Currently, the price for non rationed gasoline is almost 40 cents (November 2008).

Profits can be made when energy is rationed or subsidized, but only within an economy operating at lower, or even negative, growth rates.

And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table, then margarine disappeared, then bread became too expensive, then milk became rationed.

This would also help address the endemic corruption that is also a specific feature of the Chinese economic system. Corruption is difficult to reduce drastically so long as politicians and bureaucrats have much to sell to firms and individuals including rationed loans from public sector banks and regulatory permits of various types.