Where Are The Lower Gas Prices, Ms Pelosi?

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm. You can leave a response.

12 Responses to “Where Are The Lower Gas Prices, Ms Pelosi?”

1. Reality Bytes
   June 18th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

   OK, just guessing, but, “because the democrat leadership hides behind being for the common man while pushing an elitist society agenda that will make gas, or anything else for that matter, affordable for only a select few?”

2. TheChicagoWay
   June 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

   I pull up to the gas pump and I start to thinkin’….Obama wants to add a tax, Democratic Senators want to write a complaint letter to the World Trade Organization and McCain wants to increase supply while at the same time increasing revenue to the US Treasury and reducing our trade deficit, not to mention lessening our reliance on tin pot dictators…… ….How do I choose?….. Mr. Friedman, can you help me out here?

3. clifcrds
   June 18th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

   Come on people! Just how many times do the Dimorats have to drag those evil capitalist Oil Robber Barons to Capital Hill for show trials to satisfy you? And if the Republicans would not be standing in the way of the Windfall Profits Tax Nancy “San Fran Nanny” Pelosi would bring the price of gas to at least $5+ a gallon! . . . . wait a minute . . . . that would be raising the price of gas, not lowering it. Oh well, when does logic and truth affect socialist rhetoric anyway.

   Besides, aren’t you people paying attention? The Dimorats have been busy holding show trials on important matters like the “non” outing of Valerie Plame, the liberal induced Home Mortgage Crisis (and then promptly hiding under the bed when it is discovered that 6 of your own were the biggest hypocrites), steroids in Major League Baseball (good thing Bin Ladin was pushing terrorism instead of steroids - the Dimorats would have found him long ago), insulting our military every chance they could get (Kerry & Murtha for instance), and making sure the taxpayer funded office they occupy should be a safe haven for such things as evidence of $90,000 “cold cash” in illegal kickbacks hidden in a freezer.

   You people act as if the Dimorat controlled congress has been idle for the past two years!

   OK - end of my rant. I can only take so much of my own cynical sarcasm for so long.

4. Greg England
   June 18th, 2008 at 5:31 pm

   So they want prices to come down … but they don’t want to increase supplies?
   How can we trust these people with macroeconomics when they don’t even get microeconomics?

   As for the comment about alternative fuels … that’s laughable.

   Even if you become a green moderate and invest in low CO2 technologies you
   are still going to end up with angry enviro-wackos. Read what the ultra-liberal
   pressure groups have to say about realistic low carbon power generation:

   Oppose nuclear power
   http://www.greenpeace.org/inte.....ns/nuclear

   Oppose “large scale” hydroelectric power
   http://www.greenpeace.org/inte.....roelectric

   Turn their noses up at carbon capture:
   http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/b.....s-20080103

   Doncha just love it?

5. retire05
   June 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

   I get it. Do you get it? I get it.

   The Democrats, most who belong to the Democratic PROGRESSIVE Caucus, have been wanting to crater our economy for a long time. It is only by reducing the power of the United States can they acheive their “one world” view of utopia.

   The Dems have been of the opinion that higher gas prices would eliminate use. Never mind that China and India are sitting in their banks laughing their asses off at us. The stupid Democrats are going to wind up doing what China could not do on it’s own even with counterfit money and stealing American national secrets; make the U.S. a second rate nation.

6. wardmama4
   June 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

   The Dems also want an ‘excuse’ (i.e. some stupid point that the stupid masses will believe) to nationalize (i.e. socialize) the gas/energy/oil fields. They are chomping at the bit to do this and slowly but surely nationalize oops, socialize every damn thing and turn America into another loser paradise ala Father Fidels Cuba. . .or as retire05 said - a second rate nation.

7. Greg England
   June 19th, 2008 at 3:09 am

   “The Dems also want an ‘excuse’ (i.e. some stupid point that the stupid masses will believe) to nationalize (i.e. socialize) the gas/energy/oil fields.”

   To backup your point, I have heard people in the UK:

   (1) Bang on about the speculators … as if futures trading is behind the increase in prices.
   (2) Call for energy fields to be nationalised … like in Venezuela!!!

   I replied that I wouldn’t look to Venezuela for solutions. I also replied that speculators were a red herring.

