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 term needs to be taken out back and shot. the reason he can charge that much is because he got his station up and running before anyone else. he's probably the only one able to provide gas for miles, and he advertises the price accordingly.
be grateful that someone can provide gas so soon after a disaster, or go somewhere else.
Or just kill him and take it? Why not? Do you think he laid his own power lines to power the pumps? Someone else did that and he didn't pay them. So they work to deliver that so he can extract value without adding any.
the station pays the electrical bill, yes
He paid a usage fee. Did that include rebuilding all the infrastructure? By your shithead logic his next power bill should be about $380,000 right?
Or is that NOT FAIR? But what he's doing is magically fair because """""reasons"""""
What about all the VOLUNTEERS who helped with that effort? Do you think it was only the works of the power company? That not a single road they travelled on was from a volunteer? Or what about lineman sent in from places like Florida?
You are why lolberts get bullets.