Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Some of you will remember the podcast with Mike Munger on price gouging. Obviously with hurricanes flying through the country, gouging is in the news a lot. Anyway, Munger comments on some of the various anti-gouging pieces of legislation throughout the country; the descriptions are frequently so vague as to be unintentionally hilarious. The word “unconscionable” is thrown around a lot, but the real gist of the laws is that gouging is hard to define but that the government will know it when it sees it.

Virginia, it turns out, is not immune to this. I ran across the following hilarity last night when I found the VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES PRICE GOUGING COMPLAINT FORM.

• The Anti-Price Gouging Act prohibits a “supplier” from charging unconscionable prices for “necessary goods and services” within the affected area during the thirty (30) day period following a declared state of emergency.

So there’s the “unconscionable” part. But what does that even mean?

• The basic test for determining if a price is unconscionable is whether the post-disaster price charged by a “supplier” for a “necessary good or service” grossly exceeds the price charged for the same or similar goods or services either by the same supplier, or within the same trade area, during the ten (10) days immediately prior to the disaster.

So “unconscionable” means “gross.” Thanks, Richmond, that really clears things up.