It may make economic sense, but if you think anyone is going to allow gas stations to charge, say, $15 a gallon to people during a natural disaster, you’re crazy. The mindset of most people is to be charitable to people who are suffering in a natural disaster, donating food, clothing, shelter, etc. And the government supplying disaster relief is probably considered even by most conservatives to be a valid role for them to play, just like enforcing the laws and having a military.
Bottom line is the gas shortage must be related to a localized supply problem, since supplies are abundant in states right next door like Pennsylvania. The government should have a plan to get gas to the stations or citizens. Even if prices were allowed to be hiked, there would still be people unable to get gas, because they couldn’t afford it.
The article in picture form: http://lfb.org/files/2012/11/525613_10101479423879489_1834399846_n.jpg
Not Sandy’s fault? Does Tucker mean there are miles long lines normally? A three or four wait happens always?
the greater the amount of intervention (price controls, free government supplied gas, government mandated rationing) the longer will it be before retail gasoline markets return to markets free of that intervention
under Obama they have sunk untold billions into the “housing & mortgage” markets, and the result is great delay in those markets reaching a natural free market bottom from which a more robust recovery of them would resume
whether Obama or Romney, housing alone (and who knows what else) will likely be in “double dip recession” mode by spring 2013, because government intervention has stalled housings’ recovery by misallocating resources going into the housing markets
