Comments on: The Feeding Frenzy Can Begin

By: fletch

fletch — Mon, 01 May 2006 23:27:02 +0000

And when we go, nature will start over. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up...

I know I've given up on ever seeing any evidence of intelligence in our government...

By: nopainnogain

nopainnogain — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 02:10:07 +0000

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why penalize a company just because they’re profitable? A profitable company secures jobs for Americans and provides dividends to their stockholders. How is this bad?

By: gc

gc — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 05:11:10 +0000

I love this idea of increasing taxes on oil companies because, you know, like, taxing products brings prices down, right? Argh!

By: Void Where Prohibited

Void Where Prohibited — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:56:52 +0000

Think gas prices are too high?

Link: Coyote Blog. Coyote Blog has a good post on what can be done. The answer is basically nothing. Or rather nothing should be done. The government is racing to find answers to the gas price, but the problem is

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:48:42 +0000

Well, I'd disagree with you about that. "No action" is indeed preferable to any of the actions you listed, of course. But that doesn't make it best. There are three areas in which government could act to substantially cut the cost of gasoline at the pump without introducing perverse incentives.

1. Stop blocking new refinery construction. We'd have enough refining capacity to meet our supply needs if it weren't for government interference. And projected supply shortages are the principal reason prices have been spiking lately, as they did last September after Katrina.

2. CUT or, even better, KILL the outrageous taxes on gasoline. Even in the lowest-tax areas, government gets the lion's share of the pump price. In some places (such as where I live), more money from my gas purchase goes to government than to the oil company, the refinery, the station owner, the tanker truck driver, and OPEC _combined_. Government could cut the price of _my_ gas by more than _half_, _tomorrow_, without negatively affecting _anybody's_ incentives.

3. Establish _national_ standards of gasoline blending, preempting localized standards and lifting the burden they place on the distributors and the supply chain.

Of course, all of these could be interpreted as "government doing nothing"...but that sort of "nothing" would require specific, active steps by elected officials, to cease and undo the meddling that's currently going on automatically.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:48:45 +0000

I’d like to see the government take more of a role in funding long-term research into alternative sources of energy. Perhaps a prize-based system would work well.

By: Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Right to Keep and Bear Arms — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 22:30:37 +0000

Think gases prices are too high?

By: Max Lybbert

Max Lybbert — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:21:39 +0000

I've been thinking about this one for a while, and I think *one* of the causes for discontent is some general feeling that prices should only ever go up if costs go up. That is, there's an opinion that rising demand should not raise prices.

Of course, the people holding this opinion would accept a pay raise, even if their "costs" didn't go up to justify the pay raise.

I'd love to climb on a rooftop and shout out "If you make yourself more useful to your company, or if your job becomes more valuable, your pay raise is an example of rising demand leading to higher prices." Although if I did that, I'd probably get arrested for being a public nuisance, and I wouldn't get my point accross anyway.