I really cannot long ponder the reaction to gasoline price spikes in the Charlotte region. I get violently ill — or maybe just violent. So much stupidity on so many levels — and all local media joined this time.

I’ll let Wildcatter-in-chief Hood try to explain things:

Prices are signals. They convey information. They aren’t arbitrary, or wishful thinking, or technicalities that can be brushed aside with the wave of some ignorant politician’s hand. In a highly competitive business such as gas retailing, where prices are posted in enormous neon lettering, the information changes quickly as thousands of people – managers, suppliers, meteorologists, and customers – make predictions based on the best-available information. Faced with the possibility of supply disruption, if you price your existing stock too low, you’ll run out quickly (meaning that you’ll lose the in-store sales that actually earn your profit) and lack the revenue to replace your stock with tomorrow’s more-expensive supply. Price your existing gas too high, and you’ll lose revenue to your competitors as desperate consumers, mindful of even small differentials, drive right past your station.

Of course the ongoing criminal conspiracy that passes for state government in North Carolina does not get any of this. But that virtually no one else does either is depressing as hell.