by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC
With this summer’s hurricane season our Governor recently had occasion to declare a “state of emergency” actuating a recently passed law making “price gouging” illegal. Title 59.1 of the Code of Virginia states, “During any time of disaster, it shall be unlawful for any supplier to sell, lease, or license, or to offer to sell, lease, or license, any necessary goods and services at an unconscionable price within the area for which the state of emergency is declared.”
Great law! It would stop greedy business people from taking advantage of people in the greatest danger and distress...right?
There’s another way to look at this act of wisdom, virtue and justice. It’s counterproductive and evil! It’ll cause additional and extended damage to those in greatest jeopardy at the same time it establishes yet another precedent for undercutting freedom of the market and private ownership.
Let’s consider some of the possible consequences of this “noble” law. Is it possible that prices are a consequence of supply and demand? When items and services that weren’t scarce pre-emergency become overwhelmed by massive new demand from those in desperate need, isn’t it logical there might be natural upward pressure on prices of those items and services? Don’t scarce things typically demand higher prices?
Prices are vital information for those who create and provide products and services. They inform where things are needed most urgently. They cause people to act...faster as the numbers are higher. Don’t price gouging laws actually discourage those who might otherwise be “moved” by much higher prices to rush needed items and services into the affected area?
Don’t you also discourage planning through these harmful “feel good” laws? As a natural consequence of these unwise laws, isn’t there less incentive to plan during times when demand is low and supply is high, when prices are naturally lower? Government says they encourage planning. Ha! My friends, you vastly misinterpret real government and non-government incentives.
What about a person who says “it’s no longer for sale” during some emergency? Isn’t he a price gouger? Isn’t he really saying, “I’m jacking the price up to a level you can’t even pay?” Don’t you have a right to what he has at a price you want to pay?
Does anything really belong to anyone in this present day “land of the free?” Isn’t this yet another form of imminent domain abuse...another “might makes right” imposition on things that “in theory” belong to individuals?
Yes, there are real gougers you ought to fear, ones with guns behind their collections, laws, restrictions and requirements...the very worst of the bunch. All the others are small potatoes compared to these master gougers. The “prices” they charge for their “wisdom and virtue” are way too high! And it’s precisely during their endless invented “emergencies” that they extract the most from you.
©2006 by Richard A. Cheatham. All rights reserved. Mr.Cheatham is a professional speaker/writer and is syndicated through Press Media Group, LLC. Contact him through, Living History Assoc., Ltd., at www.LHALtd.com or DrawBackVeil@aol.com.