Jay Hanson wrote (see below):
The government handled the gas shortage real well. I
remember we were paying more than $1.20 when the estimate of
the Wall Street Journal was an 89 cent clearing price.
But I like their forethought in printing ration coupons.
Pretty nice coupons with a picture of George Washington.
These were hurriedly withdrawn when it was found that
bill-changing machines would give money for the coupons.
They printed more which cost us $16 million - and were never
used.
The point being that while they were fooling around, the
market sorted things out.
>Have you ever been sailing Harry? How about camping? Did
> you "run out" of anything? If so, did you ever wonder why?
Camping - and if I found myself short, I'd go without - or
take steps to remedy the situation. But, I would blame me
for putting myself in this situation.
The earth is a veritable storehouse of everything we need.
If we run into a temporary shortage, the market will handle
it while government is printing the appropriate forms.
If we run out of something, we'll use something else. We are
a small species spread thinly across an enormous planet. Our
biggest worry should be the antics of the clowns meeting in
Kyoto. We must hope that they won't do too much irreparable
harm.
Harry
---------------------------------------------
> At 12:17 PM 11/27/97 -0800, Harry wrote:
>
> >Public policy has nothing to do with 'optimizing
> >consumption'.
> >
> >That's for individual people to decide.
>
> I have been trying to imagine how the concept of "finite" can
> be demonstrated to someone who has apparently never
> experienced it.
>
> I was talking to a friend yesterday about why most people
> -- especially economists -- are simply unable to imagine
> running totally out of something. We are both trying to come
> up with some device (a computer game?) that can demonstrate
> the concept of "finite" and "running out" to economists.
>
> The problem is that I cruised for four years on my sailboat
> (my friend ten years on her's), so the concept of "finite"
> was demonstrated over and over in our daily lives. For
> example, we had just so many gallons in our water and fuel
> tanks, and when that was used up, we were OUT.
>
> On long trips, we "rationed" water and fuel so we wouldn't
> "run out". This is because if one "runs out" of water in
> the middle of the ocean, one can die.
>
> Have you ever been sailing Harry? How about camping? Did
> you "run out" of anything? If so, did you ever wonder why?
>
> Jay -- http://dieoff.org/page1.htm
> ==============================================================
> TIME, January 14, 1974
>
> It looked like a hand grenade, so the Albany, N.Y., station
> operator played it safe and assumed that it was a hand grenade.
> He gave the man who was toting it all the gas he wanted.
> Attendants elsewhere last week faced curses and threats of
> violence, sometimes backed by suspicious bulges in the pockets
> of jackets. When a huge bear of a man warned a Springfield,
> Mass., dealer, "You are going to give me gas or I will kill
> you," the dealer squeezed his parched pumps to find some.
> "Better a live coward than a dead hero," he said.
>
> Such incidents were not exactly common last week, but they
> occurred often enough, especially in the Northeast, to indicate
> an outbreak of a kind of gasoline madness. The New Year's
> weekend was the first time that many drivers became really
> desperate for gas. Many stations ran out of their monthly
> allotments as the weekend started and closed until they could
> get new deliveries after the holiday. Those that stayed open
> backed up long lines of drivers whose tempers sometimes
> exploded -- especially if they found the pumps dry when they
> finally got to them.
>
> The gas shortage is sparking other types of deviant behavior.
> Flouting of the law is on the rise. In New York City, two
> gasoline tanks trucks, each loaded with 3,000 gallons, were
> hijacked within a week. Price gouging by station owners has
> become distressingly common. Miamians complain of having to pay
> $1 a gallon or being charged a $2 "service fee" before a station
> attendant will wait on them.
>
> At best, many gas station owners and attendants have become
> unapproachable to strangers; they will wait only on longtime
> customers. Some issue window stickers to the regulars; others
> sell by appointment only. Oregon Governor Tom McCall last week
> rolled into a Union 76 station only to be told by the manager:
> "Sorry, Governor, we're only selling to our regular customers."
> So the Governor meekly drove to the end of the line at a nearby
> station that was taking all comers.
*****************************
Harry Pollard (818) 352-4141
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
*****************************
