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.
It's hard to say. It is true that price gouging will, to an extent, be a form of rationing. You'll be more likely to buy only what you need and not as much as you're able. Logically, this makes sense. Further, if you sold it at a lower price and didn't ration the amount per customer, one of those customers would likely just buy out your stock and price gouge with it themselves.
Realistically? I do not trust anyone from another country to put American people's health and safety before their own wallet, especially not a member of a society that is specifically well-known for in-group preference and negative outgroup bias and has a caste system where many, if not all of them, inherently see themselves as "better people" than others. I guarantee you they're not thinking of the intricacies of this situation as much as you might like to think they are.
Yeah realistically it has the same problem cash fines for lawbreakers has: all it means is if you're wealthy enough the law simply no longer applies to you. Because a normal person can't afford $500 for a speeding ticket, a rich person has a lawyer on retainer who just handles it and the rich person doesn't even have to think about it. It doesn't ration for usage, it rations for economic privilege.
Imagine a ship sinking and someone grabs all the life jackets and locks them up unless you pay him for one. According to lolberts this is not just expected but commendable.