The Hedge of Bureaucracy: Why NOLA disaster relief has been inadequate...

Via Russell Nelson:

Price gouging preferable to eye gouging

We're seeing lot's of indignation over so-called "price gouging" right now. What you don't see is much discussion of how goods would be allocated in the absence of "price gouging". As politisheep points out:

"...In the absence of gouging using money, people gouge the old-fashioned way: with their fists or with weapons.

I can't win in a fistfight. I don't own a firearm. With scarcity of something desperately needed, money is my only shot at getting it; I can't beat up the guy in front of me for it.

More importantly, I have to ask myself how I'd prefer that the guy in front of me beat me out for a needed, scarce item. Would I prefer he paid the guy money I don't have and can't compete with? Or would I prefer he punched me in the head and kicked me in the ribs? Would I prefer being shot over being outbid on that last cab ride home?

Easy, easy, easy call. I prefer price gouging, even if the result is that I'm priced out of a particular good."