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I agree. They are scum. Only slightly scummier, in fact, than those who go running to government to regulate them. I had rather pay 20 dollars a bottle for water and curse the guy who exploits, than die of thirst because some idiot halfwit decided the guy couldn't sell it at all because he might overcharge. The difference is that the market approach WILL CORRECT ITSELF. The bleeding heart idiot approach just allows the leviathan a door in the market. Once it gets in, it never leaves. Your response reminds me of some of the lugubrious wails about how the big oil companies were "ripping us off" after Katrina.

And even scummier are those that accept the exploitation of price gouging after a major disaster and put their faith in free market correction. Under such circumstances, people may not have $20 in their pocket and can't get to an ATM. When it's life and death during a emergency, the free market approach you advocate is not applicable. There is no time for market corrections to take place before irreparable harm is caused by gougers.

If you want to call me scum, go ahead. I'm one of the people that goes to the government when exploitation over a mandated requirement, like insurance, occurs. The situation is unbearable and the rate, IMHO are unquestionably higher than the risks of being in FL. If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have said the opposite. Paying 5-6% of your home's replacement value does not make sense statistically or historically with respect to hurricanes.

I'm one of the people that goes to the government when exploitation over a mandated requirement, like insurance, occurs.

Insurance is not "mandated."

You can
1)Sell your home
2)Pay it off
3)Move
4)Find a lender who doesn't demand you insure it (lotsa luck on that one!)

Millions of people moved to Florida during a period of relatively tame weather. There were very few major hurricanes in the period between 1930 and 1990 (look it up!). Now the weather patterns have returned to normal, and poor baby wants the "government" to fix it.

Cry me a river

P.S. I was probably the poorest resident of Boca Raton Florida in 1981-1983.

Under such circumstances, people may not have $20 in their pocket and can't get to an ATM. When it's life and death during a emergency, the free market approach you advocate is not applicable. There is no time for market corrections to take place before irreparable harm is caused by gougers.

And you are just as dead when there is no water to be had because the gougers aren't there at all.