I really can't make sense of what you wrote here. "taking advantage of short term manipulations in supply and demand" - assuming by "manipulations" you just mea

I really can't make sense of what you wrote here. "taking advantage of short term manipulations in supply and demand" - assuming by "manipulations" you just mean "changes" here (since I don't really know how someone can manipulate demand) - this is just how markets find prices in general. Maybe you mean manipulations in supply, for example a vendor holding onto products instead of selling them in order to drive up the price. But again, this is just how markets find prices: vendors refuse to sell products until buyers pay a price they find acceptable. It remains true that this is not objectively distinguishable from price gouging. Gouging is just a word for "finding prices that I think aren't fair".