In yet another display of economic ignorance on the part of politicians, Hawai'i has put a cap on wholesale gas prices. I fearlessly predict shortages on the islands, wiki wiki.

But a wholesale price cap worked so well with the electricity market in California, why shouldn't it work in Hawaii.

Maybe if the resultant crisis gets bad enough, they can continue copying California and recall the governor, too. Anyone know what Thomas Magnum has been up to lately?

Magnum's back in the Navy, last I heard (g).

I hope TC will still be able to get his Jet A.

Is coconut oil an alternate fuel source?

Gasoline ratoning worked for Jimmy Carter, why not Hawaii?

Gasoline ratoning worked for Jimmy Carter, why not Hawaii?

I'm guessing that's sarcasm. For those who don't remember those days, it wasn't fun sitting in line forever to get gas. I also remember when there were natural gas shortages because of price caps. You'd see idiotic news reports of complaints that people were freezing to death because of nasty companies that wouldn't develop known gas deposits. The small issue that they would have had to do it at a loss because of caps seemed to escape them.

Price caps will not cause a shortage only when the cap is at or above the market price.

I seem to recall that the Indiana state legislature debated setting the value of pi by statute to 3, also. Fools rush in, etc.

I had a good laugh about this months ago when it was first passed, then promptly forgot about it. (I don't live in Hawaii, so it's just entertainment to me.)

Does anyone know if there's some sort of pool someplace about when Hawaii will have to start rationing gasoline? I'll take 23 days. ;-p

"Is coconut oil an alternate fuel source?"

If you own a Stanley Steamer, why yes!

Thats okay, they can just ride around in foot powered carts made out of bambo like they did in Gilligans Island.

Note that it was 16/sqrt(3), not 3, it was in the 19th Century (1897) and they quickly killed the legislation once its mathematical stupidity was pointed out. (See Beckmann's "A History of Pi").The author was a circle squarer, by the way. These days such crackpots go into economics or "health-care" instead.

Stupidity by our legislators and their voting on bills they've never read is nothing new. What is new is that the stupidity, as in this Hawaii case, is actually being enacted here in the 21st Century.

How many months ago was Rand making a big show of oil falling under 40 dollars. How the mindless blogsphere forgets what it says from one month to the next. But then Rand just makes it up most of the time anyway. He been a blogger and all that.