As the Easley administration ignores the unintended consequences (gas lines, shortages) of North Carolina’s price-gouging law, it looks instead for new ways to insert the government in a process best solved by market pricing:
Hirsch said Easley’s office helped orchestrate tanker truck
shipments from Knoxville, Tenn., and Wilmington to alleviate the
shortage, but a long-term plan to prevent shortages is needed.“It’s
clear we need to have better ideas for the future,” he said. “As soon
as we get this situation stabilized, those are the tough questions
we’re going to be asking of experts.”
One “expert” Hirsch and colleagues should consult is Billy Helmke, a Boone college student whose letter to the editor appears later in the same edition of the News & Observer:
I go to college in Boone. We are currently out of gas in this town. I
don’t understand how any business owners would not set prices higher so
that there would be supply.If my grandparents have an emergency in
South Carolina, and I need to visit them, I would be willing to pay
anywhere between $5 and $50 per gallon of gas to go visit them. But
because gas stations are out of gas, I cannot access a price I am
willing to pay to visit them.I do not like price-gouging laws. I
want to start a gas station and set prices according to supply and
demand, then when the state tries to sue me for price gouging, I’ll
fight the state for years, ultimately costing myself and the state
millions of dollars. I think it’s what is best for society.
