Posted on 11/03/2012 1:55:01 PM PDT by sickoflibs
In New Jersey there is a shortage of open gasoline stations not because of the supply of gas but due to lack electricity at gas stations. This has caused long lines due to form miles long and lots of frustration. The media is reported thousands standing in line waiting to buy gasoline.
So NJ Gov Chris Christie has just announced a form of gasoline rationing of odd and even buying days. At the same time he is prosecuting merchants for raising prices in response to the shortages; and I am sure this is very popular there: ' Procecute those greedy capitalists because price gouging is unfair' I can imagine them saying.
But suppose gas stations and stores selling generators were allowed to raise their prices legally. Wouldn’t that not only reduce demand some but more importantly wouldn't it bring in a greater supply of generators from other parts of the country to NJ? I mean would you stop your life to buy up generators and drive them to ravaged NJ just to risk prosecution?
Would you rather buy more expensive gasoline, or have NO gasoline being sold to you if you are out of it?
The first time I read Thomas Sowell was about 1991 in the NY Post and he made this exact argument. I have tried it a few times a few times with real people and it always provokes anger. The rule seems to be that ‘fairness trumps effectiveness’.
Yet not one of those who got mad (generally libs or RINOs) ever suspended their own lives to buy supplies and bring them to hurricane ravaged areas. They just sit home comfortably and bask in their warm smugness of being for 'fairness'. Rationing+price controls=fairness
Three linked sources below :
According to AAA, 60 percent of the gas stations in New Jersey and 70 percent on New York's Long Island are closed. That isn't a result of gas shortages, but rather because electricity in the area is spotty and gas pumps require power to operate.
In New Jersey, about 100 consumers have called the attorney general’s office to complain. There are reports of gas stations raising prices by as much as 30 percent in a day and hardware stores charging twice as much for electric generators as they did before Sandy.
That would put merchants in violation of the state's anti-gouging law, which bars price hikes of more than 10 percent in an emergency. New Jersey's law is unusual in that sets a specific price increase threshold in defining gouging. Of the 30 states that have such laws, only seven set a specific level of increase — either 10 percent or 25 percent — that constitutes gouging.
After Sandy, allegations of price gouging (CBS News MoneyWatch November 2, 2012)
TRENTON, N.J. — Motorists in 12 northern New Jersey counties will be allowed to buy gasoline just every other day under an order by Gov. Chris Christie .
Gas lines were long at some gas stations Saturday morning with motorists trying to make purchases before the noon switch to a gas rationing system.
Drivers with license plates ending in an even number will be allowed to buy gas on even-numbered days, and those with plates ending in an odd number can make gas purchases on odd-numbered days.
Christie hopes the rationing will ease long wait times at gas stations and prevent a fuel shortage in the state hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy
Chris Christie Orders Gas Rationing In Some Counties (11/03/12 AOL News@Huff Post)
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has brought charges against 65 businesses accused of price gouging in the aftermath of Sandy, the office announced Friday.
Gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, hotels and stores selling emergency supplies such as generators were among the businesses charged. The businesses are located across the state, but the charges were concentrated in Bergen, Essex, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic Counties.
“Fuel, electricity, food, and a place to sleep are not luxuries, certainly not for individuals who have been displaced from their homes and in many cases have limited resources at their disposal,” Gov. Christie said in a statement.
N.J. cracks down on price gouging, ( Philly.com NOVEMBER 2, 2012)
If I was allowed to charge $10 million per gallon for gasoline and you had a truck on the moon that needed 100 gallons of fuel to get home, I still couldn't be of any help because I have no way of getting this fuel to the moon even if you're willing to pay me a billion dollars for it.
"Fixing profits" is also what keeps many gas station owners from even bothering to open their businesses even if they have full tanks of gasoline in the ground. Why incur the extra cost of bringing generators to your place of business when the government has laws that keep you from raising prices to cover the cost of the generators?
New Jersey has a huge "surplus" of gasoline right now. Unfortunately, most of that gasoline is sitting in tanks under the ground at gas stations that haven't been open in days.
You're witnessing an "Atlas Shrugged" scenario unfolding right in front your eyes here.
The odd/even restriction is basically an acknowledgement that it makes no sense to have 200 cars on line at a gas station if there is only going to be enough fuel for the first 100 of them even under the best of circumstances. This restriction basically just tells half of the motorists on that line to come back tomorrow.
Now you both know why Marx was so shrewd in recommending free movement of capital divorced from ethics and patriotism.
You’re witnessing an “Atlas Shrugged” scenario unfolding right in front your eyes here.
This mess has nothing to do with the natural flow or common rules of free commerce. It is a disaster area.
You read and comprehended nothing that I wrote concerning the article you linked. You are not quite so sick of libs. Stomp and shout like a libertarian liberal! :)
Libertarianism was the answer to turn people against American capitalism. A radical left Amoral, Marxist social ideology combined with a shake down, unethical or darwinist ideal of capitalism.
They need to stop preaching their soulless communist Rand religion and begin to think. There is some truth in Rand’s ideology and there is a lot of soulless evil, too. For example, a bunch of unethical and amoral libertarians speaking of the glory of price gouging people during a disaster. LOL
In an ethical culture (devoid of moral and ethical intellegence - neo liberalism) we would not need to have laws preventing pigs from price gouging people during a disaster. Americans instinctively operated within an American ethical context, up to the point of communists instituting Marxist cultural cleansing.
