Looting and price gouging= taking advantage of a bad situation.
Can you give me a good (meaning one that can be used for determining and prosecuting offenders) definition of price gouging?
And not reacting to changes in economic reality could allow some people to take advantage of a bad situation at the expense of everyone else.
For example, as a result of the disaster there is no drinking water and now everybody needs to get bottled water. This drastically increases the demand for my stock of Ozarka at the local convenience store and the increase in demand creates a new equilibrium market price of $15.00 per liter bottle (yesterday the market price was $1.50 per bottle). Either because I don't want to "price gouge" or because the government passed a law against price gouging, I decide to keep my price at yesterday's market price of $1.50. Also, I am reluctant to limit sales because individuals should have the freedom to buy however much they need, so Joe Hoarder comes in with his pickup truck and buys my entire stock at $1.50 per bottle so I have no more water to sell to anyone else. In the meantime, Joe "shares" his newly acquired stock of water with his friends and family if they are willing to pay a "discounted" price of $10.00 per bottle. So Joe was able to take advantage of a bad situation, but the rest of the community is worse off because I did not adjust my price to reflect the new economic reality.
Ludicrous. If you steal my property, I am quantifiable worse off. If I offer to sell you my property and you decline because my price is too high, you are in EXACTLY the same position you were in before we met.</p>