Only in perfectly spherical, frictionless free markets that aren't applicable to reality. Practically changes happen quicker than a supply chain can adjust, and that can leave people without critical supplies.

Some businesses do not raise prices, preferring empty shelves to the bad goodwill and accusations of profiteering. Nevertheless, goods and services are always available if the price is allowed to float.

Anti-gouging laws always leave people without critical supplies.

Remember the Great Toilet Paper Shortage a couple years ago?

Once again, that's ignoring rationing happening at the same time. Yes APG laws without rationing encourage hoarding, but that's not the scheme generally being discussed.

Additionally, jurisdictions without APG laws also empirically faced widespread shortages during the pandemic, that's not a unique feature of APG laws.

Yea, like for hurricanes, there used to be local independent gas stations that "price-gouged", but you could at least go get 5 gallons for 5x the normal price if you really needed it.

With price-gouging laws, it means they run out just like everyone else, and then there's no supply available for anyone, regardless of how bad the need.[0]

But it also makes the problem much worse, because when price is fixed, the sole determining factor of who gets it becomes who can get there first.

[0]Or they hoard it themselves and only sell it to friends and family, or as a favor, or in a quasi black market in exchange for other price controlled items. Eg, negotiating how much they'll sell you at the capped price. "I'll sell you $500 of price-capped gas if you sell me a $500 price-capped generator."

Before anti-gouging laws, people outside the disaster area would fill all their jerry cans with gas, drive into the disaster zone, and sell it. After those laws were enacted, people did without gas until the government got around to trucking some in. Nobody except charities bothered to bring in supplies.

Yea, I've got family members who personally would do it with generators and window air conditioners.

They'd take a trailer with them when evacuating, and load it up with everything they could find locally in stock before returning home.

Now, they might do it as a favor for friends, but they make sure they've got each one claimed before purchasing. Whereas before, a profit margin made speculative buying worthwhile, and would cover expenses without worrying about having to sell 100%.

Do you have any citations that these people performing ad hoc arbitrage between a disaster region and outside it are statistically relevant?

'How bad they need it' and 'How much money they have to spend' are often completely unrelated.

With 'price gouging laws' you also include 'rationing' which can and does often generated considerably better outcomes.

People who need it more demonstrate that need by being willing to pay more for it.

> does often generated considerably better outcomes.

Nope. Usually, it generates criminal redistribution activity, hoarding, a greatly reduced supply, etc. All the miserable characteristics of a centrally planned economy.

During the gas crisis of the 1970s, gas stations could not sell gas until they were allocated (rationed) gas by the D.O.E. The allocation was based on the previous year's usage pattern. Of course, nothing stays the same, and one year Florida was overflowing with gas while there were loooong lines on the west coast. Also there were lovely instances of one gas station appealing to the DOE to get the allocation of the gas station across the street cut off as being "unneeded".

All these problems disappeared literally overnight when Reagan, as his first act as President, signed an Executive Order eliminating all oil & gas price controls and allocation.

I know it was overnight, because I remember the gas lines evaporating the very next day and never returning in the 40 years since.

Commonly accepted historical viewpoints of the gas crisis of 1979 and subsequent easing in 1980 don't seem to blame controls on gas, but instead the Iranian revolution and Iraqi invasion of Iran disrupting the west's access to large amounts of oil, and the supply bubble in OPEC's subsequent increases in production to overcome that which finally hit was seen by consumers byte the end of 1980 (before Reagan was elected). Reagan's removal of price controls are thought to be ultimately orthogonal.

Additionally there have empirically been gas lines in the US in the 40 years since 1980.

>...but instead the Iranian revolution and Iraqi invasion of Iran

The US suffered much more in 1979 from the disruption of the oil from Iran than other countries that also relied on this oil. It would be wrong to ignore the role the government played in making this oil disruption significantly worse.

From "TheU.S. Petroleum Crisis of 1979", PHILIP K. VERLEGER, JR.

>...On February 28, 1979, DOE published the following notice in the Federal Register: "It is essential that refiners enter the spring driving season with adequate gasoline stocks to meet seasonal demand requirements. We recognize that gasoline stocks are currently at adequate levels for this time of year, which is usually a period of low demand. Recent industry data indicate that total stocks are now in excess of 265 million barrels, which is less than last year's record high levels during the same period but above the average levels of previous years. Our concern is that these stocks not be drawn down precipitously as soon as the impacts of the Iranian shortfall are felt by refiners. Refiners are urged to keep stocks high enough to meet expected demand during the 1979 summer driving season, even if it is necessary to restrict somewhat the amount of surplus gasoline that is made available to purchasers currently"

>The implementation of these instructions had the effect of restricting the volume of gasoline available to service stations to between 80 and 90 percent of 1978 levels. This reduction was greater than the reduction in total gasoline supplies.

>...In April 1979, DOE ordered the fifteen largest refiners to sell 7.8 million barrels of crude oil to smaller firms that were unable to obtain supplies on the world market at competitive prices. …These transfers probably reduced the volume of gasoline produced in the second quarter because the refineries that purchased the crude oil had only a limited capacity to produce gasoline, while the refineries that sold it could have produced more. ...In addition to reducing the supply of gasoline, the buy/sell program appears to have affected the geographic distribution of crude oil and gasoline. This is because the primary recipients of the crude oil were refineries in the Midwest and the gulf coast areas, while the sellers were companies that were marketing throughout the nation.

