Ike

[Smittie61984]

Originally Posted by TIGGER

Ok.....so you think that gas prices should go up to $10 a gallon so people will use less thus eventually bringing the price down?

I was making a scenerio. I believe the prices should be whatever the free market determines it to be or whatever the gas station wants it to be.

But here in Georgia where we are a bagillion miles away from Hurricane Ike and despite we get most of our oil from the Alaska Pipeline and the Port of Savannah (Which Ike isn't at) people where going to gas stations and filling up everything they had. I remember after Katrina watching a guy fill up his F-250 and 4 ATVs on the back and 2 of those Nascar Style gas cans along with some regular 5 gallon cans. He probably got 100+ gallons worth of fuel.

What raising it to $10 a gallon would have done is cause people to think smarter about what they want to use their fuel for. Instead of driving 100miles to the Georgia Aquarium to stare at fish they'd probably say "I'm going to throw in 4 gallons worth of gas so I can get back and forth to work". Instead of hoarding all the fuel. Gas stations don't assume everyone and their brother is going to fill up everything they own in one day causing a shortage. Raising prices causes people to think.

Then once the hurricane goes through and everything settles down and it is found out there is no shortage. Demand will be the same but supply will still be there so prices will stay roughly where they were. Now we have the same amount of Demand and no Supply since everyone took all the fuel.