Gasoline

[azurelunatic]

As quickly as it arrived, the gasoline shortage has... well... I haven't seen any lines at the pumps. Not today, not yesterday. There were still some on Tuesday.

The gas prices are just an invisible 40 to 50 cents higher per gallon. That's all.

...

...

On ice, it stinks, yes.

Comments

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

That's called supply and demand. When the demand is high, and the supply is low, prices go up, and demand slacks off until the supply and demand are equal again. When the supply goes up, the prices will go down, to increase demand to meet the supply.

[azurelunatic]

Am familiar with the concept. Am suspicious (paranoid, even) because the pipeline-broken, gas trucked in and distributed by truck, was going on for some time before the concept of "gas shortage" got loose, at which point there was a panic.

With Professor Auditor Vorthys, I prefer "no artificial shortages".

[boojum.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the movie Mary Poppins? (I think this scene is also in the book, but I'm not sure, and the book is certainly very different.) Bank-employee father loses his patience with son's desire to use his tuppence for fun and forcibly invests it. Son starts crying about wanting his money back. Rumor passes among waiting bank customers that the bank isn't giving people their money when they ask for it and so might be going out of business and so I think I'm going to withdraw my money now, just to be safe. The resulting rush ruins the bank.

It's exaggerated for dramatic effect there, but it's what comes to my mind whenever there's a case of hysteria causing artificial shortages which then cause real shortages.

(Besides, there's probably still greater demand than normal because all the people who put off filling up or who raided their lawnmowers are catching back up.)

[azurelunatic]

Haven't seen it, but yes.