On my regular commentators, Andrew, would like to add his thought to my previous post, “Law Prohibiting Price Gouging In Oklahoma (via 40/29 tv.com).”

I like the spirit of this law. It prevents unethical businesses from profiting from the misfortune of others.

Here’s a hypothetical situation. If Company “A” and Company “B” are both hardware stores in the same town when an emergency hits. Company “A” is owned by an unethical man who ratchets up his prices to make a buck off of the emergency. Company “B” is owned by an ethical man who keeps his prices steady (perhaps out of a sense of duty to his community, who knows). Now say I am a resident of this town. In the aftermath of this emergency, if I hear that Company B’s prices are lower than Company A’s, then I will prefer to do business with Company B. Thus, ideally, ethics will win out over greed.

This hypothetical only applies to situations where healthy competition is established in each market. If you live in a small town where there is only one hardware store or one grocery store, then the residents are at the mercy of the store owner.

So it seems that this law will definitely help out the small town folks, and I see nothing wrong with it at all.

Andrew is good commentator and I appreciate his thoughts. I have urged him to write his own blog or to write full articles for mine but he prefers his current role.

If you write some interesting content, I am likely to post it. I get to choose when and my editorial decisions may not make much sense to you but I will try to do my best to be fair.

James Pilant