Free Republic

An article in The Contributor today tells the startling news from Occupy Arrests: Over 7,700 Wall Street protesters have been arrested since September 2011. That’s 7,700 more protesters arrested than Wall Street executives, even after the largest financial crisis in history. Some people wonder if no Wall Street executives were jailed because no Wall Streeters actually did anything illegal, however unethical their actions. We strongly don’t think this is the case. You can read the cases against specific individuals like Jon Corzine (here, here, and here), Dick Fuld (here, here, and here), and Angelo Mozilo (here, here, and here). But...

Here's what one reader wrote: "Williams, I can understand how the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and Middle East political uncertainty can jack up gasoline prices. But it's price-gouging for the oil companies to raise the price of all the gasoline already bought and stored before the crisis." Several other readers made similar allegations. Such allegations reflect a misunderstanding of how prices are determined. Let's start off with an example. Say you owned a small 10-pound inventory of coffee that you purchased for $3 a pound. Each week you'd sell me a pound for $3.25. Suppose a freeze in Brazil destroyed...