> you are just shifting first in, for biggest wallet

Not shifting because there's no supply. The mosquito fleet of entrepreneurs driving in to make a buck selling gas, water, food, supplies, etc., disappeared.

Which would you rather do in Texas: watch your house slowly freeze and know you'll have 5 figures in freeze damage while waiting several days for the government to restore power, or buy a generator and a can of gas from a redneck who threw his own generator into his pickup with a can of gas and drove in from the next state to sell it to you for 3 figures?

> it really doesn't help more people

It really does help more people. Before the anti-gouge laws, there were always stories in the media about these people driving into disaster zones with supplies. But the media always demonized them, and so now they're against the law and you get to freeze.

Of course, there are good people who will still drive in and give away supplies, but they're a tiny fraction of the crowd that trucks supplies in to make a buck.

Honestly, this is such an interesting problem. If one were to assume that price gauging laws for fuels didn't exist one would be allowed to think about how to provide this emergency service in the most effective way possible. Uber could just have a new category for emergency deliveries. The government could also take advantage of this service for emergency relief.

Feels like this is an area where the ounces of prevention more than out weigh any bickering on pounds of cures.

That is, the best response to many crises is best taken before the crises.

The problem with this hypothetical is that there is a non zero chance that generator will cause problems. Worse, if it is profitable, expect cheating and corners to be cut.

Is especially odd, in that a well regulated power market seems to handle this better. Yes, other places had outages. Not comparable in scale, though.

There is also the oddity that similar arguments could be made that you could get medication on the street market. Why would anyone cut corners there? :). Surely, if you are in need, you should be allowed to buy someone else's medication from them at stupid high prices?

Edit: so to directly answer what I would rather do if I was in Texas. I would rather have had risk of failure properly priced into the market such that they were more ready to deal with it.