Maybe the "impossible to find powder" is a regional thing. I live in MT and travel to WA, ID, and OR regularly. In all of these states, supplies of powder, primers, bullets and factory ammo are all relatively good. One particular store in ID has an impressive selection of powders again, but YMMV. My reloading room has all the supplies I'll ever need.
I buy a couple pounds of powder whenever I pass thru. By no means am I panic buying, but I am replacing what I use pretty regularly. I haven't bought factory ammo for years, and don't intend to pay a buck a shot for any reason. The prices of factory rounds is obscene. And I doubt it is the factories that are marking the prices up. I suspect it's a supply/demand thing, with the distributors causing most of the gouging, creating a beautiful scenario for the store owners. They didn't create the problem, but they are probably not whining about the situation either.
Case in point: On Wed I stopped at a store in MT, saw a couple of boxes of Missouri Bullet Co. Keith 240g cast bullets. Priced at $69. MBC sells these for $49 on their website. I don't know if there's special jobber pricing, but $20 markup over retail is just a little extreme for my tastes. Clearly a case of pricing at what the market will bear.