Down with the evil Gas lords II: Kaak's Revenge!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
im the only one here without an economics degree.


one day ill have a phd.

Don't worry, you make more sense than kid. I normally don't 'drop degrees', but it had to be done to counter Kid's 'dropping of degrees'.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Don't worry, you make more sense than kid. I normally don't 'drop degrees', but it had to be done to counter Kid's 'dropping of degrees'.

I wasn't doing it to win an argument. That would be stupid. I'm explaining why I don't get arsed into explaining basic concepts to people who think that I don't know them.

[Velociryx]

Random thought:

Perhaps....just perhaps mind you, if you demonstrated said knowledge now and again....or at least the barest beginnings of understanding....you wouldn't have to explain?



-=Vel=-

[Lawrence of Arabia]

ur is retiring, check community forum

[Imran Siddiqui]

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
ur is retiring, check community forum

WTF?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
im the only one here without an economics degree.


one day ill have a phd.

I don't have an economics degree

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I have to say that Flubber doesn't have a problem grasping basic concepts although I would say that his perceptios are just about as out of wack as yours.

Have you found many people that share your perceptions?

Mine are based on how I see things actually work inside 4 different oil companies. Sorry you think they are out of whack but my "perceptions" are a mostly factual account of what I have actually witnessed. I have sat in the room when the economic analysis of an opportunity is assessed .

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Flubber


I don't have an economics degree

Neither do I

[Arrian]

the big idea
I Smell Gas
A subject that makes congressmen stupid.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Wednesday, April 26, 2006, at 3:51 PM ET



Few topics seem to addle the collective brain of Washington like high gas prices. Politicians who raise this issue can generally be assumed to be partisan, cynical, demagogic, and dishonest. But one must not discount the possibility that something about the subject actually makes them stupid.

With gasoline prices now spiking around $3 a gallon—near their inflation-adjusted 1981 peak—we are witnessing stupidity on wheels. Republicans, who as incumbents fear that they will be blamed, are in a kind of frenzy to abandon free-market principles, basic economic reasoning, and increasingly, reason itself. Their week began with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert calling upon the Bush administration to investigate possible price-gouging and market manipulation. The Republican leaders went so far as to recommend "sweeps" of gas stations to confirm that price increases reflect "changes in market conditions" and are not merely attempts by businesses to earn money. The next day, President Bush joined in calling on the Bush administration to launch an investigation. As it happens, a Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible market manipulation is already under way from last year, when Bush and Congress asked for one following a post-Hurricane Katrina gas-price rise. While he was at it, Bush also asked Congress to repeal the tax breaks they joined together to give to the oil companies last year.

Republican talk about price-gouging is inane at several levels. If you don't have some sort of monopoly power, gouging is another word for charging the highest price the market will bear, also known as capitalism. This is why the FTC investigation has turned up nothing. What constrains filling stations from marking up gas excessively is not the fear of prosecution but competition from other filling stations. Even many Republican congressmen understand this, but calling for an investigation is a good way to deflect attention from the party's favoritism toward corporations that are now so profitable that they have become unpopular. Of course, there is outrageous anti-competitive conduct in the petroleum industry—it's called OPEC. But no presidential administration, especially the current one, takes seriously the idea that this price-fixing cartel is a criminal conspiracy under American law. Republicans would sooner propose a windfall-profits tax—an anti-market notion if ever there was one—as Sen. Arlen Specter recently did.

Democrats, who can barely restrain their glee at this political opportunity, bandy the same implausible complaints about gouging and "speculation" and speak even more enthusiastically about confiscating oil-company profits. They also have their own distinctive form of gas-price stupidity, which is to ignore the conflict between the environmentalism they espouse and the cheap fuel they demand. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi even moaned about high gas prices in her Earth Day statement last week. If you care, as Pelosi claims to, about clean air and preserving the coastline, you should welcome high gas prices. Even Al Gore, who once called cars "a mortal threat to the security of every nation," decried high gas prices when he ran for president in 2000. Democrats like to argue that gas prices are high because Bush has done too little to develop alternative energy sources and reduce dependence on imported oil. But it is high oil prices, far more than ethanol subsidies or incentives to buy hybrids cars, that will drive the development of new fuels.

And then there are the gas-related idiocies that afflict both sides. Bob Menendez, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, has already raised the perennial Republican notion of "suspending" the 18-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax, an idea that is bad for too many reasons to enumerate in a single day. A number of Republicans are now repeating the Democratic shibboleth that overpaid oil-company executives, rather than supply and demand, are somehow to blame. Whichever party is out of office tries to assert that the party in office has the power to reduce gas prices but simply chooses not to do so. Everything Democrats are now saying about Bush echoes what Republicans said about Bill Clinton when gas prices spiked in 2000. When you're out of power, you attack the president for not using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or, if he gives in to your demands, you denounce him for misusing it. "The strategic reserve is meant for times of war or a major disruption in oil supplies," Bush told an audience in October 2000, when he was criticizing Al Gore for (hypocritically) proposing to do the same thing Bush has just ordered done. If you are a Democrat, you get the option of either attacking the president for not leaning on his Saudi buddies to turn on the oil spigot, or accusing him of manipulating the Saudi oil supply for political gain in advance of an election.

