Not intending to inflame emotions here but the term "price gouging" for luxury non essential items like NOS tubes seems a stretch to me. A realistic case for price gouging happens when there's collusion between all sellers in a given marketplace for essential needs of life and capitalism no longer functions competitively.
i dont think youre inflaming emotions. thanks for chiming in.
my friend, youre wrong. thats called price fixing.
i gave a textbook example of price gouging.
in either case, it doesnt have to be essential, but it sure raises the stakes if it is.
heres an example of both:
the first gulf war knocked iraqi oil off the open market. saidi arabia took up the slack & then some. with this sudden and sharp increase in supply, the us gas companies decided to raise the price at the pump. funny thing crude prices even dropped at first. it wasnt a huge increase--about 10%, but it was still a rig job.
10% isnt quite as egregious as 400%, but such an increase across the board on gas amounts to an immense net gain.