The stupidity of price controls.

Free markets work because higher prices signal enterprising providers to take risks to increase the supply of the more desirable commodity. The concept of incentive operates to the benefit of all -- higher profits to the supplier and decreased prices in the end. Waiting for the process to work its magic is the key, but some people are smitten with the beggar thy neighbor disease and simply can't stand it that some one could make a profit.

Here's a short summary of the history and efficacy of price controls:

There have been no significant shortages, thanks to the absence of price controls, but Congress is working diligently to put an end to that outcome. Urged on by an economically ignorant public, Congress recently held one of its periodic Grand Inquisitions of oil company executives to demand an answer to the question: "How dare you profit from the American free enterprise system?"

Accusations of "price gouging" — i.e. allowing market forces to set prices — abound, as do calls for price controls. They aren't always called "price controls," but some slick euphemism such as "anti-price-gouging legislation." It's the same thing.

The case against price controls is not merely an academic exercise, restricted to economics textbooks. There is a four-thousand-year historical record of economic catastrophe after catastrophe caused by price controls. This record is partly documented in an excellent book entitled Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls by Robert Schuettinger and Eamon Butler, first published in 1979.

"Four Thousand Years of Price Control." By Thomas DiLorenzo, Mises Daily Article, 11/10/05 (emphasis added <--- Baby Troll Blog.