What none can acknowledge is that higher gas prices in the United States are a good thing. To be sure, oil at $70 a barrel causes hardships for working people and delights some of the world's worst dictators. But cheap gasoline imposes its own costs on society: greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and its attendant health risks, traffic congestion, and accidents. The ideal way to cope with these externalities would be with higher gas taxes or a carbon tax. But these are politically impossible ideas at the moment—Democrats lost control of Congress in part because they passed a 4-cent-per-gallon tax increase in 1993. The next best solution is the one that has arrived on its own: a high market price for oil, which spurs conservation and substitution. Sustained high prices will bring about behavioral and political changes: energy conservation, public transportation, less exurban sprawl, and eventually the economic viability of alternative fuel sources such as biomass, fuel cells, wind, and solar power, which may one day undermine the power of the oil oligarchs. Are politicians too stupid to understand this, or just smart enough not to say it aloud?

Jacob Weisberg is editor of Slate and co-author, with Robert E. Rubin, of In an Uncertain World.

[Velociryx]

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Going a Short Way to Make a Point

By Dana Milbank
Thursday, April 27, 2006; A02



Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Gas prices have gone above $3 a gallon again, and that means it's time for another round of congressional finger-pointing.

"Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled!" charged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), standing at an Exxon station on Capitol Hill where regular unleaded hit $3.10. "They are too cozy with the oil industry."

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) -- even though her Senate office was only a block away.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) used a Hyundai Elantra to take the one-block journey to and from the gas-station news conference. He posed in front of the fuel prices and gave them a thumbs-down. "Get tough on big oil!" he demanded of the Bush administration.

By comparison, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) was a model of conservation. She told a staffer idling in a Jetta to leave without her, then ducked into a sushi restaurant for lunch before making the journey back to work.

At about the same time, House Republicans were meeting in the Capitol for their weekly caucus (Topic A: gas). The House driveway was jammed with cars, many idling, including eight Chevrolet Suburbans (14 mpg).

America may be addicted to oil, as President Bush puts it. But America is in the denial phase of this addiction -- as evidenced by the behavior of its lawmakers. They have proposed all kinds of solutions to high gas prices: taxes on oil companies, domestic oil drilling and releasing petroleum reserves. But they ignore the obvious: that Americans drive too much in too-big cars.

Senators were debating a war spending bill yesterday, but the subject invariably turned to gas prices. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) engaged his deputy, Dick Durbin (Ill.), in a riveting colloquy. "Is the senator aware that the L.A. Times headline reads today, 'Bush's Proposals Viewed as a Drop in the Bucket'?"

"I'm aware of that," Durbin replied.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) responded with an economics lesson. "Oil is worth what people pay for it," he argued.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) sounded the alarms. "We are one accident or one terrorist attack away from oil at $100 a barrel!"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) made a plea for conservation. "We have to move quickly to increase our fuel efficiency," she urged.

But not too quickly. After lunchtime votes, senators emerged from the Capitol for the drive across the street to their offices.

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) hopped in a GMC Yukon (14 mpg). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) climbed aboard a Nissan Pathfinder (15). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) stepped into an eight-cylinder Ford Explorer (14). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disappeared into a Lincoln Town Car (17). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) met up with an idling Chrysler minivan (18).

Next came Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), greeted by a Ford Explorer XLT. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Menendez had complained that Bush "remains opposed to higher fuel-efficiency standards."

Also waiting: three Suburbans, a Nissan Armada V8, two Cadillacs and a Lexus. The greenest senator was Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was picked up by his hybrid Toyota Prius (60 mpg), at quadruple the fuel efficiency of his Indiana counterpart Evan Bayh (D), who was met by a Dodge Durango V8 (14).

As a political matter, Democrats clearly sense that they have the advantage on the high gas prices, judging from the number of speeches and news conferences. "The cost of Republican corruption when it comes to energy is hitting home very clearly for America's middle class," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) exulted yesterday morning.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced an amendment to repeal oil-company tax breaks and distribute $500 tax rebates to consumers. It was quickly ruled out of order.

But Republicans were clearly feeling defensive. "We passed an energy bill last year, last July," House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) pleaded at a morning news conference. "It changes CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards. It changes some of the things that we can do -- I'm sorry, changes not the CAFE standards, but changes some of the supply issues, boutique fuels, all these things."

Only Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), who can speak freely because he is retiring, was willing to note the disconnect between rhetoric and action. "People say, understandably, 'Solve our energy problems right now, but don't make us do anything differently,' " he said on the Senate floor.

If the politics of gasoline favor Democrats at the moment, the insincerity is universal. A surreptitious look at the cars in the senators-only spots inside and outside the Senate office buildings found an Escort and a Sentra (super-rich Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl's spot had a Chevy Lumina), but far more Jaguars, Cadillacs and Lexuses and a fleet of SUVs made by Ford, Honda, BMW and Lexus.

A sampling of senators' and staff cars parked along Delaware Avenue NE found that those displaying Democratic campaign bumper stickers had a somewhat higher average fuel economy (23 mpg) than those displaying GOP stickers (18 mpg). A fuel-efficiency rating could not be found for the 1970s-era Volkswagen "Thing" owned by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

Maybe, lawmakers are starting to learn. When GOP senators had a lunch Tuesday a couple of blocks from the Capitol, many took cars. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) emerged from the lunch looking for his ride when he spied The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray. Reconsidering, he set out on foot. "I need the exercise," he reasoned.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

-=Vel=-

[KrazyHorse]

Nice article, Arrian

[Arrian]

Slate's generally pretty good.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Vel's is a good one, too. Heh. ****in' politicians.

-Arrian