Is there a term for when a normal every day item suddenly takes on an highly-inflated worth in a 'crisis'?

I did some searching and found some terms that might be helpful, but I’m not sure if they are the silver bullet you are looking for:

Perfect Price Discrimination
Price Rationing
Hyper-Demand – This one sounds like it describes the situation but the google search relates it more to news media

If there isn’t a term, I’ll throw out some ideas for one: Crisis Price, Pandemic Demand, Temporary Demand Shift, Crisis Demand, Scarce Price

For it to be price gouging, it has to be an essential item, it has to be a crisis, and it has to be one of the sole suppliers.

So if I buy seven air conditioners at Home Depot and sell them for three times as much on Craigslist, that’s not price gouging, that’s speculation. If Amana and Gold Star raise the prices they sell air conditioners to Home Depot, and if we consider that air conditioning is an essential item on par with clean water, then it’s price gouging.

And, really, this is the market operating the way it should. When demand is high and supply is low (because, really, who lays in a supply of air conditioners for summer in Seattle?), prices go up.

Back when Carter was president he was pushing a clean water bill that prevented papermills from dumping chemical waste into rivers. The loyal opposition claimed that would triple the cost of paper goods (yes, they were doing it 30 years ago just like they do it today) In days you couldn’t find toilet paper on store shelves. Stores would get a shipment and it would disappear. A friend bragged to me that she had 100’s of rolls in her garage. The price did not jump up and my friend had her toilet paper cache for years.

There was a similar run on sugar when the local factory went on strike. When OPEC raised the price of oil to $30/bbl people idled in line for an hour to top off a quarter of a tank. Fights broke out when the tanks went dry. Ah the 70’s.

Every other Christmas there is an “IN” toy that gets sold out at $39.95 then shows up on Ebay or Craig’s List for $100. We even had a rice scare last year when Costco limited purchases to 100 lbs.

Price gouging is when the oil companies raised the price of gas before Katrina had died out, or the power companies close down plants then raise energy prices based on shortages.

The other cases are just cattle stampedes.

But isn’t it technically gouging if a) the prices from the supplier and the retailer are normal b) you interfere with the normal supply chain to create a shortage, so that you can intentionally mark them up? This would be the people who stand in line and buy out all 25, so that the people behind them can’t get them. It’s exactly like scalping, right?

I guess you’re right GG – these may just be stampedes, though