The facts as illustrated by Florida Lawsuits Allege Price Gouging shows Hurricane Charley as the worst disaster experienced in the state of Florida. This can be seen from the number of death tolls especially as a result of traffic accidents, heart attacks, and electrocution. It is a result of this that the lawyer states price gouging should be the least of the concern of families trying to heal from the tragedy. Anyone taking advantage of this kind of situation was unreasonable and selfish.
The estimated loss from the damage is said to be more than 11 billion dollars. This is expected to rise upon further assessment. The situation and circumstances in the tragedy are said to lead to the rise of ill intent. Complaints were received from the customers who had made the reservation, as a result of Crossroads Motor Lodge advertising for rooms with the knowledge that accessibility to those rooms would be a problem. In another scenario, some customers felt defrauded when they were told that there were no rooms yet rooms were given to those who paid a higher price. Some of these customers were unable to obtain a refund. All this inconvenience was caused by false information about room availability.
According to Crist the Florida Lawsuits attorney, an investigation by his office revealed more than one thousand two hundred complaints of price gouging during this tragedy. This is against Florida’s laws, which states that upon such a tragedy the cost of basic needs remains at an average price of the last month’s pricing. If these provisions are violated the civil penalties will be imposed to the extent of one thousand dollars for a single violation, and to twenty-five thousand dollars for multiple violations.
The second article on “They Clapped: Can Price-Gouging Laws Prohibit Scarcity? shows in detail how price gouging becomes inevitable in the event of disasters. The hurricane smashed the North Carolina coastline leading to massive damage and exposing people to a devastating state in terms of lacking necessity. The North Carolina anti-gouging laws restricted the supply of these necessities from the businesspersons because of the fear of not breaking even by not being allowed to charge more in certain tragic circumstances.
Despite the anti-gouging laws, some men in the town of Goldsboro decide that they could deliver to Raleigh what it needed the most, but it came with a price off course. They did the impossible to get to this place to supply the ice. The argument is that no one cared about the greed of these men, supplying what was needed most was the most important thing. Although a few did not appreciate, these acts and called the police that led to the arrest of these men. The people could be happy and clapping they got justice but the ice was taken away as evidence for that justice. Those standing willing to pay more could do nothing to get their hands on the ice.
The above incidence of ice at Raleigh shows that even those who support price-gouging laws want to be charged law prices and have large supplies. However, this is not practical and as the article argues, the only way to get low prices and have a large supply is by allowing the sellers to charge high prices. Another solution about this is by seeking a political solution through passing anti-gouging laws to show opposition toward scarcity.