials, freeing the material up for sale
in disaster areas.  Protests of price gouging are made by the same people
who whine about bare shelves in non-gouging stores. Price gouging is how
free market pricing restrains buyers who would rush into non-gouging stores
before or during a crisis and leave nothing but anchovies (but at the
non-gouged price, of course).
    All goods are private property and sellers can charge whatever they wish
or not sell at all.  Anti-gouging laws cause sellers not to reroute items to
disaster areas and to delay selling near disaster areas.  People who support
anti-gouging laws are ignorant statists who cut their own throats (and
others').
    Price-gougers should be praised.  Sellers who do not gouge prices do not
do themselves or consumers any favors.  They encourage hoarding and lessen
their ability to increase replenishments.
    Any Libertarian or Objectivist will point out that anti-gouging laws
achieve the opposite of what was intended. Eastern Europe, the former Soviet
Union, China and other socialist economies demonstrate that government
attempts to suppress prices causes greater shortages and suffering.  The
laws of supply and demand do not change by popular edict.
    Mandating price gouging would make more sense than banning it, though no
law at all is best.  The "correct" price for all goods at all times is the
highest price anyone will pay.  That is how Capitalism creates abundance and
prosperity.  Price gouging is beneficial.

This letter was originally published on 11-11-96

for more libertarian ideas on price gouging see
http://members.ij.net/rex/Ruth.html

http://rexcurry.net was one of the first websites to use the phrases "price
gouging is good" and "price gouging is great" and "price gouging is
beneficial" in a sincere positive manner.  A recent web search for those
phrases revealed either no results, or results that used the phrases in a
derogatory manner, and almost no instances of positive advocacy of price
gouging.  It is more proof that government schools must end.

(For more ideas on liberty and libertarianism see http://members.ij.net/rex
and http://rexcurry.net from Rex Curry at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]).




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