Before all these price gouging laws, in natural disasters there used to be marginal producers (people with a pickup truck etc.) who would load up on some suppli

Before all these price gouging laws, in natural disasters there used to be marginal producers (people with a pickup truck etc.) who would load up on some supplies like ice etc. and bring them to the area that was hit to make a quick profit. When the electricity is out and someone wants $12 a bag for ice it would anger many people who just want to keep your drinks cold - but you would think it is an incredible bargain if that way you can keep your insulin chilled: https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.... In the long run, high profits during a shortage also mean that suppliers in general will be incentivized to keep a larger stockpile of goods that have a good shelf-life since they know they will be able to make good money the next time there is a shortage (more than the storage costs). (Or the potential for high profits will incentivize spending money to be more flexible in production in case demand increases for a short time.) If you are going to literally make it illegal to try this, then you better have a government be willing to spend its tax dollars on creating a stockpile - when the pandemic started we saw that all the talk of the national stockpile the federal government supposedly had was greatly exaggerated.