Agree. You made the point better than I did
Meanwhile, the major New Jersey media website is filled with numerous stories from anguished readers complaining that they sat on line for 3-4 hours only to find that the pumps at their local gas station had run dry ... while there are dozens of online responses to these stories from other readers telling these people that they're morons because they can drive 30-40 minutes away to either central New Jersey or Pennsylvania and fill up their vehicles without any delays and with no concern for this stupid odd/even "rationing" nonsense.
Yeah, it's a "disaster zone." This is what happens when you have too many people raised in an urban environment that has thoroughly stripped them of some basic human survival skills.
I'll ask this question again .. would you rather pay $10/gallon for 10 gallons of fuel or $3.50/gallon for 0 gallons of fuel?
I would rather the gas stations be reopened and the normal markets of supply and demand be restored. I hope it happens soon or that new gas stations pop up to replace the ruined stations.
You are offering a kind of market control with gouging prices. Lots of people need gas for their generators and cars and don’t have the money to play your disaster darwinist game. Let them eat cake? Let them die? Libertarian “logic.” Libertarianism’s anti-ethical ideology is so shallow, immoral and selfish, it will kill people’s respect for free markets. Libertarians are not worth that.
The stations that are open are making tons more money than ususal in sales volume. They don’t need to go darwin and they won’t. If their prices rise, they are legally permitted to raise their prices accordingly. They just can’t increase their profit margins like hyenas feasting on the corpse, or as Obammy seys corps.
That's precisely what Stalin did to the farmers in the Ukraine in the 30s, and the result was, famine.
Lots of people need gas for their generators and cars and don’t have the money to play your disaster darwinist game.
Most of these people didn't even have generators the last time we had a storm like this come through New Jersey. What did they do then? Do you really think we're going to have a massive death toll from starvation and hypothermia around here if gasoline isn't available right now?
And what exactly do they need fuel in their cars for? Oh, that's right ... so they can drive to work this coming week. Is this really a "disaster zone" if all of these businesses are up and running?
I'm not sitting here telling anyone that they're on their own --- and they're screwed if they can't fend for themselves. I'm not suggesting that anyone should be charging a $10,000 fare for transporting people from a flood zone, and they're out of luck if they don't have the money to pay. Every municipality in this area has public buildings open to provide heat, shelter and meals to people who cannot stay in their homes. Nobody is being charged a dime for this.
I'll tell you what this is all about. It's about a large, suburban region with a lot of wealthy people who never thought this sort of thing could happen to them. They ran out and bought all of these generators after the last storm in 2011, only to learn (too late) the uncomfortable truth that most generators rely on a steady supply of fuel that may not be readily available. And yet everyone thinks they can go about their lives as if nothing has happened. The shopping malls are open. Every restaurant and grocery store within a mile of my home is open and doing a lot of business ... and yet that half-mile long line of cars is still out there. Depending on where you look, we're living through either "The Brady Bunch" and "Mad Max" out here in the wilderness and anarchy of New Jersey.
The stations that are open are making tons more money than ususal in sales volume. They don’t need to go darwin and they won’t. If their prices rise, they are legally permitted to raise their prices accordingly. They just can’t increase their profit margins like hyenas feasting on the corpse, or as Obammy seys corps.
If prices rose to $10/gallon I bet you'll find that an awful lot of people don't really need the gasoline after all ... like maybe those 80,000+ people who are going to drive to the Meadowlands to watch the Giants play at 4:30 today, or all those people whose cars have filled the parking garages over at the lavish Short Hills Mall.
Then go out and restore it.
What -- you can't restore it yourself? That's fine. It's just that you're going to end up relying on someone else to do it for you -- on their timetable, not yours.
Alberta’s Child,
ROFL, you know if you tried a little harder you could pack a few more pieces of disinformation, misinformation, obfuscation, class envy, and reductio ad absurdum into your posts.
I have no idea where you are getting your information, it seems to based upon what is going on within 1 whole mile of your residence. {”. . . Every municipality in this area has public buildings open to provide heat, shelter and meals to people who cannot stay in their homes. . . The shopping malls are open. Every restaurant and grocery store within a mile of my home is open and doing a lot of business .”}
Next I expect you to blame Sandy on man made global warming.
Your posts are conflating the aftermath of NJ’s last severe storm with the aftermath of Sandy and are not describing the situation of much of central and south NJ where those public buildings have been running on emergency power. Marx, Alinsky, and Bloomie would be proud.
As for me, I'm heading out to get some fuel for my commute to work tomorrow, and to check on some friends and family members. You will note that I am not telling anyone else to "do something" here, nor am I expecting anyone else to do anything that I am perfectly capable of doing myself -- as is every able-bodied adult in New Jersey.
At a high enough price, gas station owners could offer a high price for any used generators in private hands, to get themselves back up and running.
Right. So if the cost of getting back up (cost of generator to run pumps until utilities are back up, plus premium to truck driver to navigate tree-strewn street) exceeds the expected net revenue, the incentive is to just hang up a "CLOSED" sign for the week and take some time off.
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