>...…In April, DOE turned its attention to the low stock of distillate fuel oil … Two impacts were observed on domestic markets. First, excessive stocks of heating oil were accumulated. Second, companies may have been influenced to increase gasoline stocks in anticipation of the mandator yield controls that DOE threatened to impose. These controls specified the percent of refiner output that had to be heating oil. Such controls were designed to curtail the output of gasoline. By building higher gasoline inventories, refiners could smooth out the month-to-month distribution of gasoline despite the controls.

>...Price controls on gasoline may have also created an incentive to withhold gasoline from the market when the prices of crude oil were rising rapidly. …In summary, the refiners had the capacity and the knowledge to take advantage of this opportunity. Ironically, the instructions from DOE to the companies were to do precisely what was most profitable.

>...In addition to encouraging the buildup of stocks, DOE may have added to the shortages by creating an incentive to reduce the output of crude oil. Although it is difficult to estimate what domestic supplies of crude oil might have been in the absence of any restriction, a DOE announcement in November that control levels of the base period were to be reviewed may have constrained production in the first half of 1979.

That paper was published in early fall of 1979. The crisis wasn't over, it was simply in a temporary lull at that point.

Healthcare pricing is regulated and effectively fixed in all modern economies except for the US.

The same goes for rent controls which are ubiquitous in most of Canada and Europe.

And where is the 'black market' for these vast economies?

These ridiculous references to 'communism' are an intellectual canard.

There is no such thing as a 'free market' - a market is a dynamic equilibrium of the balance of power. This becomes a problem when power is asymetrical, i.e. in monopoly, or monopoly-like situations such as 'sole provider of a drug' in which case there is always regulation.

If the 'free market' were fully effective, Phizer would be selling vaccines at Wallgreens instead of via the US Gov.. But it's not, and so we're not, because it wouldn't work as the 'profit maximizing' price point for the vaccine is way above what most people would be willing to pay.

> references to 'communism' are an intellectual canard

For me, they are references to actual events in my past. Unable to provide the bare necessities, in the 80's, the Communist State's central planners had rationed bread, sugar, flour and vegetable oil. A black market has promptly sprung up. Its vendors ranged from regular folks who did not use their entire ration to illegal "entrepreneurs" who had other means of getting stuff.

This market could easily tell you the actual price of these goods. But you had to be careful because some of the participants where actual Secret Service laying traps. It was illegal after all...

> But it also makes the problem much worse, because when price is fixed, the sole determining factor of who gets it becomes who can get there first.

Unless a rationing scheme was simultaneously instituted.

The trouble with rationing is it assumes everyone has an equal need for rationed goods. Of course, this is absurd, and the result is gross mis-allocation. WW2 gas rationing is an illustrative example, as people either had more gas than they could use, and so wasted it, or were desperately short of what they needed.

Inevitably, criminal gangs arose to redistribute the rationed gas, complete with drive-by shootings.

See also: the feds recent hijacking of the covid-test market, in order to start the delivery program.

The result was a month of people needing tests, but couldn't find them. While the feds prepared to mail them out 4 at a time to people who, if symptomatic, were likely to be either fully recovered by the time they arrive, or for severe cases, already under medical care.

Delivery time of a week means you have to order them before you know you might need them. Being "free", there's a rational reason to order speculatively, even if you don't currently need them. And no cost to reduce momentary demand so that people who do currently need them (enough to go to the trouble to pay for them and get reimbursed by insurance) can get them, as happens with store distribution.

Perfect example of a market operating efficiently, where un-needed "do-something" govt intervention creates artifical shortages, distributes irrelevant to current need, while reducing efficiency in both availability (same day vs week+) and quantity (delivered 4 at a time vs getting 1 at the store).

You don't think criminal gangs would arise to resell non rationed or APG items, or that violence based arbitration of access doesn't occur? Criminal gangs operate orthogonally to the law chasing profit margin. They have no qualms working in ostensibly legal markets and imposing a near monopoly through violence on it. For one example of many, see the cartels' involvement in the avocado trade.

> There is not a shortage in a free market. Prices rise until supply meets demand.

So if people want to buy a Mona Lisa all they have to do is wait until the price is high enough and Leonardo da Vinci will paint another?

But has a free market actually existed? I sense "the free market" is a platonic ideal that has not, and cannot, be realized in the real world.

A free market doesn't have to be perfect to work well. Just like friction doesn't have to be zero in order for a lubricant to work.

Socialism, however, works worse and worse the closer things get to ideal socialism.

This is a really weird and frankly naive take IMO, especially after what we witnessed during the pandemic. The demand for some goods is not affected by their price, and such goods have a name that you can hear in any Economics 101 class - "inelastic goods".

I hear all the time that prices for certain goods are inelastic - particularly for gas and housing and medical care. But events always show it most definitely is elastic.