And have money to afford it, something which is not accounted for in the simplistic models of supply and demand that people are promoting with religious levels of certitude up and down this thread.
So it would seem that the real problem is wealth inequality (again!) rather than "price gouging" as such. If everyone had the same purchasing power, there would be no ethical problem whatsoever with rising prices in the face of increased demand and limited supply - your willingness to pay would accurately reflect how much you needed the product.
Essentially creating a command economy for a particular good is missing the larger picture.
It's a lot simpler to create a command economy for particular goods under emergent circumstances than to reorder the entire economy such that everyone is resembles homo economicus.
Command economies are fallible because they are run by humans with varying levels of trustworthiness and accountability. But they have their uses, and are often far mroe efficient than trying to automate the human factor away completely and live in a idealized model.
And have money to afford it, something which is not accounted for in the simplistic models of supply and demand that people are promoting with religious levels of certitude up and down this thread.