What is going on with gasoline is not an argument to get an electric vehicle. They could do this with electricity at any time.

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First off, this is entirely a government created problem. If the government hadn't intervened yesterday would have been the last day of this craziness.

The pipeline is now up and running, but they are still using it as an excuse. Let me explain how insane this is. They say the pipeline takes 18 days to have gas travel from its start to many of its destinations. Here's why that doesn't make sense as an excuse. Either the pipeline is still able to work without flow. In which case we should be ~18 days away from a problem because we have at least 18 days of gas in there that we've always been able to get out. Or, you can't take gas out of it unless there is flow.. in which case, the second the flow resumes you should have instant gas.

This is actually the result of price fixing in response that has deepened the shortage and caused runs and hording, and gas stations to lie about not having gas. I did see one station just outside of my work do that. They coned it up, and a few cars managed to remove the cones and get some gas.

Shortages and price differences between a natural price and a set price are the same thing. When prices move you don't have shortages, you have shrinking volume. When you do fix prices below its natural amount you have shortages no matter what the supply is doing. This shortage has nothing to do with supply, and everything to do with the predictable outcomes of price setting. Natural runs only last 1-3 days. If this lasts longer you know 100% the government is at fault.

The issue is they could do this with electricity at any time. You can shut down an energy source just by fixing a price. That happened in Texas. The detail they don't want to tell anyone is that the wholesale price of electricity in Texas has a regulated cap. It hit that cap, and within 9 minutes the electrical grid was shutting down. People actually paid more because of it. Prices work sort of like a hand balancing a broom. It's an active system. If the broom starts to lean left, you have to move your hand to the left faster than it. If you delay, you will have to push it further to the left. Once your hand reaches a cap, that's it, it's going down and your hand will stay at that capped location indefinitely. By putting that system in that locked scenario you make it so people pay that high price longer. It's not the price that's the problem. It's the area under the curve of price that gets people shelling out dollars. When a the lack of a price signal fails to respond to a shortage, wasteful use occurs, supply that would have happened doesn't, and the shortage gets wider in material terms. Then because of scarcity (which is going to remain in these conditions), your natural price stays above the allowed price, and it never returns. You end up paying the regulated cap permanently, which may still be rather high, all because prices weren't allowed to temporally spike for a moment. You likely never would have to pay the spike price (the whole point of it is that fewer do), and even if you did it would be cheaper to pay once than the regulated cap indefinitely.

There is nothing special about gas here. We see unavailability of electricity anywhere these mistakes are applied to electricity, whether it's South Africa, California, Venezuela, or Texas. Good luck charging your electric vehicle that only has one commute's range when the night before you didn't have electricity to charge it with. I guess you aren't going to work.

The very scary thing is they could do this with food in an instant. They definitely have an inclination to. If the gas situation impacts the supply chain even a little, or they pretend it is, they could out of fear tell grocers they have to lock in their prices, and bam, no food on the shelves. People will start running on it as soon as the media mentions supply chain even before the price fix is done, and then the price fix can happen and it won't fix itself. Then they will blame the initial running because clearly something was starting to happen before they did anything.

Get ready. Your town may be as empty of food as it is of gas.

Additional factors that make this a government problem: Regulation on shipping making it difficult for other source of gas to deliver via shore. And non-reciprocation of gas truck operator permits making it so interstate trucking of gas is mostly not a thing. Ethanol making gas less shelf stable, meaning we couldn't store gas ahead of time.

First off, this is entirely a government created problem. If the government hadn't intervened yesterday would have been the last day of this craziness. The pipeline is now up and running, but they are still using it as an excuse. Let me explain how insane this is. They say the pipeline takes 18 days to have gas travel from its start to many of its destinations. Here's why that doesn't make sense as an excuse. Either the pipeline is still able to work without flow. In which case we should be ~18 days away from a problem because we have at least 18 days of gas in there that we've always been able to get out. Or, you can't take gas out of it unless there is flow.. in which case, the second the flow resumes you should have instant gas. This is actually the result of price fixing in response that has deepened the shortage and caused runs and hording, and gas stations to lie about not having gas. I did see one station just outside of my work do that. They coned it up, and a few cars managed to remove the cones and get some gas. Shortages and price differences between a natural price and a set price are the same thing. When prices move you don't have shortages, you have shrinking volume. When you do fix prices below its natural amount you have shortages no matter what the supply is doing. This shortage has nothing to do with supply, and everything to do with the predictable outcomes of price setting. Natural runs only last 1-3 days. If this lasts longer you know 100% the government is at fault. The issue is they could do this with electricity at any time. You can shut down an energy source just by fixing a price. That happened in Texas. The detail they don't want to tell anyone is that the wholesale price of electricity in Texas has a regulated cap. It hit that cap, and within 9 minutes the electrical grid was shutting down. People actually paid more because of it. Prices work sort of like a hand balancing a broom. It's an active system. If the broom starts to lean left, you have to move your hand to the left faster than it. If you delay, you will have to push it further to the left. Once your hand reaches a cap, that's it, it's going down and your hand will stay at that capped location indefinitely. By putting that system in that locked scenario you make it so people pay that high price longer. It's not the price that's the problem. It's the area under the curve of price that gets people shelling out dollars. When a the lack of a price signal fails to respond to a shortage, wasteful use occurs, supply that would have happened doesn't, and the shortage gets wider in material terms. Then because of scarcity (which is going to remain in these conditions), your natural price stays above the allowed price, and it never returns. You end up paying the regulated cap permanently, which may still be rather high, all because prices weren't allowed to temporally spike for a moment. You likely never would have to pay the spike price (the whole point of it is that fewer do), and even if you did it would be cheaper to pay once than the regulated cap indefinitely. There is nothing special about gas here. We see unavailability of electricity anywhere these mistakes are applied to electricity, whether it's South Africa, California, Venezuela, or Texas. Good luck charging your electric vehicle that only has one commute's range when the night before you didn't have electricity to charge it with. I guess you aren't going to work. The very scary thing is they could do this with food in an instant. They definitely have an inclination to. If the gas situation impacts the supply chain even a little, or they pretend it is, they could out of fear tell grocers they have to lock in their prices, and bam, no food on the shelves. People will start running on it as soon as the media mentions supply chain even before the price fix is done, and then the price fix can happen and it won't fix itself. Then they will blame the initial running because clearly something was starting to happen before they did anything. Get ready. Your town may be as empty of food as it is of gas. -------------------------------- Additional factors that make this a government problem: Regulation on shipping making it difficult for other source of gas to deliver via shore. And non-reciprocation of gas truck operator permits making it so interstate trucking of gas is mostly not a thing. Ethanol making gas less shelf stable, meaning we couldn't store gas ahead of time.

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