Free For All - The Free Liberal Blog: Price Gougers Wanted

February 2010

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The Bush years are looking more and more like the Nixon years: a dishonest executive, a military quagmire, paranoia, upset hippies, ballooning size of government, and now...gas lines – at least if you live in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Last night on the way to the organic grocery store I counted 12 closed gas stations and one that was open.

What gas that is available is going for close to $4/gallon, and people are angry. Some complain of “price gouging.”

I complain too: we don’t have enough price gouging!

The Colonial Pipeline, which supplies my area, is fed by refineries hit by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Trucking in gasoline from other sources is expensive because we are uphill. Prices should be high in order to encourage conservation, and pay people to truck more gas uphill.

But NOOOOO! North Carolina has laws against “price gouging.” So instead of temporary $6 gasoline, we have no gasoline at most stations. When a station does open, people line up and fill their tanks to the top. The market is stockpiling after the production shortfall.

Price gouging should be legal. Let the prices rise high enough and people will start delivering gas in plastic tanks in the back of their pickup trucks, if that’s what it takes. With high prices and assurance that gas will be available, people will buy just what they need until the shortage ends. If price gouging was legal, wholesalers would have stockpiled before hurricane season in order to make a windfall.

Stupid politicians.

Maybe the Peak Oil disaster mongers are right. Maybe Peak Oil will destroy the economy and end civilization – if our politicians are too economically ignorant to allow prices to rise in times of shortage.

Comments

Yeah, we've seen how well the free market works on Wall Street.

Thats just what we need an unregulated gasoline market. Are you getting a bribe from Exxon or is your brain hardwired for on/off only. Think about it there are certainly a mulititude of other options available.

1. a plan made before hand would really help so people would know what to expect. Isn't managing expectations something the media and the political framework, claim as a reason for their existence?

2. Announce the plan and begin implementing it.

3. Ration supplies, for everyone except Drs and nurses.

a you can only purchase 10 gallons or 40$ of gas

b. you can only purchase gas on m/w/f for odd numbered license plates and t/t/s for even and stations are closed on sunday. This will cut down on weekend driving and everybody will know when they can buy gas.

Minimum purchase - you cannot buy less than 5 gallons - to keep people from topping off their tanks.

These are ideas I came up with in about 10 minutes, surely an emergency management and logistics professional could come up with more ideas.

This aint rocket science, but it does demand leadership, action and forethought, 3 things in even more shortage than gasoline.

Without leadership we are all lost, where is FEMA? Where is the President? Where are the Govenors? Where is the media?

Posted by: Adam Smith | September 29, 2008 01:16 PM

Adam, there is a technical term for what you propose: evil. Read up on the French Revolution. Because of price controls they had food shortages, and eventually they started killing farmers for hoarding.

This should not be an emergency situation. It is an "emergency" only because of price gouging laws. Last I checked, there are still multiple companies refining, distributing and selling gasoline.

As for Wall St., the current situation is free enterprise only in the sense that the government is giving out free money in a futile effort to sustain overly high housing prices.

Posted by: Carl | September 29, 2008 03:19 PM

Hey! But what about the 6 dollar gas prices lasting? You got interesting ideas, but if those prices last...
that would be horrible! Got anything to say about that?

Posted by: Sofia Johnson | September 29, 2008 03:49 PM

If those $6 a gallon prices lasted, that would mean the market was supporting $6 a gallon gas, and if they were then I guess that means it wouldn't be so horrible if everyone was willing to pay it.

Posted by: Bob F | September 29, 2008 07:41 PM

This disaster monger is sitting on my purring scooter and laughing at all your asses. If you don't learn about what is going on in the world you will be taught by reality - an unforgiving mentor.

Posted by: Anonymous | September 30, 2008 12:18 AM

The $6/gallon gasoline I mentioned above would probably only last a couple of days. Then truckers would be hauling enough gas from far away terminals (due to the "windfall profit") to pull things down locally significantly.

Once the damaged refineries are brought back up fully, prices would then go down to pre-hurricane levels.

---

Now, should the Peak Oil theorists be correct, the nation will eventually experience either higher ($6 or maybe more) prices or a fascist state of permanent emergency like "Adam Smith" advocates.

But there is a limit to such price rises. Go up high enough and alternative energy becomes profitable.

Posted by: Carl | September 30, 2008 02:15 PM

Carl is quite right. Here were my views when the shortage began:

Price Gouging Laws
Tim Peck | Sep 13, 2008
http://timpeck.blogspot.com/2008/09/price-gouging-laws.html

Posted by: Tim Peck | October 2, 2008 12:45 PM