The Real Cause of Blackouts

[TomCollins]

[ QUOTE ]
On a related note, is it ever possible for there to be a "shortage" in the free market?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course, but it is almost always temporary.

Suppose you are the only manufacturer of widgets. People like widgets a lot, but they only have a shelf life of 3 days. Your widget factory gets destroyed by a natural disaster. After three days, all of the widgets that have been stockpiled are gone. But people still want them. Even those who have infinite means to pay for them cannot. It takes time to rebuild your widget factory to cover this.

In the simplest case, some emergency happens and a particular good is in high demand. Since a free market is not perfect, vendors might not react fast enough to this sudden increase in demand, and sell out.

But you need to define what you mean by "shortage".