Allocation of IP Addresses

Tue Mar 19 19:48:42 UTC 1996

In message <199603150738.CAA11310 at jekyll.piermont.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writ
es:
> 
> Curtis Villamizar writes:
> > Hoarding is only effective if there is a scarce resource, even if it
> > is artificially scarce, as in the two "gas shortages" of the 1970s
> > (when there were huge gas company stockpiles and enormous gas company
> > profits).
> 
> The gas shortages of the 1970s were caused by the fact that the
> U.S. government regulated oil prices. Whenever you artificially lower
> the price of anything, you create shortages. When decontrol occurred,
> shortages mysteriously and totally stopped. Amazing, ain't it.

Perry,

Just a point of history.  

The gas shortages were both triggered by OPEC moves which reduced
crude oil imports.  There were enormous oil reserves in all of the
major oil companies.  They were not willing to release those oil
reserves because of their LIFO inventory practices, used to defer tax
liability.  The oil companies tried to convince the government to
waive the taxes that were due if they sold down their inventory that
was on the books at oil prices going back many decades.  The govenment
would not allow them to convert from LIFO to FIFO inventory and simply
waive taxes on the billions of dollars of oil on the books for almost
no value so the oil companies tried holding the consumer hostage in
hopes of putting enough pressure on.  There were no regulations on
gasoline prices and they did go up but oil companies were hesitant to
raise them too high and seem to be price gouging during a fabricated
shortage but also didn't want to pay taxes on the profit of selling at
the current price with inventory at the old prices.

Curtis