Shortage Economy
Every shortage has a winner. The question worth asking is whether it's you.
The point behind both sayings is the same: a smaller supply of something — a shortage — tends to push its profit higher. Whoever controls the supply controls the profit.
Shortages You Like vs. Shortages You Don't
If you own a business, a skill, or an asset — real estate, commodities, stocks, bitcoin — a shortage in whatever you hold means your profit might climb.
When you're the one paying prices that feel unreasonable or painful, the shortage is often no accident — it's frequently the result of shortage-creating laws and a lack of real competition.
Sometimes a shortage makes you feel like a victim — because you are one. Look out for the predator/victim relationship hiding inside a shortage that always seems to work out for the same people.
That's not cynicism — it's a genuinely useful diagnostic. The next time a rule, a price, or a shortage seems to defy common sense, the fastest way to understand it is to ask who benefits from it staying exactly as confusing as it is.