John Tamny of Forbes
Washington, D.C., experienced its latest snowstorm the weekend before last. Though the 8 inches that fell didn’t constitute a record, the heavy snow managed to complicate getting around the city. Cabs were impossible to find.
The snowfall and its externalities offered a basic economic lesson about price controls and the scarcity that always results when governments, as opposed to free markets, set the cost of goods. Indeed, thanks to price curbs imposed on cabdrivers without regard to the weather outside, the routine activity of getting from Point A to Point B was rendered nearly impossible.
