There's been a whole lot of talk about "price gouging" in Florida these days thanks to this friggin' hurricane season. At least once a night on the local news, the notorious term finds its way into some kind of story relating to one or all of the past 3 hurricanes that came churning toward this vulnerable tropical oasis that I now call home. What I find interesting about all of this is the incredible amount of professional backing that price gouging gets as a fundamental and necessary economic process rather than a way for evil merchants to take people for more money. According to the general public, price gouging is a bad thing. The name of the term alone even assumes a certain amount of uncomfortable penetration. And since the media is for the most part on the citizen's side, they're going to portray price gouging as nothing but a naughty thing to do to people.

But do a search on price gouging on your search engine of choice. It turns out that economists and other professionals debate price gouging incessantly. Apparently, price gouging can be a good thing. It's all about market driven supply and demand balance type stuff. In a very small, not giving the subject due dilligence, nutshell, the price gouging advocates expect the economy to force its own prices based on the availability of goods and the competition of other vendors. Coupled with that, goods remain available longer because people will make decisions based on higher prices rather than doing something silly like buying out one store's ice supply because its affordable. Although I don't want to go into it too far since I'm no financial guru, I have to ask a couple of questions:

1. Do we really want to wait for the economy to stabilize immediatly after a natural disaster?
2. Do we really trust Hector at the local convienience store to come up with a fair price in times of trouble forcing me to drive around town during a gas shortage to find the most economically stable and competitive price?
3. Have the price gouging advocates been in an area where natural disasters occur to see how ridiculous people tend to act during such times?
4. Isn't there enough legal price gouging in America already?.... Try shopping for a Halloween costume between now and Oct. 31st.

Like I said, I really have no leg to stand on when it comes to professional opinions reguarding this subject. There are plenty more people out there who are qualified to argue this subject on paper. I'm simply... and unfortunately.... just a customer.