BrianGarst.com

Many of you may not be aware, since it’s getting virtually no media coverage, but Kentucky is reeling from a disasterous ice storm that has left more than half a million without power, perhaps for as long as a month.

Reason has done a good job of looking at the federal government’s lack of response, as well as a brief history of federal disaster responses.  Not surprisingly, Reason takes the position, which I share, that the federal government is incapable of competently dealing with such matters.

At the end of the article someone actually helping – by selling generators at marked up prices – is highlighted:

Enter David Strange, the enterprising figure the Associated Press calls the “generator man.” Strange drove the hills and hollows of backwoods Kentucky delivering and setting up generators to those without power—at a $50 to $100 mark-up over retail. Willing customers included a dialysis patient and a powerless 80-year-old woman dependent on an oxygen system. They called him a “godsend,” although Strange prefers “jack of all trades” or even “hustler.” To Adam Smith, he would be recognizable as an agent of the invisible hand.

If President Obama were nimble, he would give Strange a fancy federal title and take credit for his actions. That would make far more sense than trusting the federal government to come to the rescue in times of distress.

Not only will President Obama surely not do this, he’s as likely to throw the man in jail as anything.  You see, “generator man” is actually committing the horrible crime of “price gouging.”  That means that he’s delivering a product to the people who need it most.  Terrible, I know.

"price gouging" Barack Obama FEMA