I find it fascinating that Democrats are still pretending to be appalled by high gas prices.
Barack Obama said recently in an interview with CNBC:
Well, I think that we have been slow to move in a better direction when it comes to energy usage. And the president, frankly, hasn’t had an energy policy.
Don’t you just love when a Democrat uses the word “frankly” to make the point seem shocking? I wonder if FDR used it.
Well excuse us, Barack. On the “list of things to do” for President Bush the last eight years we had 9/11, a war against terrorism, hurricanes that Bush got blamed for, and we were a little busy keeping North Korea from shooting a missile towards Hawaii because of inept liberal policies that virtually gave them the money, the fuel, and the technology while stopping the U.N. from inspecting them for five years.
What President has placed an “energy policy” at the top of his priority list? Did FDR? Did Carter? How was Clinton’s?
Less than a decade ago, Universities began the hype on “Global Warming” by conducting “studies” showing that if we imposed an excise tax of 25 cents a gallon on gas, we could use the proceeds to fund studies on the effects of global warming.
The fact is, liberals aren’t enraged over gas prices in and of themselves. They’re just enraged that it was free market that raised them, and not taxation.
It’s common sense, folks! Americans are cutting back on other expenditures to accommodate the new fuel prices. Now that demand for the other items have gone down, so are the prices! As they will continue to do. We demand gas, we must pay for gas. We don’t demand I-Pods and digital cameras anymore, so we won’t be paying as much for them.
An article written yesterday by CNBC proves this point arguing “What Inflation?”
It’s the free market we love and the market should be the dictators of our national wealth. We decide how much things cost by purchasing them at a stated price. Gas is one of those things.
The question is, who are we going to give it to? American proprietors who crave success? Or Democrats that want the success earned by one person to be split up twenty ways and re-distributed to people who aren’t willing to work for it?
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
Comments
Really? You’re still using the old “supply-and-demand” rhetoric? America has gone past that nonsense.
Please, try and keep up!
America has gone past supply and demand? Which was nonsense?
I seem to remember that they believed supply and demand was “nonsense” in the Soviet Union, too. My MIL was here for twenty years before she got used to being able to buy bananas year round.
Kurt,
As I explained to another liberal recently, the trend of people actually WORKING for a living has slowly gone done.
Since FDR’s “Deal With America” we have withnessed tax rates adjusted for inflation and tripling, growing and growing over the years. People are used to the government taking care of them with tax revenue stolen from other Americans. It not only dumbed America (as you say, “America has gone past that nonsense” of actually BEING AMERICANS) but it’s made them lazy. One reason why Reagan’s ecomonic plan did not work. Democrats reject taking care of their own.
Did you read the article I supplied?
What do people think is going to happen to prices of other items if nobody is buying them?
The fact is, liberals would not have minded the current gas prices if indeed it was TAXES raising them in lieu of free market.
If it were taxes, they would be using the same exact argument to back up their side.
This is America, and as AFW pointed out, if you want income re-distributed, move to a communist society.
Supply is at 85%, demand is down 12% from a year ago. Gas prices are higher because speculators are getting rich off oil futures, thanks to the Enron Loophole. We all know this. It’s got nothing to do with supply and demand.
The current crop of leftist Dimocrats is not concerned with oil prices. It is a benefit; a tool like the Iraq war to beat George Bush over the head and again fool the masses of dumb asses into thinking our government is the only answer to our problems. While in reality, our government is quickly becoming our biggest enemy.
Dimocrats are concerned with only two things: (1) control (2) by getting Obama and his toadies elected. It used to be called socialism. Now, I believe the new lingo is progressivism or nationalism. But that too is subject to change.
The minute the masses start to put a negative connotation on a party slogan, leftist Dimocrats simply change the slogan and everybody claps; for now everything is alright again.
If somebody argues with you that it is supply and demand setting the current price of oil and not speculation, ask them one question.
Why has natural gas, a virtual domestically drilled and utilized product, also priced at record levels? The demand has remained virtually constant and supply is abundant.
Finding and identifying the speculators; another in a long list of useful exercises for our feckless Congress which they will conveniently overlook.
