Price gouging

==Background==
* The price of gas at the pump shot up to over $3.00 per gallon in 2006. 
* US House of Representatives expressed collective outrage with high gas prices in May, 2006, by voting, 389-34, to make gasoline 'price gouging' a federal felony.
* There are laws against raising prices during a natural disaster.
* Florida's attorney general assured Floridians that he's going to crack down on price gouging. There's even a hotline, established by the attorney general, to call if you notice a store charging a higher price for an urgently needed goods than paid before demand for the good suddenly went through the roof. The penalties are stiff: up to $25,000 per day for multiple violations.
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* Planks on Price Gouging from Mark Rauterkus
==Insights==
There's no evidence that oil companies or gas stations are 'gouging' consumers. 
: Webster's Dictionary defines the term 'gouge' as 'to extort from or to swindle.' But in the marketplace with prices set free of government intervention, the sales price is established through a transaction of a willing buyer and a willing seller. Service stations are in no way "extorting" or "swindling" motorists at the pump.
==Talking==
Jeff Flake, Arizona, one of the 33 "no" votes, said, "None of my colleagues actually believes this will reduce prices, and many realize it will ultimately make shortages worse." 
Yet this is what happens when petrified politicians allow mob rule to trump economic common sense.
Wall Street Journal editorial: "The irony here is that if there is any extortion or swindling going on in the oil marketplace, Congress is the guilty party. It is Congress that ordered service stations across America to switch last month to ethanol additives that have both raised prices at the pump and exacerbated shortages in recent weeks. It is Congress and state governments that take 59 cents a gallon on average of fuel taxes at the pump -- almost six times the average of 10 cents per gallon profit that the oil companies make."
==Links==
* Oil