[LikeLight]

Based on the price per barrel of oil, gas ought to be around $2.75 per gallon. We can freeze the price and not hurt too many people.

The price "ought" to be what the market will bear. You're on a slippery slope toward central planning the minute you tell a businessperson what they "should" charge for their product. Price freeze is simply a bad idea, every time. Always will create a shortage.

[wolfcreek]

See post # 38

[Jacquerie]

Friends of ours here on the FL gulf coast own a convenience/gas/clothing/bait shop

Today they were quoted $4.80/gall wholesale.

They decided not to buy.

The market at work.

[gogogodzilla]

The price "ought" to be what the market will bear.

Adam Smith said something similar... but he didn't call it a free market.

The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. -The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VII-

Although, he did mention what a free market price was supposed to be, but it is not what you think.

The natural price, or the price of free competition ... is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion indeed, but for any considerable time together...[It] is the lowest which the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at the same time continue their business. -The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VII-