DC Braces for megastorm

[Dinner]

No, that's dumb. If you can charge high prices for necessary supplies, people will come in with the necessary supplies to take advantage of high prices. Price controls hurt everyone, most of all the people who need the "price gouged" products.

You're stupid. We're not talking about long term but short term and, no, no one is going to build a brand new gas station with back up power just to take advantage of 3-7 days of price differences. The city already has a 3 week supply of gas on hand with ships lining up waiting to be off loaded so, no, sorry additional supply isn't going to help here the problem is distribution on the local level do to electrical pumps not having power.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Your concept of fairness is stupid and prevents people from getting the supplies they need. Your idea of fairness makes everyone worse off. It is not more fair to limit supply artificially in order to make a lottery out of getting gas in which poor people are at an equal footing with rich people than to just allow more people to get gas at a higher price.

You can think its stupid if you want, but plenty of people disagree (and lets not forget there are a lot more people who do disagree, for whom gouging offends their moral sensibilities enough that they were easily able to ban it).

[regexcellent]

You're stupid. We're not talking about long term but short term and, no, no one is going to build a brand new gas station with back up power just to take advantage of 3-7 days of price differences.

We have 8% unemployment. People would buy gas and drive it there.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A lot. If availability is as low as it seems, in a metro area like NYC, prices would climb through the roof and people would flock there with gas.

The current infrastructure can support this? In addition, this additional supply for the next week or so would come from... ? And put shipped too... (one of the issues is that a lot of gas stations aren't functional due to lack of power) ?

[regexcellent]

You can think its stupid if you want, but plenty of people disagree (and lets not forget there are a lot more people who do disagree, for whom gouging offends their moral sensibilities enough that they were easily able to ban it).

People who disagree are people who are too dense to comprehend the most basic concept of microeconomics. Their values offend me greatly, since they might not realize it, but that is actually communist.

[Imran Siddiqui]

People who disagree are people who are too dense to comprehend the most basic concept of microeconomics. Their values offend me greatly, since they might not realize it, but that is actually communist.

Back to Post #73.

I'm sorry if your nascent dreams of a dictatorship under regexcellent is never coming to pass.

[Dinner]

I was just listening to NPR while waiting to fill up at Costco and they were saying NYC already has a three week supply of gas sitting in tanks at the ports and the problem is at the retail level because gas stations are not required to have back up generators so the electric pumps don't work.

In fact, most of the storage tanks are full and there is little room to even store additional supply. They need some sort of mobile power to get the existing retail locations back open.

[regexcellent]

The economic public interest IS the moral public interest, Imran. They are one and the same.

[regexcellent]

I was just listening to NPR while waiting to fill up at Costco and they were saying NYC already has a three week supply of gas sitting in tanks at the ports and the problem is at the retail level because gas stations are not required to have back up generators so the electric pumps don't work.

In fact, most of the storage tanks are full and there is little room to even store additional supply. They need some sort of mobile power to get the existing retail locations back open.

Fun fact: you can get generators that are mobile and transported on trailers. The military has them. In fact, I think I remember seeing some at the armory here in Rochester. But you know that, you were in the army. If gas were sufficiently pricey, they could afford to rent them.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I was just listening to NPR while waiting to fill up at Costco and they were saying NYC already has a three week supply of gas sitting in tanks at the ports and the problem is at the retail level because gas stations are not required to have back up generators so the electric pumps don't work.

In fact, most of the storage tanks are full and there is little room to even store additional supply. They need some sort of mobile power to get the existing retail locations back open.

Yep

The problem is power generation (or lack thereof) leading to very low supply of gasoline.

[Dinner]

People who disagree are people who are too dense to comprehend the most basic concept of microeconomics.

Or they're just more knowledgeable than you about the practical difficulties of the problem vs the completely theoretical knowledge you half possess.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The economic public interest IS the moral public interest, Imran. They are one and the same.

It is amusing that you actually believe this.

[regexcellent]

It is distressing that you don't.

[Felch]

How much additional supply you think is able to provided in such disaster areas? You think there are tankers even able to ship at a higher level, even if they wanted to for the next week or so?

We'll never know will we? We'll never know if those gas stations with fuel but no power wouldn't have been motivated to purchase generators. We'll never know if the increased price of fuel didn't encourage energy efficiency. And beyond fuel, we'll never know if out of state suppliers wouldn't be motivated to provide commodities. And it's all because you and your kind, driven by pride, impose your moral values on the rest of us.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I am intrigued that you believe that people in, say, Kansas are silly for voting their moral interests in issues like abortion rather than their economic interests.