re: Just once it would be refreshing for a Republican governor to oppose ‘Price Gouging Laws’

I've run the gambit, Alx. I started out as a Prog, then neocon, then conservative, then minarchist, and now am philosophically an ancap.

Like I just mentioned above, I won't hate on anyone who wants to reduce the size and scope of government. I'm just saying that if you look at it, it's kind of foolish to believe that politicians know best how to organize society.

Fair enough.

Then they were not enforced in my experience.

You actually did… I just don’t think you know enough to know what you don’t know yet…

Start with this graph to demonstrate:


Assume this is the Texas natural gas wholesale market right before winter storm Uri. Demand increases for obvious reasons… so in your mind, shift the demand curve so that the asymptotic limit is about 3/4 of the way to the right edge of the image. Then supply collapsed. Unweatherized pipes froze and prevented natural gas from being shipped from producers to wholesalers, effectively cutting off new supply. To model this, shift the supply curve so that the asymptotic limit is about 1/4 of the graph away from the left edge.

The asymptotic limit of supply exists because, regardless of the price, there is a maximum production possible giving the existing, nonfrozen infrastructure. The asymptotic limit exists for demand because, regardless of price, retailers are required to provide natural gas to citizens by law. Regardless of how expensive natural gas gets, they have to keep buying whatever source they can get their hands on. And the minimum quantity they need exceeds what is available.

Thus, you have a supply and demand curve, each with an asymptotic limit, that never intersect. As the market keeps trying to adjust, prices go up and up and up. But there is no limit. Retailers in need continue to outbid each other for the finite supply available. But no successive round of price raises does anything to create new supply… we have reached the asymptotic limit of availability.



Now, where you are correct is in the assertion that this would be temporary… if the situation had stayed like this, new producers would have responded by setting up shop and producing more natural gas. Only problem is, it takes several years to build a new natural gas extraction facility. So your concept of “temporary” is inadequate to deal with the type of crisis being experienced.


What fixed this broken scenario was not a market solution… it was the eventual normalization of the weather. But if we had simply prevented wholesalers from extracting billions of dollars in excess profits from the retailers for just a single week, everyone across Texas would have saved hundreds of dollars in utility payments over the last several years.


Bottom line: the price gouging did nothing to improve the market conditions or to bring new supply online… it just drastically enriched a few hundred lucky people at the expense of millions.

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It's happening for the world to see down in Argentina as we speak.

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Apples and oranges. Milei's reforms are made possible by a less restrictive constitution that gives the Argentine president emergency powers that would be considered illegal here in the United States.

A socialist successor to Milei's office could just as easily change everything back.

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Thus, you have a supply and demand curve, each with an asymptotic limit, that never intersect. As the market keeps trying to adjust, prices go up and up and up. But there is no limit.

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Wrong. There is a limit. Can you give me an example of a trade in which the price per MSCF exceeded a million dollars? Of course not. There is a maximum price at which zero natural gas will be purchased.

But that is an academic point not really bearing on our fundamental disagreement, which is, will the market always return to equilibrium after a disturbance. You did an admirable job of explaining what happens to the supply and demand curves during the disturbance. (You might recall that after the first time you implied I was an economic illiterate, I explained that not only were S & D curves of complex shapes, but also that they moved in real time. This is what you just demonstrated.) My point is that the disturbance passes, and when it does (at least in this case) it leaves us with an extremely high, but not infinite, price and supply/demand curves that heavily incentivize production and distribution.

Left alone, those conditions will return the market to an equilibrium. And in the meantime, the market will sort itself into conditions in which those who value the good the most will get it and those who can supply it at the lowest cost will sell it. In your case, that latter group will at first be everyone who can, but eventually will be the most efficient. This was shown by Vernon Smith who received the Nobel Prize for his work.

Right but that's not the issue here. The issue is about libertarianism working.

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The issue is about libertarianism working.

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Elements of libertarianism can work in government, just like elements of socialism can also work. However, pure forms of libertarianism and socialism have and (most likely) can never work. As libertarian as Milei is, he has had to make compromises in Argentina. They are not a pure libertarian state. Socialist safety nets still exist and won't be going away anytime soon.

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if people say they are minarchists, constitutionalists, individualist, or whatever else would reduce the size and scope of government, I'm here for it.

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Me too. Government is way too large.

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So is eliminating welfare, I guess I should be against eliminating welfare.

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All is relative my friend.