If demand is not up, how come we keep hearing about how oil companies are making huge profits? How come our inboxes are constantly flooded with these annoying emails about “don’t buy gas from this particular company on this day?”
Consumers realize that we are the ones consuming oil. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that oil companies are charging us because they want to. I don’t have any doubt that oil companies want large profits and that they want to keep their shareholders happy.
That is a good thing. Consumption is down because we have cut back DRAMATICALLY on other items. All this is, is an adjustment. Sooner or later, the other items will drop to compensate.
If people aren’t buying the other products, then what’s the point of marketing them at prices they cannot afford?
Government needs to stay out, they need to cut taxes on gas to help Americans, plus they need to keep their faces out of every other business sector bewteen any entity and private citizens.
“Why has natural gas, a virtual domestically drilled and utilized product, also priced at record levels? The demand has remained virtually constant and supply is abundant.”
Tex
I have a general theory on pricing. In general, the price of anything is what people are willing to pay. Forget supply and demand.
Let’s say I sell eggs. Supply is not a problem. Demand is not a problem.
I sell them for $1.00 per dozen and they sell well.
I raise the price by 10 cents per year not because it costs me more to produce the eggs, but because I think people will pay 10 cents more per dozen per year.
I keep doing that and doing that until I reach a point where people stop buying my eggs. They become too expensive. There is only so much a person will pay for a dozen eggs. I keep raising my price until I reach that point. Supply and demand are irrelevant. Manufacturing costs are irrelevant. What is relevant is the perceived worth of a dozen eggs.
John,
Supply and demand are irrelevant. Manufacturing costs are irrelevant.
LOL. As an old economist, what you just described is what they used to call utility or the price curve theory. I’m not sure what academia term they use now.
Actually, supply and demand (or the theory of) is based on utility of a product, unless demand is inelastic (goods and services for which no substitutes exist ).
So in essence, what you just gave the textbook definition of supply/demand theory.
However, you would have made Milton Friedman proud. You are either ahead of your time or behind the time. I’m not sure which…
“However, you would have made Milton Friedman proud. You are either ahead of your time or behind the time. I’m not sure which…”
Tex
I’ll take that as a compliment. Keynesian economics is garbage.
I just want to interject here as a native Texan and as a person who grew up in the oil patches of West Texas.
I fully blame the GOP for not taking action. It doesn’t take a whole lot of foresight to see how volatile the situation is in the Middle East. Kurt is correct. The main problem is speculation (and a weak US dollar). Supply/demand has some bearing – but why do you think the price of oil goes nuts everytime an Iranian dingie confronts an American warship in the Strait of Hormuz or when Nigerian terrorists kidnap an American oil worker or when Hugo Chavez flaunts his ass in America’s direction?
I fail to understand how a GOP-controlled Congress and a GOP President couldn’t have made some kind of progress on the issue in 6 years of shared control. I’m happy they have come to Jesus now. We can now paint the Dems as obstructionists because they won’t change their tune on drilling and exploration. We better tread carefully though lest we be called hypocrites.
I fail to understand how a GOP-controlled Congress and a GOP President couldn’t have made some kind of progress on the issue in 6 years of shared control. I’m happy they have come to Jesus now. We can now paint the Dems as obstructionists because they won’t change their tune on drilling and exploration. We better tread carefully though lest we be called hypocrites.
Philip, coming from the oil patch like you, I am in total agreement. The Republicans aren’t two steps ahead of the Dims in setting energy policy.
John,
To be referred in the same sentence as Milton is a compliment. I actually heard him speak once and he was even more fascinating in real life.
Nobody has really been two steps ahead in “energy policy.” It’s not high on the priority list as far as I am concerned.
Bottom line for me is nobody should be regulating prices in a free market.
We have our own oil we cannot even drill for.
Regardless though, companies can charge what they want and we will decide ultimately if we will pay it.
Um. Are we all forgetting that Clinton VETOED drilling in ANWAR?
That was his policy.
And according to some conservative economists, the speculators have nothing to do with the price- other than that they’re helping to keep it lower- as it was explained to me via Rush. But then there are those that would argue Rush is an idiot so I shouldn’t believe it.
The federal government’s energy policy and education policy should be based on this principle -
“Butt the hell out!”