Rationing 1947). Tea was still on ration until 1952. In 1953 rationing of sugar and eggs ended, and in 1954, all rationing finally ended when cheese and meats came off ration. Sugar was again rationed in 1974 after Caribbean producers began selling to the more lucrative United States market. Many centralized planned economies introduced a peacetime rationing system due to food shortages in the postwar period. North Korea and China did so in the 1970s and 1980s, Communist Romania during the 1980s, the Soviet Union in 1990–1991, and from 1962-present in Cuba. A good example of this system was Poland. In
Rationing in the United States capacity at the start of the war to make synthetic rubber. Throughout the war, rationing of gasoline was motivated by a desire to conserve rubber as much as by a desire to conserve gasoline. The War Production Board (WPB) ordered the temporary end of all civilian automobile sales on 1 January 1942, leaving dealers with one half million unsold cars. Ration boards grew in size as they began evaluating automobile sales in February (only certain professions, such as doctors and clergymen, qualified to purchase the remaining inventory of new automobiles), typewriters in March, and bicycles in May. Automobile factories stopped