An old question...

We have discussed the question of government price regulation and commodity contracts for defense and national security in the past, but I found another fantastic example that I thought I'd present for consideration.

During WWII, the US recognized quickly that what we fed our troops in the field had a huge impact on morale. The two most popular items (edible, anyway... I know cigs were up there too) in the ration packs were chocolate and raisins. We have discussed the voluntary freeze on the price of chocolate by such manufacturers as Hershey and Nestle in the interest of winning the war effort... but just as good an example is raisins.

In 1939, raisins were seeing a market price of $.49 per ton. By 1945, the market price was as high as $390.00 per ton. That is a 6000% increase in revenue for raisin makers... based purely on the needs of the US Government to get raisins to our troops afield.

Now, understand that the government wasn't paying $390 a ton in 1945... their contract price was "fixed" at $17 a ton by an act of Congress in 1942 that restricted how much prices could fluctuated within the government's contract-bid system. Only the non-government/military buyers were paying the high prices for raisins... which means our grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

This is not a defense of FDR or the New Deal... I'm simply making the case that commodities that have been determined to be vital to national security and our nation's economic well-being have been regulated in the past, from gold and uranium to corn, silk and rubber.

So, my question: Is this okay? Was the US right in regulating the price that the government paid for raisins at so much lower of a rate than the public was paying? Was this justified in the greater effort to win the war?

If someone answers yes, is it also "ok" for the government to regulate the manner in which market prices of such a vital and important commodity as crude oil are allowed to adjust to global effects? Should the price we pay for oil be at the whims of commodity speculators and market analysts, or should their be checks and curbs in place that regulate the ups and downs that the market price can see over the course of a trading day, or week, or month?

Just wondering...