When it comes to government policy and the politics that supports it, why people advocate what they advocate can get complicated.
It’s obvious that people don’t always vote their wallets, their narrowly perceived “self interest.” But it’s just as obvious that even the biggest advocates of “sacrifice” and “public spirit” often come off as greedy and narrowly pandering to at least some interests.
And then there’s the issue of fuel to throw on the fire of ideology.
Gasoline, especially, leads to some bizarre expressions of opinion.
When gas prices rise, people talk “conspiracy.” Chris Cuomo makes the case that “speculators” drive fuel prices up — though I notice that neither he nor his guest seemed much inclined to use actual economic analysis to explain anything. “The facts” Cuomo makes much of are embarrassingly superficial.
Two U.S. senators now push for regulators to “apply the breaks” on speculators. Current prices are, as one of them puts it, “unwarranted.”
In past decades, I remember some prominent politicians talk about adding huge taxes to gas, “just like in Europe,” to discourage consumption and “encourage green energy” and thereby “save the planet.”
I don’t hear those notions often, anymore. Could it be that none of us wants to pay more, so when gas prices rise, we forget our ideologies and other fine notions and just yearn (or scream) for cheaper gas?
Not exactly a rational attitude towards policy. But maybe not that mysterious, either.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “What’s Going Up”
Of course the noise drowns out the real reason gas is going up. It is not going up. The dollar is losing value. Printing trillions of dollars does have consequences. QE2 and, in a couple of months, the planned QE3 will exacerbate this price ‘increase’.
The “speculators” are all the people who looked at the currrent economic situation and the American future based on continuing to borrow huge amounts every year and decided that it was not sustainable. Those folks who decided that China is not going to loan to us forever and started placing their invested money into things besides dollars, those are the speculators who have driven the price up, by percieving that the dollar is no longer a good value and that it is more likely to lose money than to have a good rate of return.
Or they are just haters trying to make Presbo look bad.
Could go either way.
The biggest “manipulator” of gas prices is the federal government, with the gasohol mandates, shutting down or preventing drilling anywhere the b***t**ds from the EPA can reach.
Or preventing new refineries from being built because of the grossly excessive “environmental impact” studies that are required.
Add to these artificial limits on supply the deliberate destruction of purchasing power of the dollar by inflating the US currency through the Fed — voila — gasoline prices up 30% in the last 4 months, mileage down due to the lower energy content by volume, coupled with the added weight of all the mandatory ‘safety equipment’ and we have successfully destroyed the US economy.
In my opinion the trigger that burst the housing price bubble and the bank crisis was the price of gasoline going above the line which forced people to choose between making the mortgage payment and buying gas to get to work with.
Balance the federal budget by eliminating the EPA, DEA, TSA and the BATF — there is more than 200 billion in saving — not to mention the rebound in productivity.
Two U.S. senators now push for regulators to “apply the breaks” on speculators. Current prices are, as one of them puts it, “unwarranted.”
Didn’t you mean “apply the brakes?”
More oil in the US than in any other country in the world. Likewise natural gas. Likewise coal.
No new refineries built.
No new oil drilling.
No new nuclear reactors.
We have $4 a gallon gas BECAUSE of the govermnment. And will hit $5. And if we’re lucky, not $6.
The plan for “necessarily skyrocket“ing energy costs is right on schedule. Remains to be seen if the American economy can be permanently damaged before shrugging off the parasite/progressives.
Wasn’t the point of the president’s policies to force gasoline prices up (and consumption down)? Green energy didn’t make much sense if gasoline could outperform the electric car. Now he acts like he’s looking out for us? Whom does he think he’s kidding? No one needs to “make” this president look bad. He’s doing just fine on that score, all by himself.