James Hamilton has a lovely little piece showing that the US Congress does indeed have at least 389 idiots amongst its members. (If you think that too strong, replace with 389 members willing to pander to the ignorance of idiots.)
In the latest stupidity over $3 gas (quelle horreur!) they have decided that:
It shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice in violation of
section 5 of the Federal Trade
Commission Act for any person to sell crude oil, gasoline, diesel fuel,
home heating oil, or any biofuel at a price that constitutes price
gouging as defined by rule pursuant to subsection (b).
Read the whole thing to get the true utter inanity of the proposal.
One further thing to add though. In the situation that James describes, when a known supply shock is moving through the system, one odd fact (which I wouldn’t want to have to prove, just something I vaguely remember) is that the storage capacity for gas of the American car fleet is greater than that of the supply system. So if everybody goes out and fills up their tanks the country is out of gas.
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