The phrase you're looking for is "market clearing price" or just "market price".
See also Obama's elementary explanation of why lowering gas taxes doesn't lower gas prices when gas is in limited supply: the market clearing price is still the price at which the amount of gas that people want at that price equals the supply of gas. Setting the price lower than this will result in shortages. It doesn't matter whether gas taxes go down.
"Price-gouging" really is a terrible phrase for what you do in a supply-bound market. The people who raised prices have drives if you want one, and if nobody wants one, they lose their bet - have unsold inventory. The people who set lower prices sold out their inventory, but now they don't have drives if you want one, which isn't exactly a favor to you either. There are four methods of allocating resources and the method that our hunter-gatherer brains don't understand is market prices, so people think it is "unfair".
The phrase you're looking for is "market clearing price" or just "market price".
Those are definitely not the phrases I'm looking for. They don't contain enough information. I hope I can unwrap this without being too confusing.
First, you're preaching to the choir here. I'm pro-market-prices. I don't think there's anything unfair about the practice of price gouging. I support it 100%.
The issue here is you, and the others, aren't playing Gordon Gekko: "Gouging is good". You're playing Margaret "society doesn't exist" Thatcher: "When supply is constrained then prices go up. That's just the market at work. There isn't even such a thing a price gouging. Stop hallucinating."
Do I really need to spell out why and how it's different than a market-fluctuation? I got into it a little bit in a neighboring message, but I didn't go into the manufacturer/retailer dynamic. I think just the fact that it makes so many people irrationally angry is evidence enough that there's something unique about it.
Thought experiment: if gas prices doubled overnight would anyone get upset at gas station owners? Exactly. That's why it's not price gouging.
All I'm doing is defending the concept's existence and saying that because it exists I need a way to refer to it. If "gouging" is too pejorative then give me another word that actually captures all the relevant non-value-judgement-related meaning and is not just a sleight of hand attempt to pretend there's no there there. Because there is.
Thought experiment: if gas prices doubled overnight would anyone get upset at gas station owners? Exactly. That's why it's not price gouging.
Something's not price gouging when people get upset? Or maybe you weren't paying any attention to sentiment when gas prices were soaring a few years back? People hated gas station owners, and there certainly were accusations of "gouging".
America could buy a greater share of the global supply of oil, if it could pay more off the retail price on the world market instead of giving it to the government. (And over time supply might go up with higher prices.)
See also Obama's elementary explanation of why lowering gas taxes doesn't lower gas prices when gas is in limited supply: the market clearing price is still the price at which the amount of gas that people want at that price equals the supply of gas. Setting the price lower than this will result in shortages. It doesn't matter whether gas taxes go down.
"Price-gouging" really is a terrible phrase for what you do in a supply-bound market. The people who raised prices have drives if you want one, and if nobody wants one, they lose their bet - have unsold inventory. The people who set lower prices sold out their inventory, but now they don't have drives if you want one, which isn't exactly a favor to you either. There are four methods of allocating resources and the method that our hunter-gatherer brains don't understand is market prices, so people think it is "unfair".