price gouging

The Food and Drug Administration will tell you they’re there to protect you. To make sure the food and medicine you put in your body won’t hurt you. But good intentions and actual results rarely match up. Instead, the FDA’s drug certification process has made it easy for business to corner drug markets, and jack up prices. In the end, the only thing the FDA protects are these companies’ profits.

The east coast and parts of the southern U.S. were to varying degrees paralyzed by blizzards a few weeks ago. The snow as expected rendered the roads treacherous, and in anticipation of slick streets, shoppers flocked to the grocery stores in advance. The rush into grocery stores, and its aftermath, offers worthwhile lessons in economics. …