I couldn't possibly agree with you any more than I already do.
I lifted these criteria for price gouging from wikipedia;
- Period of emergency: The majority of laws apply only to price shifts during a declared
- Necessary items: Most laws apply exclusively to items essential to survival, such as food, water, and housing.
- Laws limit the maximum price that can be charged for given goods.
How about we think of this in reverse. Let's say CTD, in the vein of avoiding an accusation of price gouging, kept their prices at the level before the demand went through the roof. They would have certainly sold every last high demand item they had at a lower than market price. Then I come along as a consumer of these high demand products and see that they are out of stock. My position could be that I'm going to sue CTD because they are out of products that I want and they didn't follow basic supply and demand curve principles. When demand increased and supply stayed relatively the same, they should have raised their prices and not run out of product. Suing them makes perfect sense to me, because I feel CTD should have and could have protected my desire for the product and I was willing to pay market price as I really wanted the product.
Sound crazy? Why shouldn't I ask the AG to sue CTD on my and other consumer's behalf, because CTD didn't follow basic economic principles of supply and demand price curves? CTD could have done much better at protecting my rights as a consumer by increasing prices and preserving their supply so there would be some left for me at high prices, because I was willing to pay.
