Yesterday some dude posted a video to shame apparently Indian gas station owners charging $10 a gallon around the Hurricane Helene disaster area. The lolberts answered with rebuttals that free market pricing is the best rationing mechanism in a time of scarcity.
People are saying that the gas station could ration gallons per customer and keep the same price, and the lolberts are saying this is communist price control.
I'm not really sure how much merit is held by either position since I've never really thought about this with respect to a disaster area. Clearly the 1973 price controls were a bad idea, but this is a debate over what a private business owner should do after a hurricane. My gut feeling is that gas should be rationed by customer, not by pricing. But maybe the gas station is passing along supply chain pricing to a certain extent?
edit: Texas punished gas price gouging in 2019 after Hurricane Harvey.
Why start the discussion calling people who don't want price controls lolberts? Looks like the guy was being sarcastic anyway and he would most likely support government-run gas stations.
You can't stop economics. You can slow the market's reaction though. So it might make sense to legislate a buffer zone in price increases - where any maximum price hike per day is based on the area average. Then hopefully the effects of "gouging" are slowed a bit thru the disaster period. Most states do already have tons of regulation on gas stations including price controls. Otherwise you'd have digital gas price signs fluctuating by the hour as the current oil futures index changed. You'd start pumping gas and the price would change before you finish. I guess an actual lolbert would be ok with that.
I'm a little tilted against lolberts and their arguments from past experience, but yeah I didn't check that guy's profile.
I was more thinking about what's moral for a private gas station owner, but your idea makes sense. Sidenote, Texas punished price gouging in 2019.