At 12:17 PM 11/27/97 -0800, Harry wrote:
>Public policy has nothing to do with 'optimizing
>consumption'.
>
>That's for individual people to decide.
I have been trying to imagine how the concept of "finite" can
be demonstrated to someone who has apparently never
experienced it.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about why most people
-- especially economists -- are simply unable to imagine
running totally out of something. We are both trying to come
up with some device (a computer game?) that can demonstrate
the concept of "finite" and "running out" to economists.
The problem is that I cruised for four years on my sailboat
(my friend ten years on her's), so the concept of "finite"
was demonstrated over and over in our daily lives. For
example, we had just so many gallons in our water and fuel
tanks, and when that was used up, we were OUT.
On long trips, we "rationed" water and fuel so we wouldn't
"run out". This is because if one "runs out" of water in
the middle of the ocean, one can die.
Have you ever been sailing Harry? How about camping? Did
you "run out" of anything? If so, did you ever wonder why?
Jay -- http://dieoff.org/page1.htm
==============================================================
TIME, January 14, 1974
It looked like a hand grenade, so the Albany, N.Y., station
operator played it safe and assumed that it was a hand grenade.
He gave the man who was toting it all the gas he wanted.
Attendants elsewhere last week faced curses and threats of
violence, sometimes backed by suspicious bulges in the pockets
of jackets. When a huge bear of a man warned a Springfield,
Mass., dealer, "You are going to give me gas or I will kill
you," the dealer squeezed his parched pumps to find some.
"Better a live coward than a dead hero," he said.
Such incidents were not exactly common last week, but they
occurred often enough, especially in the Northeast, to indicate
an outbreak of a kind of gasoline madness. The New Year's
weekend was the first time that many drivers became really
desperate for gas. Many stations ran out of their monthly
allotments as the weekend started and closed until they could
get new deliveries after the holiday. Those that stayed open
backed up long lines of drivers whose tempers sometimes
exploded -- especially if they found the pumps dry when they
finally got to them.
The gas shortage is sparking other types of deviant behavior.
Flouting of the law is on the rise. In New York City, two
gasoline tanks trucks, each loaded with 3,000 gallons, were
hijacked within a week. Price gouging by station owners has
become distressingly common. Miamians complain of having to pay
$1 a gallon or being charged a $2 "service fee" before a station
attendant will wait on them.
At best, many gas station owners and attendants have become
unapproachable to strangers; they will wait only on longtime
customers. Some issue window stickers to the regulars; others
sell by appointment only. Oregon Governor Tom McCall last week
rolled into a Union 76 station only to be told by the manager:
"Sorry, Governor, we're only selling to our regular customers."
So the Governor meekly drove to the end of the line at a nearby
station that was taking all comers.
