How Not to Conserve Limited Supplies of a Commodity
The number one way to not prevent a shortage of something is to give people every reason to believe that the item won’t be there tomorrow, and then ask them not to stockpile it for themselves. Somebody please explain this to the Governor of Georgia. From CNN’s Rita coverage:
“Ga. Gov. asks schools to close 2 days to save fuel following Rita’s landfallATLANTA (CNN) — Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue announced Friday he has asked all public schools in Georgia to close Monday and Tuesday of next week to avoid use of gasoline.
Perdue predicted the move would save almost 500,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
This is among other measures the state is taking to conserve fuel as Hurricane Rita barrels toward the Gulf region, threatening oil refinery facilities, he said.
He also said he was asking state employees to work four-day weeks or telecommute, and he asked Georgians not to panic-buy gasoline. (4:10 p.m.)” [emphasis mine]
How much sense does this make? The actions he’s taking give every reason to believe that there will be a shortage. When there’s a shortage looming, people, being rational, tend to make sure they have what they need.
To be fair, he is in a tough situation. It’s hard to convince people that there’s plenty of gasoline to go around when you’re taking pretty severe measures to conserve supplies… but that’s probably his best option. Right now, the Governor seems to be betting that he’s charismatic enough that he can convince people to not act rationally. I don’t know the Governor, but I don’t usually consider that a safe bet.
UPDATE: It looks like I called it… Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality made the same observation only 20 minutes later, and followed it up with a great series of updates on how people reacted:
“8:35pm: There are three gas stations on the corner closest to my house. One is a Citgo; it was empty. One is a Shell; not too busy, but out of regular. One is a Conoco, and it was mobbed. I saw several people filling up all their vehicles, and one lawn service filling all their equipment. The latter I can accept; they need the gasoline to make their living. Everyone else was doing exactly what we were told not to do. Big surprise.”