system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is raising interest rate the only thing that can be done to cool inflation? Why aren’t rationing and price controls viable alternatives? If price controls/rationing cause market distortions, how come raising interest rates doesn’t?
gpt
If interest rates do not change in response to some exogenous shock to the economy, then you would create a "market distortion" in the sense that you would place a wedge between the market interest rate and the socially optimal/neutral interest rate. This market distortion could create more inflation. 

There isn't anything inconsistent here - we don't like price controls because they create distortions and we like changing interest rates because we don't like distortions. Or another way to put it: arbitrarily fixing interest rates at some particular level is just a price control on interest rates. 

Now in a more complete sense the distortion caused by the price control on interest rates is very different than the sort of distortion caused by price controls on goods and services. Fixed interest rates will destabilize aggregate demand, but price controls don't change supply or demand at all. By putting a cap on the price of gas, you are not changing desires, needs, or the means to produce gas at all. All you're doing is increasing the quantity of gas demanded and decreasing the quantity of gas supplied, causing a shortage. Fixed interest rates would make the problem worse because that would increase the demand for gas.