Last Friday, I had to go to three different gas stations to find one that hadn't sold out of gasoline.
This in Columbia, MD.
Huh? I LIVE in Columbia (all my life) and I've never had "sell-out"! Where did you go? And do you mean 1 grade or ALL? What lines have you seen waiting?
BTW, if it was sold-out - that means perhaps demand indeed is exceeding supply?
As for you comment about monopoly - a) how many companies are there? "Mono" means "1" in Latin. I see Exxon, Shell, BP.....and some of those aren't even American.
Who is the monopolist? Is there only 1 prince in Saudi Arabia who actually supplies the crude oil (even that I doubt)? THAT may be a monopoly, but we can hardly control anything that happens outside our borders.