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Comment by QuarterReptile | Hacker News Reader

Addressing legitimate problems of hardship can be dealt with from the other end, by channeling resources to those people. In the mean time, higher prices mean that supply isn't interrupted, and for the vast majority of people that means that you don't fill up your car and your wife's car and your lawnmower and a 55gal drum, because it's not worth it. You just skip a few trips and let your gas tank get below half a tank. And if you were wrong about thinking you could hold out, you can still buy gas because it's not sitting in your neighbor's new gas cans in his garage.

We shouldn't have widespread shortages for the sake of theoretical people whose existences are structured around 5 gallon commutes and razor thin margins tied with no lines of credit to float a week of double gas expenses.

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By “theoretical people” I think you’re referring to a very sizable portion of the population.

The people who would be hurt by such an increase, absent already-in-place assistance, constitute the vast majority of people. And, unfortunately, nobody is helped by "can be dealt with" -- the policies to prevent their pain, and to prevent disadvantaged folks from being disproportionately impacted by such an increase, need to be in place before the increase.

The reason, which is likely apparent to both of us and everyone reading this, is that such assistance would likely never be put in place, and the only help ordinary folks will have in the event of such an increase is wishful thinking.

> The people who would be hurt by such an increase, absent already-in-place assistance, constitute the vast majority of people.

and so you suggest hurting the vast majority of people even more?

That's right, your suggested approach of keeping artificially-low-prices-that-allow-hoarding leads to zero gas at the pumps, and zero gas at the pumps hurts the vast majority of people very directly and very effectively.

Allowing prices to float higher in a shortage solves the allocation problem for scarce resources by ensuring that people think twice about how they use it, while keeping it available. Ignoring that the resource is scarce not only doesn't solve anything, it makes the problem worse.

>and so you suggest hurting the vast majority of people even more?

1. More people are hurt by price gouging of products with inelastic demand than hurt by limiting the price increase.

2. A completely floating gas price disproportionately affects disadvantaged folks who have no alternative, even when there are no outages.

I mean, I totally agree with OP, there's a straightforward solution: set up a government program that insulates people from the effects of a floating price proportionately to how disadvantaged they are, and then, after that, let the gas price float. That way we get your idea without hurting anyone! Win-win.

What crazypants world do you live in where the vast majority of people have all that excess, but the poor are in the minority?

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