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)
Having lived in hurricane lands of Texas and Florida, sometimes businesses do not come back and are replaced by newbies. Some residences don’t come back and are razed. A lot recover.
If you lack insurance, you are in trouble. If you have union thugs blocking out of Sate electric workers and other tradesmen you need for recovery, you will suffer longer with no power and amid ruins. That means more businesses and residences won’t recover.
None of this has anything to do with price gouging.
You are the one arguing for a gubment managed NJ economy price setting and rationing while claiming (obviously falsely) to be a Sowell fan.
Perhaps not in the short term, but in the long term it would resolve the problem. If you knew that purchasing an extra tanker of gas would garner a significant profit you’d prep one for just after the storm. Gas buyers facing the high cost to run a generator will not run it or find alternatives - nat. gas installations. It may even lead to small thorium reactors buried and serving communities of ten thousand and providing serial back up in serving communities whose power supplies fail.
High prices are an effective signal for change and innovatin. Insulating people from the effects of their choices simply worsens the long term status for everyone. These are Macro policies and need to be viewed pver the long term. It is short term “sollutions” that have gotten us into this mess.
Nobodies lifestyle should be subsidized by force.
Perhaps not in the short term, but in the long term it would resolve the problem. If you knew that purchasing an extra tanker of gas would garner a significant profit you’d prep one for just after the storm. Gas buyers facing the high cost to run a generator will not run it or find alternatives - nat. gas installations. It may even lead to small thorium reactors buried and serving communities of ten thousand and providing serial back up in serving communities whose power supplies fail.
High prices are an effective signal for change and innovatin. Insulating people from the effects of their choices simply worsens the long term status for everyone. These are Macro policies and need to be viewed pver the long term. It is short term “sollutions” that have gotten us into this mess.
Nobody’s lifestyle should be subsidized by force.
What if someone NEEDS gas you fat sack of crap?
I bet if your range rover needs filling up you’ll get your gas no matter what day of the week it is Mr. Governor!
That Marxist states needs to legalize pumping your own gas like the other 56 states.
And if fatty pisses me off one more time I’ll officially brand him a RINO *itch for life.
First he licks Obama’s taint and now pulls this Nixonian crap? I have defended him in the past.
Cute, and this relates to price gauging how?.
Cute, and this relates to the immorality of price gauging during an emergency and to the fact that an emergency does not = normal commerce how?.
It shows that gubment can pass price controls, they can prosecute merchants and they can impose rationing but what they don't do is get the drivers more gasoline to buy, or whatever the local shortage is. FEMA is not bringing generators for the closed gas stations either, and they ran out of the free gas they were giving away.
The bigger story is that this law is popular because people don't understand basic economics and why we have prices to begin with, and how they work.
In fact a few on this thread were strongly defending this law, of course if Obama did it I am sure that they would sing a different tune.
Christie looks very unimpressive to me.
He looks like he ate his predecessor.
Must have caught some kind of prion disease when he did it.
” Christie looks very unimpressive to me. “
I never trusted Christie, and the past 2 weeks have proven that my opinion was correct. Let this elephant-eating RINO turd stay in NJ.
You're the one doubting free enterprise and you're calling me a dope? The Obama crack was a low blow but I'm sick and tired of supposed conservatives spouting anti-capitalist baloney.
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