Take the example of a hurricane in texas. With prices going up, people are incentivized to buy diesel generators in Maine, load 'em up in their flat bed trucks

Take the example of a hurricane in texas. With prices going up, people are incentivized to buy diesel generators in Maine, load 'em up in their flat bed trucks, and just drive 'em down to texas to sell there. The extra price just needs to cover gas and some time. In the case of PPE, the extra price might be enough to pay for totally disrupting base material pipelines away from other products and into the PPE pipeline. There might be production limits that cannot respond quickly. But there are many limits that still can. Over-hours, material acquisition, moving stock around long distance. Normally, these things are un-economical and also bad ideas. In the case of an emergency, these things become good ideas. It makes sense to also make them economical then. Or at the very least, if people are willing to do these things, don't force them to make hugely un-economical decisions out of the goodness of their hearts.