Income Inequality. Consumers Find Ways to Spend Less and Find Happiness. Greek Debt Crisis. Fed Independence/concerns. Various Articles for Class. A Misleading Jobless Rate - Economix Blog. Summers: The Fiscal Questions Don’t Change, The Answers Do. - Re. G-20 Nov. 2010. What’s wrong with price gouging? THERE WASN’T much Martha Coakley could do about the massive pipe break that left dozens of Greater Boston towns without clean drinking water over the weekend. So she kept herself busy instead lecturing vendors not to increase the price of the bottled water that tens of thousands of consumers were suddenly in a frenzy to buy. “We have begun hearing anecdotal reports of the possible price gouging of store-bought water,’’ Coakley announced Sunday. “Businesses and individuals cannot and should not take advantage of this public emergency to unfairly charge consumers . . . for water.’’
Inspectors were being dispatched, “spot-checks’’ were being conducted, and “if we discover that businesses are engaging in price gouging,’’ she warned, “we will take appropriate legal action.’’ Governor Deval Patrick got into the act, too. It never fails. It is easy to demonize vendors who charge what the market will bear following a catastrophe. You don’t need an economics textbook to know what happens next. Economic View - A Value-Added Tax Offers Much to Love — and Hate.