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.
This is a libertarian position, not a lolbert one. If a community wants guaranteed access to an affordable resource, they should negotiate that in advance. Lolbert is believing in open borders or free speech for those who actively suppress it.
You can argue that people using their state's monopoly on force to create anti price gouging laws was an advance negotiation by the community. :)
Local government, maybe. State government or even county, hell no