I recall a panic about us running out of helium a few years ago followed by abrupt silence as the increased cost of helium led to more helium being salvaged fro

I recall a panic about us running out of helium a few years ago followed by abrupt silence as the increased cost of helium led to more helium being salvaged from natural gas extraction. It's one of those rare cases where you can literally point at a moment in time and see a textbook example of "the market" in action. I also recall that then too there were articles about how us foolish consumers were wasting this non-renewable good on party balloons while the actual amount of helium used to fill party balloons is less than a rounding error compared to how much helium industry needs and uses (which in turn is nothing compared to how much uncaptured helium is lost during natural gas extraction).