I’ve been reading Rob Bradley’s Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience, which is a detailed history of state and federal intervention into the petroleum industry.  (As you can imagine, the two-volume work is some 2,000 pages long—who says our politicians don’t get anything done?)  Bradley explains that during the Korean War, the government instituted price controls on inputs used in the oil industry.  As always, the price ceilings led to massive shortages, so that the government then had to allocate the supply of resources to the various users, who had to fill out endless forms and paperwork.  I thought PRI’s readers might enjoy the following exasperated response that an independent oil man put on the form for requesting materials:

You so-in-so’s can use these forms for toilet paper.  It would not do a damn bit of good for me to waste my time filling out such tripe.  Your entire organization is a waste of Public Money, a delusion and a snare as far as the “little man” in the Oil Business is concerned….However, that does not alter the fact that I have to go out on the Black Market and buy twenty-five thousand dollars worth of casing on a “wildcat” well because of you—AND—there was plenty and is plenty of casing available.  Boy, if I told you what I thought of you, I’d probably go to jail—so I’ll just THINK IT.  (qtd. in Bradley, p. 253)