September 03, 2005

For Jim

. . . who's a little teed off at his fellow Atlanteans for driving up gasoline prices: Jane Galt suggests thanking them:

But it hurts! I hear you moan. "What about my Labor Day driving?" Let me translate. What you're really saying when you say "I don't want to pay more for gas" is "I don't want to either use less gas, or use less of anything else". But as a society, we have to use less gas. You, or someone else, is going to have to consume less of the stuff, because we have less than we used to. If you don't want to be one of the people using less gas, then you have to be one of the people using less of everything else. Thus will the market pretty efficiently strip out driving by those who value it least.

Or to put it another way, "Yes, of course it hurts. If it didn't hurt, no one would stop driving."

If you do not read it all, please, at least read the next paragraph, which explains why that's not such a bad thing.

(I'm just needling Jim. I know he's pro free market. Pro free market, anti dumb-animal panic buying.)

Posted by Ilyka at September 3, 2005 04:43 PM in hell is other people | TrackBack
Comments

Let's just say I've decided to buy a car until December. I really won't need it until then (when my office moves across town); and maybe not even then, because people at work have offered to drive me.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 3, 2005 05:44 PM

Er. That should have been "put off buying." I didn't get much sleep last night.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 3, 2005 05:45 PM

Was I just punk'd? ;-)

I think any business owner should sell his product at the best price for his business model. I've got no problem whatsoever with the gas stations that were charging $4 to $5 (reportedly even up to $6 but I didn't see anything that high). My problem is (begin playing broken record now) stupidity. Man, those panicking morons really burned my ass.

Posted by: Jim at September 3, 2005 09:38 PM

Dun dun dun dun dun dun! It is OHNOES in:

Petrol Panic!

OHNOES: Hey, I just got me a gas station. Now, my Econ 101 class says that the free market dictates that I must accept the price that people are willing to pay for it, else they'll shop at the fifty other gas stations... What the? Gas prices just skyrocketed. *Sigh* I better raise my prices. *Presses price raise button.*

Consumers: OHH DEAR THE GAS PRICES ARE SKYROCKETING! QUICKLY! EVERYONE GET GAS NOOOOOOOW! *Frantic rush to gas station.*

OHNOES: D'er? That's not supposed to happen! I'm supposed to get fewer buyers... What, OPEC is upping prices again? Dangit. And the consumers are draining my supply too fast! *Raises prices.*

Consumers: AUUUUUUUGH! QUICKLY, WE MUST ALL TOP OFF OUR TANKS NOW!

OHNOES: ... ... ... *Looks around shiftily. Raises prices.* This is my kinda economics.

Consumers: HOLY CRAP! GET ALL OF OUR PLASTIC CONTAINERS AT HOME, WE GOTTA STOCK UP ON GAS NOW!

OHNOES: Heh heh heh...

Posted by: OHNOES at September 4, 2005 02:45 AM

Well, I didn't drive to NJ this weekend, like I had planned. I stayed local, and put only about 75 miles on my car instead of 700.

Looks to me like a lot of people did the same.

What really burns my ass is that I bought gas at a gas station last night, then stopped there again this afternoon, and the price had already gone up. On Sunday. When the markets are closed.

Bastards.

Posted by: Meryl Yourish at September 4, 2005 03:17 PM