I can easily afford many gallons of water, plenty of food and a generator. Yet, because I'm not a weirdo, I don't have a bunker filled with things such as that.

and they aren't free

sometimes i even do that at home

I think you mischaracterize the argument (at least mine). Having the government artificially set a price ceiling is bad and can lead to market conditions that do more harm than good. Enterprises, both large and small, should be free to take in all considerations when making pricing decisions. Including PR issues or just being a good member of the community.

So?

Not allowing price gouging isn't the same thing as setting price ceilings.

If a business were selling gallon jugs of water for $1,000,000,000 each prior to a disaster, they can continue to do so during a disaster.

You are going to have to describe to us, in full detail, why not allowing price gouging during a disaster causes more harm than good. I agree that in some universes (not the particular one we happen to live in), that price gouging could have positive utility. I'd like to hear your view of how anti-price-gouging laws will have negative total utility in the universe that we actually live in. Nothing wishy-washy about ideals that have no relationship to actual human beings, please. An actual negative collective utility. "Well, some dude got arrested for it" doesn't come even close.

At a movie theater you aren't just paying for popcorn/candy with those prices.

Come to think of it, the theater presents an interesting model of luxury excise, doubly interesting because of its "private" nature.

This is objectively false. Just because it is short-term doesn't mean it's not a ceiling.
Well, in the case already cited here, there were five (or six, or whatever) fewer generators available for people to buy. And who knows how many fewer because people were dissuaded from bringing more to the area because it wasn't worth it to them without the large margin.

the bottom line is EMOTION-EMOTION-EMOTION

folks pay $400 a night during bike week Daytona for the same room that's $49 any other time.
the argument they pay via a choice applys to a hurricane as well.
people made a choice to live below sea level.
they made a choice not to evacuate
yeah yeah yeah , jobs money or lack of , no where to go etc.....
these are all reasons as to WHY THEY MADE THE CHOICE THEY MADE.
doesn't change the fact they and only they made the choice.

This is technically correct, but silly. What ideal are you espousing?

That isn't a drop in total utility. That is an anecdote about a meaninglessly small number of generators.

Once the waters receded sufficiently for trucks to get through, Home Depot had absolutely no problem shipping generators in. Prior to that, NO ONE was shipping generators in.

Then why make it illegal?

It wasn't made illegal to ship in generators.

Don't be obtuse.

Out of curiosity, were the tolls free when people evacuated for the hurricanes?

No. All the toll roads actually quintupled their normal rates.

so go buy them.... or don't

but don't go around complaining that they are out of stock or the price has gone up when you need them. the weirdo's stocking up on dried food etc paid a price for all of that. just like people buying health insurance. you can decide you should get cheap health insurance after you had a heart attack but thats just some weird sense of entitlement playing with your emotions

in a free market people take risks such as debt and inventory. sometimes it works out better than others. its not fair to point out all the times they benefit and cry foul but then when they suffer, tough luck. stores will be closed for days or weeks. there will be damage and other headaches. god forbid they took on the debt and risk to provide goods and services people need and then benefit from it

price gouging is more complicated than the emotional level 1 thinking the bleeding heart left attribute to everything. people win and lose. its a good idea to take a look at the bigger picture. the attitude that people fleeing an emergency they were warned about a week ago are being taken advantage of is extremely narrow

FYP.

This is a mistaken position that people often make. Perhaps adults made that choice. Children do not. And many poor adults cannot move, as they simply don't have the means. Just because you don't care about them, or care about why they can't move, doesn't mean they can't move.

Furthermore, hurricanes destroy homes above sea level as well.

Yes. Thank the state for that.

that article considers tithing (giving to the church) charity.

^ Ya know, he's not holding a gun to your head forcing you to tithe.

Neither is this guy.



They're both offering about the same value for your dollars.


Bottom line: Tithing does not necessarily equal charity. Counting it as such is misleading.

^ Kind of a bad example.

Drug dealers are known to resort to violence when people f*ck them over.

What is your definition of charity? Because you get tax deductions for giving to a lot of things.