Replies

"We simply need more refining capacity -- It's not price. "

At the moment it's price due to a shortage in production because of the refineries offline in MI and LA as well as offshore rigs in the Gulf being offline. It'll be a month before that mess is straightened out.

IT IS a good time to consider building new refineries and get the red tape finished for oil exploration in ANWR, but the refineries will take years to go online and ANWR will take more than a year if the paperwork were filed by interested companies today.

The moratorium on fuel additives by the president is to offset this immediate and LOOMING problem - though it's only for 2 weeks and IMO two weeks isn't enough. The tax moratorium by Georgia's governor is to help the local economy from being squeezed to death by sky-high gas prices. Even though some people tritely inform us we must use less, everyone who works uses a certain minimum below which they cannot go.

So I have a tanker of gas to sell, in Mississippi I can get $2.50 a gallon, in Georgia I can get $2.20 a gallon. Choices choices.

If you lower the price of a commodity when there is a shortage you will get more shortages -- Not more of the commodity. Lowering the price produces not one additional gallon of gas. If you allow the price to rise to strike a balance with the market, demand vs price, you will alleviate the shortage and those that must will buy.

Free markets will find the optimum free market price. If you try price fixing, your next step will be to become the distributor and start demanding supply be equalized. The spiral is endless, as the managed economies have found over and over again.

Shortages will disrupt the economy, price cuts will please the people. Choices.