Word: rationalize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...arguments for rationing are simple. It would enable the Government to regulate consumption fairly precisely by printing ration coupons for, say, only 1.4 billion gal. per week; no more could be legally sold. (Actually, cards similar to credit cards might be used instead.) More important, under rationing the Government would at least attempt to dole out supplies on the basis of the need to drive, rather than ability to pay. The rich could not buy up all the gasoline, and the poor would be assured of some fuel. Even the most vocal advocates, however, concede that rationing has flaws. Banker...
...Theft. The complexities would be horrifying. To begin with, how would the basic ration be apportioned? If each car got a ration, as in World War II, the self-indulgent, three-car family (which scarcely existed then) could drive three times as much as the family that had held down traffic congestion and air pollution by using only one auto. If every driver received coupons, the family with four licensed drivers-husband, wife and two teen-agers-would get four times as much gas as the family in which Dad did all the driving. Rations could be allotted by family...
Happily, though, the choice is not strictly either/or. Some combinations of rationing and free markets are possible, intriguing and likely. One ingenious idea gaining some Government attention is to add to rationing what would amount to a federally operated black market (or "white market" as planners call it). Ration coupons would be issued in roughly equal amounts to everyone holding a driver's license, but they could be transferred, unlike World War II coupons...
...free-market" coupon system, in which drivers could trade or sell their ration coupons to one another. Such a system could be managed by a relatively small bureaucracy, and fewer people would be attracted to black marketing...
...most of Europe, there was a vague air of siege. Fuel prices are going up, driving restrictions have been imposed, and in Britain ration cards have already been printed?just in case. Last week the German Bundestag granted Chancellor Willy Brandt's government blanket emergency powers to take whatever steps it deems necessary to hold down the use of gasoline and heating oil. The oil emergency has oddly cheered some European intellectuals and other elitists who have shown some disdain for the upward mobility of the masses since World War II. Says Maurice Couve de Murville, France's former Premier...