Posted on 05/12/2008 9:06:22 PM PDT by jazusamo
Thomas Sowell bump.
Oh, yeah, that was fun! Some of the happiest hours of my childhood were spent sitting in gas lines, visiting with all my friends and neighbors, learning interesting new vocabulary from our parents ...
It was a joke.
I thought my “let congress set a price” comment was so obviously sarcastic, that I didn’t need to include
/sarcasm.
Economics knowledge is the engine that drives our society. To understand economics one must study History, Logic and Math. Guess which studies receive the least emphasis in our society?
A local radio personality, Ed Wallace KLIF, hosts an auto show. He evaluates new cars and writes articles for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and several Auto Magazines. He admits to being a former auto salesman but his knowledge and advocacy of economics is breathtaking. He explained how "Contango" operates.(Contango is the term which describes whether a commodity speculator is making money or loosing money on futures contracts.) For several years he has been stating that the growth of the Indian and Chinese economies were going to effect oil demand. He explained how China had a Communist rule about moving away from your home and place of work. Now the citizens are auto mobile, (unlike the pictures of Tienamen square when everyone was on bikes), and the demand for SUVs, (GASP) are soaring!!
Thomas Sowell and Ed Wallace would make and excellent Presidential Ticket!
I have been told, but cannot conform, that it is illegal to for the oil companies to list the gas taxes they pay.
But that is not the whole burden: add the gas taxes (road use tax) PLUS their SSN taxes, company AND personal income taxes (on the profits they get), company AND personal state taxes and income taxes, environmental taxes, and road taxes, and dump fee taxes, and real estate taxes .....
Add 5-7% sales tax on every item they purchase.
Add a visitor's tax and a restaurant tax on every person that works out of town in a hotel while drilling ....
Add a airport use fee on every flight they make to get to a meeting, or to go look for more gas and oil ....
That's easy enough to do. Computer>Laser Label Printer>Trip to the Gas Station. Just make sure that you are discrete about it.
Uriah — you forgot to add to your analysis that when the oil prices eventually ‘normalize’ that a lot of the newer speculators are going to get burned. Happens in every speculative bubble.
I remember those gas lines. Whenever my wife in a fit of disgust suggests artificially limiting gas prices, I remind her of those lines.
I ask her “Which would you rather have? The desire to go someplace & there be no gas? Or would you prefer to HAVE gas available when you need it?” Indications are that people are conserving gas by cutting down on trips in the car.
/sarcasm.
Mile-long gasoline lines were a real laugh riot back in the Seventies!
But some of us lost our sense of humor about it after a while . . .</sarcasm> tags are cheap. Here's a supply of them, free!</sarcasm>(Note that I made the code to display the code which will, if pasted into a reply, be parsed as </sarcasm>)</sarcasm>
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Can you explain the California taxes further, please? I do not follow. Am stunned by the 69-cent tax posted, however. I live here ...
This is a little out of date with current prices. Remember 6% Sales Tax. 1.25% county tax. 1.2 cpg state UST fee. plus local sales tax.
http://www.californiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx
I think the economic ignorance in our society is on purpose. The left cannot maintain power if people understand economics.
Sowell has done it again, though. Just when I thought I had a good handle on a topic, like why the left is so economically ignorant, he shows me another facet of the glittering jewel of ignorance that is leftism.
OK, so it’s not just economic ignorance on the part of leftists that make them take such stupid viewpoints on economic issues, it’s the “emotionally (un)satisfying” aspect of economics that adds to that ignorance, making it WILLFUL ignorance to satisfy their juvenile emotional needs.
You are out of your mind. Oil future prices are no more than what people today think Oil will be worth in the future. The term speculator is populist rhetoric. Once again, a populist pretending to be a conservative on the Free Republic!!!. Why can’t the owners of oil get together and sell futures? The oil is theirs. They have the right, nay obligation, to get the highest price possible. Just like you have the right to get the highest price for your labor or anything you sell, and you have the right to get the lowest price possible for anything you buy as long as the OWNER is willing to sell.
You need to read Thomas Sowell cover to cover and put one of his books under your pillow for a few months.
“That assumes that price is reality, and that money is a concrete thing. In fact money and prices are information, and the quantity of gasoline (supply) and your desire to go somewhere in a car (demand) are reality. If the government “sets the price of gas,” what it is actually doing is censoring the message you send to an oil company when you show up at the pump with your credit card in hand. It is the government telling you that you are not allowed to tell an oil company that you want a quart of gasoline more than you want a dollar.”
WOW, great post. If 51% of the people knew this we would be far better off.
Sowell’s economics books are going to be front and center in our homeschool curriculum.
I’ll have to generalize it for pre-k, but that’ll be part of the fun.
“Thomas Sowell and Ed Wallace would make and excellent Presidential Ticket! “
Don’t know about Wallace but I AM voting for Dr Sowell.
My comment was sarcasm, too :-).
Then of course you would be happy to receive your salary in information.
NYMEX crude up $2 suddenly. RBOB gasoline 3.21 suddenly. Heating oil 3.68 suddenly. What is going on?
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