bad framing

I have a screed just for this. https://doc.dreev.es/gouge

Excerpt:

Price gougers are doing the Lord’s work by helping rationally ration scarce supplies. It feels wrong but the alternatives are all worse! [...] Trying to address allocation problems by controlling prices invariably, inexorably backfires.

@dreev I'd love to see more in the 'Rationally rationing is good, but what about poor people?' section, personally. I think that's sort of the main argument I hear from people who aren't bought in to the economics

Super fair. And thanks for reading it. My general answer is that the affordability problem has to be addressed orthogonally, such as by universal basic income or vouchers for the scarce or otherwise too-expensive resource. Never via price controls. Consider how much better food stamps work than rent control.

This actually upsets me. People charging infinity dollars for bottled water in a hurricane zone (aka not selling it at all) being all indignant at those selling it for a finite price.

(My vote was randomized, I wanted to see results)

https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html
Read this essay. Starts with:
"Here’s the thing: They clapped. I can’t for the life of me understand why the people would clap. But I’m starting in the middle. Here is what happened:"

Let's see if Manifold is as like-minded on this question as I think it is...