LogFAQs > #885845868

when a meteor strikes and wipes out the entire supply chain in a region, that region is no longer playing by any rules, and certainly no longer playing by free enterprise rules. one of the main tenets of capitalism is that competition enters when profits are high and lowers prices until an equilibrium is achieved. new competitors can't enter the market when there is no longer a market due to the natural disaster.

what we see with price gouging is struggling gas stations realizing that they won't get any shipments of new gas, and trying to ride out the destruction by stashing away money desperately.