If that's more than you want to pay, then don't buy one.
That doesn't happen anymore.
...and as a side effect, there are fewer generators available when they're really needed, *and* fewer people plan ahead and buy a generator before the next emergency, fueling deeper shortages when the next hurricane arrives.
I don't see that as an improvement.
Someone has yet to show how arbitraging locally increases the total number that the people get. Also, now the huckster sells to some corner of town instead of everybody knowing where they can at least possibly get one (you try the home and hardware stores, rather than cruising around wasting gas looking for a huckster).
--- ...and as a side effect, there are fewer generators available when they're really needed, *and* fewer people plan ahead and buy a generator before the next emergency, fueling deeper shortages when the next hurricane arrives.
I don't see that as an improvement.---
You fail to see the real benefit of anti-gouging laws: It makes the citizens FEEL better. About themselves. About the government that panders to them.
The actual results don't matter. What matters is that they had good intentions when they passed the law!
Who cares if a diabetic needs a generator for insulin because his old one broke down after the storm. He might have to pay 3 times retail cost for it! Thank God the benevolent government is there to protect him from being gouged like that!
(BTW, the benevolent government will be by in 7-10 days to pick up his dead-from-diabetic-shock body. Please leave it by the curb, covered in a blanket. Thank you. Signed, The government.)
I don't want to hear that after a major disaster.
...and as a side effect, there are fewer generators available when they're really needed, *and* fewer people plan ahead and buy a generator before the next emergency, fueling deeper shortages when the next hurricane arrives.
Cornering the market is a good thing? During a disaster? I can understand that there are market mechanisms to correct such behavior in a normally functioning market when there is plenty of time to play around with and people aren't in survival mode. Major disasters aren't part of a continually functioning market either. The market may still work in some areas, but it gets disjointed in others, and people don't have time to wait around for it to correct.