In chapter 5, Frank writes of bank president Edgar Quisenberry that "He had forgotten the implacable law of scarcity." How would you define/describe that law? How does it come into play for the people of Fort Repose, and what effects does it have?

Edgar had saved the bank, but had forgotten the laws of scarcity that would keep necessities out of the people's hands;

"Edgar's calculations were not correct. He had forgotten the implacable law of scarcity.

Like most small towns, Fort Repose's food and drug supply was dependent upon daily or thrice weekly deliveries from warehouses in the larger cities. Each day tank trucks replenished its filling stations. For all other merchandise, it was dependent upon shipments by mail, express, and highway freight, from jobbers and manufacturers elsewhere. With the Red Alert, all these services halted entirely and at once. Like thousands of other towns and villages not directly

seared by war, Fort Repose became an island. From that moment, its inhabitants would have to subsist on whatever was already within its boundaries, plus what they might scrounge from the countryside."