TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Megan McArdle on rationing, or to be more accurate, government planning:

Mechanisms to distribute tin without prices have been tried, and found wanting.  So have mechanisms to distribute practically every other good you can think of, from housing to hotdogs.  Rent control distorts the housing market and discourages landlords from building or improving their housing stock.  Price controls on bread result in shortages, and often distort the non-controlled sectors of the market. Fuel subsidies result in your precious tax dollars being diverted to Columbian roadside vendors who will siphon the gas out of your tank at great danger to themselves and pay something closer to market rates for it.  Etc.

I mean, fine, let’s not call it rationing.  Let’s call it “Fred”.  You’ll still end up with a crappy, overcrowded housing stock and shortages of basic goods.  What philosophical principal [sic] favors this?

This is why I wrote the “rationing” article. We’ve already had the debate on whether markets or government boards are better at deciding prices and supply, both in economics departments and in the real world. From 1920 to 1980, that was basically the defining question. Government planning lost the debate.