They’re both characterized by a situation of sudden (and unpredicted) scarcity because of a breakdown in the usual supply chain that provides a good, and the price of that newly scarce good increasing dramatically.
One is where someone who already has a stock of the newly scarce good increases the price and reaps a windfall profit from the event. The other is where someone acts to increase the supply of the newly scarce good, and charges a price commensurate with the extraordinary measures required to do so (ordinary measures, by definition, no longer being adequate to provide a supply).
There are good reasons why we might want to treat these two cases differently, and yet I see very few people, on either side of the debate, willing to make the distinction.
In particular, if you put in tons of time and effort driving supplies to a disaster area from somewhere unaffected by the storm, you should be allowed to sell things for whatever price they sell at. Because getting more supplies to a disaster is good and if you’re not allowed to sell above a stupid definition of ‘at cost’ that doesn’t take into account ‘putting a thousand miles on my car’ or ‘losing my entire weekend’ or ‘the risk that I was wrong and this wouldn’t be needed’ then there will just be fewer supplies for disaster survivors.
And yes, the laws get used that way: After Katrina a guy heard that people needed generators, so he bought 19 of them in Kentucky, rented a U-Haul, and drove them to New Orleans. The police arrested him and confiscated the generators (which they did not distribute to disaster survivors). He intended to sell them at double the cost, and people were eager to buy them at that price. He served four months in our brutal inhumane prison system for ‘price gouging.’
And yes, the laws get used that way: After Katrina a guy heard that people needed generators, so he bought 19 of them in Kentucky, rented a U-Haul, and drove them to New Orleans. The police arrested him and confiscated the generators (which they did not distribute to disaster survivors).
Yeah, this is what I’m worried about. The law will end up being written in a stupid way that makes the situation worse than not having a law.