Government interference in markets leads to market disruption

This will come as a shock, no doubt. The Fed.Gov has controlled most of the world's helium supply for the best part of a century. For the last 15 years, it's been getting out of the market. The result? People say that the price of Helium is artificially low and that we'll run out:

To ensure a stable supply, the US government gradually built a pipeline system that paralleled the one for natural gas and brought helium to a salt dome for storage. The site, called the Bush Dome for reasons that have nothing to do with the politician, has a liquefaction facility on site and a huge fraction of the world's total supply of helium.

That's where things stood in the mid-1990s, when Congress decided that the US government needed to get out of the business of managing helium. Ostensibly, this would allow market forces to set a price proportionate to its remaining supply, something Richardson indicated he supported.

But Congress dictated that the supply had to be wound down within about 20 years, even though the Bush Dome had enough helium to supply the entire globe for most of a decade, even if all other sources were cut off.

The result has been low prices for the gas even though, at 2008 rates of consumption, we had only a 25-year supply.

Sheesh. The Fed.Gov can't even exit a market cleanly. But I'm sure that it will be totally different with Health Care.

It's said that a committee couldn't bring tomorrow in on time, and that two committees wired in series produce infinite impedance. Maybe we can harness some of that Congressional hot air to replace all the helium that's floating away ...