[Gordongekko909]

Thomas Sowell to the rescue! As always, an awesome read. But waaaay down at the bottom is an amazingly elegant explantion of why oil company profits are as high as they are: because gasoline prices rise in response to crude oil prices, even if the crude oil used to make that gasoline didn't cost as much when it came out of the ground. That's what's happening right now: the gasoline that we're buying right now came from relatively cheap oil, but with crude prices going up, oil profits will plateau out.

The same thing happens if crude oil prices drop: the oil companies suddenly have to sell gasoline at a loss. The amount that they're paying for the crude will eventually catch up to the price at the pump, but there's a short-term loss.

So yeah, an even better read than usual.

Ping coming in a few hours; I'm typing this from a different computer than the one that I have the ping list saved on.

[Rummyfan]

One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work.

Our leading pols have made it abundantly clear in the last week that they have no idea how the market economy functions.

[The Great RJ]

I will be sharing Prof. Sowell's article with my Microeconomics students. I raised many of these same points in a class discussion last week. However, I don't expect to make much headway on this topic with my wife (also a college professor) who rants about "obscene" oil company profits whenever she fill her car with gas.

[goldstategop]

Politicians have never cared about economics. If they did, none of them would be in business. Its amazing people complain the price of gas is always too high. You should hear the racket in this country when gas broke the $1.00 a gallon benchmark. And somehow despite the demagoguery and stupid pandering of our politicians, we've managed to do quite nicely thank you. Now do we really want to go back to the Jimmy Carter days just to save a measly buck on gas? We'd need a really rotten economy to drive down the price of gas.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Babu]

Obviously little or no economics are taught in the "Guv-mint" schools. Otherwise, as Rush said yesterday, congress critters wouldn't be trying to sell you snake oil by the gallon ...

"How far will your car go on that gallon of snake oil?"

[Gordongekko909]

Thomas Sowell *PING*

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[beyond the sea]

Oily Politicians

REDUNDANT!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!