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Would you rather be able to buy gas at $3.50 a gallon, or not be able to buy gas at $2.50 a gallon?

An alternate question for a gas station owner: Would you like to sell gas at $2.40 a gallon while paying $2.50 for it? People with short memories or are not long in the tooth do not remember, or perhaps even know of the economic misery caused by price controls on oil products instituted by that great conservative, President Richard Nixon, and the helpless peanut farmer who followed him in the early '70's. Although the Congress finally woke up and lifted the many prices controls imposed by Nixon, they just could not keep their hands off "big oil" and continued price controls on oil products. What happened in the aftermath. 13% inflation, and 18% interest rates, leading to Mr. Peanut Farmer's infamously named misery index. It took a decade for the Fed and finally the Reagan years to clean the mess up. No way do I wish to go through a period like that again. I am amazed that supposedly free marketeers at FR are complaining about price gouging. A guy gouging prices at $10 a gallon in Mississippi right now will be lucky to get a thimble of gas to sell in less than a weeks time. In the mean time he doesn't make a dime. But poor babies with $10 dollar bills in their pockets are complaining. They can complain all they wish, but you will see them on Monday morning just managing somehow to make it to work so they can earn another $10 and more, while the gas station owner is left holding the bag wondering when the next tanker truck is going to come by.