It’s a complex problem.

Certainly these retailers shouldn’t be benefiting from everyone else’s misery.

However, it is a crisis and the extra cost is really the only way to signal to people that they should be using less.

I think some kind of rationing is inevitable and that being the case we should start sooner rather than later. Doesn’t matter if that means buying fuel every other day, or capping how much you can have. We need everyone to know that it’s a scarce commodity.

Rationing will trigger (more) hording, and it will be better to get that out of the way now IMO.

During the oil crisis in the 70s, the German government introduced the “Autofreier Sonntag” (car-fee Sunday). On four days per year, no-one (apart from emergency responders, police etc.) was allowed to drive their car.

I think this should make a comeback, maybe even an international one.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been a big push towards getting people to work from home a bit more. It’s a bit shit for those that can’t and won’t get the cost-saving benefits but it’s one way to influence demand downwards.