   However, Rush Limbaugh provided a far more robust defence of futures trading, which you may wish to employ the next time a liberal tries to shoehorn their anti-speculation demagoguery into a debate:
   http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ho.....guest.html

8. Diane
   June 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am

   I honestly don’t know enough about economics to know if futures trading had much to do with the spike or not, but I don’t see that it matters. The only way that futures trading could spike the price would be if there are enough people scared that the price is going to rise uncontrollably. If the supply were more stable - i.e. not principally in the hands of those who hate the US or are, at best, ambiguous towards us - it wouldn’t happen.

   Let’s see, now - what could we in the United States do to increase our domestic supply and production of oil? I’m sure there’s an easy solution…

9. Greg England
   June 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

   “The only way that futures trading could spike the price would be if there are enough people scared that the price is going to rise uncontrollably.”

   Diane - I don’t know a great deal about futures trading either so I was going out on a limb. I just like applying my opinionated common sense. I hope the board forgives me, and bears with me as I figure this out. If you have an articulate exposition of this subject then I would be happy to hear it.

   The prices must be rising for a reason:

   (a) Because suppy and demand have shifted position
   (b) Because of increased taxes
   (c) Because the government is printing lots of money, or keeping interest rates low
   (d) Because you are dealing with a monopoly or cartel and they can charge what they like.

   There has been quite a serious bubbles in the UK property market because of (c) and because of a diversion of capital away from other investments. However, that bubble is starting to deflate, as the market cools.

   Oil is different:

   Unlike property, oil is something that we must consume daily to survive. Demand is inelastic:

   (a) The distance to work remains the same regardless of the price, and not everyone can cycle to work.
   (b) Plus the hydrocarbons are used for plastics etc.
   (c) There is only so much insulation you can have in your house. You must heat it in winter.

   I’m sure speculative bubbles happen sometimes, but there is no such thing as magic money. Assuming that prices cannot rise indefinitely away from fundamentals, then sooner or later someone will rumble the ruse, and the bubble will burst.

   Finally … every time I read about those “nasty” speculators I smell a rat. More often than not, it’s a disgruntled liberal/socialist analysis, because the next statement always appears to be “and so we should nationalise the oil industry”. I know that’s not a good reason for rejecting the speculator hypothesis, but I’m being honest.

   Therefore - I suspect that your comment about stable supplies and increasing oil supplies is probably quite accurate.

   —————————————————————————

   The Telegraph is not convinced either that the rising prices are due to speculation:
   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/mon.....iam115.xml

   —————————————————————————

   Wikipedia has some interesting insights into hedging:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_markets

10. Diane
    June 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

    @Greg - You owe me no apology. That’s really just my uneducated opinion. I do agree with you, though. The whole “futures traders are causing the problem!” strikes me as just another way for the Democrats to demonize a segment of the population that appears to have money. As far as I can tell, the only people the liberals want to be rich are (a) Hollywood and other entertainment “celebrities” and (b) liberal politicians.

11. Greg England
    June 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

    Thanks Diane.

    I have spent enough time as an industrialist working alongside universities to realise that much human knowledge is inaccessible because the people studying and creating it are specialists. I recognise the necessity for specialism but I also recognise that it is sometimes used as a weapon against generalists such as myself.

    For example:

    You often hear of scientists who claim to have discovered this-that-or-the-other (e.g. that love is just a chemical process, and that in the future we will all have computers embedded in our skulls, and our souls will be software) and the media blindly report this stuff without questioning the sanity of the scientists coming up with this drivel.

    I find the same holds true of economics. Rather than attempt to explain the underlying economic principles, some commentators dress up their flawed arguments in highbrow fashion, so as to mask their true agendas.

    ——————————————————————————–

    To the blogging community: I hope I’m not off topic too much here. But it comes back to basic principles.

    Do you trust someone when they tell you that oil companies have to be punished for high prices?
    Or that futures trading has to be curbed?

    Or do you think that maybe the developing world is starting to use lots of oil as well as the US/UK and that maybe we ought to do something about it (I mean increase supplies, not boycott Chinese goods) :o)

12. sheehanjihad
    June 19th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

    Drill here…Drill now. Use our domestic supply to buy us a couple of decades to develop all of the alternatives they can think of. Muzzle the anti you name it activists. Just make up our minds to rid ourselves of this pus called activism, lance the boil of political correctness, and for once….JUST ONCE….let the actual majority decide what will happen. I am so sick of this crap I could scream.

    Once the world is fully aware we intend to carry out our threat to achieve independence….they will back off, back down, and grovel for our money. They have paid congress billions to make sure that doesnt happen. Lets pay them back, with our ability to do whatever we set out to do.

    Lets take our country back from the “global freakin community” and make it our Nation again.

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