Thursday 1 September 2005

Petrol rationing?

With the recent hikes in petrol prices, dumb-arse politicians are beginning to murmur about petrol rationing and price caps. Fortunately, those dumb-arse politicians are American. Unfortunately those politicians are American, in what was once the land of the free, prosperous and economically literate.

Rationing and price caps are both tools of the economically illiterate, which is of course why politicians are beginning to talk about it. The Mises blog, CapMag and David M. Brown have the antidotes to such talk:
And Stephen Hicks has the goods on what to do about NO GAS DAY!, an internet campaign to "STICK IT UP" the "price-gouging oil companies."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you know that the price of bread has risen, percentage wise, at a much higher rate than the price of petrol over the last thirty years? Nobody is running around screaming for bread rationing. Fools. Of course, we know that a significant percentage of the petrol price (Almost 50%) is a political slush fund for the government and their lapdogs like ACC (Posting record surplus - because they can't make a 'profit'). If things get really bad that would be the first place to start pointing fingers and helping oil the gears of enterprise.

But even that won't stop the natural market from finding an alternative. A viable alternative. I still have a strong feeling that China's Hydrogen car will beat the rest of the world to the mass production punch and won't that be the day. Imagine the Chinese economy mass producing and exporting hydrogen powered cars to the world, running a virtually oil-free industry. It'll be an interesting time.

Anonymous said...

Maybe there is no rationing of bead because you don't fill your car with it...

I take the overwhelming bullish sentiment on oil prices as a contrarian indicator - maybe a good time to short some oil stocks. Take a deep breath. Breathe through your nose - the market will sort it out.

I'm pleased you have fixed the comments. Now go make me a sandwich.

Peter Cresswell said...

Bloody spammers back again. Cheese on bead is that? :-)

Simon Chamberlain said...

Snopes is also good on the ridiculous 'no gas day':
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp