No, I'm not going to rail on him for not doing enough to solve the gas supply issues in Atlanta, but I am going to make fun of him for two different thoughts he has voiced that are at opposite ends of the reality spectrum...
The first is that he instituted an emergency order, which brings "anti-gouging" laws into effect... basically, it is a type of governmental price control that prevents gas station owners from charging much more for the gas during the shortage than they did before the shortage.
And now he is calling on the federal government to release oil from the strategic petroleum reserve because supply and demand are out of whack. He specifically said that the market wasn't solving the problem...
Ya think?
Seriously, when you institute price controls, you are specifically STOPPING the market from correcting the supply/demand imbalance... and what you end up with are lines where there is gas and stations running out. We aren't talking about rocket science here... we are talking about Econ 101.
And now, we have a situation where the delivery levels are up to almost pre-hurricane levels... and people are following tanker trucks in order to top off when they have 3/4 tank. Demand is actually up because people are spooked.
To put this simply, had "anti-gouging" laws NOT been put in place, the price would have jumped and people would have decided that they really didn't want to stockpile gas at home in the aquarium. Demand would have dropped. Gasoline suppliers would have rushed extra fuel to the area because there would have been more money available. Supply would have increased.
Balance would have been restored... probably in less than half of the time. And imagine if this were a long term problem instead of something only lasting a couple of weeks? Think of odd/even gas rationing. That would almost guarantee that every car in Atlanta would be ina gas station every other day... need it or not.
So, Sonny...
Don't create a supply/demand imbalance and then whine about the supply/demand imbalance...
