Price Controls and the high price of gas these days

Denny Wilson at Grouchy Old Cripple is in fine form and rants about a certain letter to his local newspaper:

Letter From Jerry
So I was reading the Saturday letters in the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation and I came across this gem.

Act now to head off cold-weather crisis

When heating costs go up --- and you know they will be out of sight --- are we going to have to sit around the house with coats, caps and wool stockings to keep warm?

People making minimum wage are going to have to choose between eating and trying to keep warm, much less buying gas to get to their jobs.

Let's hope our elected officials get off their duffs and do something before there is a real crisis. Just because they can afford it doesn't mean the rest of us can.

Georgians should let their elected officials know they are upset with them and remind them they can be voted out of office.
JERRY LEWIS, Marietta

It's ironic that this letter was written by someone named Jerry Lewis because it is hilarious. I like the part about sitting "around the house with coats, caps and wool stockings to keep warm". Hey, remember Jimmah Carter suggested we turn down our thermostats to keep warm. I'll just bet this guy is a Dimocrat. He wants for "our elected officials get off their duffs and do something". Whenever I hear that, it scares the shit out of me!

All right, Jerry. What do you want them to do?

Price controls? We tried that back in the 70's with Nixon, Ford, and Carter. That was a smashing success. Look anywhere in the world where there are price controls on any commodity and you will find shortages of that commodity. Do you want our gummint to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand? Can't be done. Gummints have been trying to do that since the ancient Persians. It's never worked. Ever. That's why centrally controlled economies always fail.

I know. Let's have the gummint impose gas mileage standards on SUVs. I see Minetta just came out with some of that bullshit. I got a better idea. Let's just do nothing and let gas prices seek the market level. The same thing will happen that happened in the 70's and the 80's. People decided they didn't want to pay those prices and sold their gas guzzlers. The same thing will happen again. There will come a time when people decide it's not worth spending $50 to fill up their gas guzzlers and will buy smaller and more efficient SUVs. Yep! It will happen.

The only way to keep the price of energy low is to increase the supply or decrease the demand. Better insulate your house. Buy a more efficient heating system. Buy better windows. Turn your thermostat down. Wear a sweater like Jimmah did when he was in the White House. What about the poor? Fuck 'em. Let 'em starve. They should have followed my three simple rules on how not to be poor.

So let's increase the supply.

Drill for more oil? Where? ANWR? The Dimocrats won't let us. California coast? The Dimocrats won't let us. The Gulf coast? Dimocrats won't let us. Off the Florida coast? Jeb and Dubya won't let us.

I know. Let's go to war against Canada and Mexico and steal their oil.

Maybe we oughta build more refineries? The environmentalists won't let us. We haven't built a new one in over 40 years.

There is one thing the gummint could do. Determine one gas blend to use throughout the country. Currently, due to environmental restrictions, there are 40 different blends used.

Not enough oil? Thank a Dimocrat.

Maybe we should build more nuke plants? Finally, it looks like we might do that.

The reason we have shortages and high prices is because our elected officials have gotten off their duffs and done something.

Unfortunately, everything they have done has been wrong.

What he said... His info about the refineries and the gasoline blends are all too correct. We have painted ourselves into a corner by "fixing" things without first taking a look at the big picture and factoring in the unintended consequences of our actions.