As domestic supplies fell short, we imported more oil. As a result, we stretched world supplies so tight that when the shah of Iran fell in 1979, the loss of a few million barrels a day sent motorists back to the gas lines. The surprise collateral damage was done to the auto industry. Overconfidence about stabilized gas prices undercut the introduction of the Chevette and other economy cars between 1975 and 1979. The Carter administration was making plans to regulate the auto industry when it left town a year later.
Rent control does similar collateral damage in American cities.
Certainly it produces housing shortages. People in New York and San Francisco read the obituary columns hunting for vacant apartments. But the shortages are not distributed equally. Anyone looking at the apartment listings in the newspaper of an average American city without rent control finds a distribution curve weighted heavily toward the lower end of the market. This is because all the regulated apartments are being hoarded by current tenants.