The View From 1776

Gasoline Price-Gouging?

Oil companies are not, as angry consumers believe, generating higher profits by gouging at the gasoline pump.  Demanding that your political representatives impose windfall taxes or price controls will guarantee even higher pump prices long into the future.

1. Quote -"One legacy of New Deal socialism is the now unquestioning assumption that the Federal government can and ought to fix whatever problems come our way, rather than allowing the ingenuity of millions of individuals to find accommodations and solutions.”

   Isn’t that an exaggeration, about our expectations of government ? But then, we exaggerate to emphasis a point. Mr. Brewton exaggerates here to tell us that Exxon Mobil is behaving in the true American way, in a way that most of us champion, in a way that the economy depends on. He also exaggerates to scold us for being cry babies.  After all, we should also take responsibility for high oil prices because we, as owners of gas guzzlers and being big consumers of energy, have helped push up prices. He is saying something to the effect that we can’t have it both ways. Without the oil companies profiting we wouldn’t have oil at all, period.

   However, our complaining is part of the system and we shouldn’t be denied our bitching. Such bitching ‘pushes the envelop’ to find alternatives and to ignite the “ingenuity of millions of individuals to find accommodations and solutions” Mr. Brewton speaks of. Complaining and bitching is also part of the American way. It is done for the purpose of keeping the system and government accountable and transparent. Without it we would be worse of.

   It is not wrong to expect government to help fix and correct things. That is what government is for. That is why it was invented, to maintain a healthy infrastructure. For instance, the government should have done a better job after Katrina, but instead made things worse. I am putting words into Mr. Brewton mouth, but the expectation of good government management after Katrina had nothing to do with the New Deal as his argument suggests. Had the American people a more competent government, whose incompetency and mismanagement can’t be blamed on the New Deal, the pain of Katrina wouldn’t have been so bad, nor would oil prices be so high.

   Perhaps the New Deal can be blamed for the government’s incompetence, as it is blamed for everything else that ills America. If this administration hadn’t been so consumed with trying to undo the legacy of the New Deal it may have been more focused on being a more competent one.

   Can the New Deal be blade for the bungling of the Iraq war?

   Posted by  on  04/30  at  09:49 AM

2. For once, I agree (for the most part) with Brewton.  The proposals from Congress for the $100 gas rebate or the temporary repeal of the federal gas tax are simply ludicrous and would be risible if they didn’t expose such a profound lack of leadership and vision from our elected leaders. 

   However, I think everyone agrees that oil companies’ vast profits recently are indeed windfall profits, which is to say, they arose from external conditions outside the oil companies’ control, not from the oil companies’ hard work or investment or risk-taking.  Therefore, I don’t think that windfall taxes are necessarily a bad idea.

   Posted by the Judge  on  05/01  at  01:41 AM