Free Republic

Do you want to reduce the price of gasoline by almost 60 cents a gallon immediately? Get the real price gougers. They take nearly 60 cents of every $3.00 gallon of gas. They should pay the windfall profits tax. They should be investigated. What are they doing with this money? How is it being spent? How are they ripping off the gasoline consumer? They manipulate the market in oil. They withhold large amounts of the oil supply from the public, artificially reducing the supply so that the price of gasoline continually goes up. They prohibit the refining of oil, and,...

Republicans from George Bush on down caved last week to the latest round of hysteria by agreeing, among other ideas, to yet another investigation of gasoline prices. Never mind that every time the matter has been reviewed, the verdict has been the same: market forces account for virtually all of the supposed "gouging." Not that one need have warm fuzzy feelings towards the oil companies and their extremely well paid executives. As the founder of economics, Adam Smith, observed in 1776, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a...

Gasoline Skyrocketing Gasoline prices have been on a tear recently with some of the largest weekly increases on record. In some parts of the country, prices at the pump have exceeded $3.00 per gallon for regular, although the average lingers near $2.80. Prices will go higher, muchhigher. These price increases, occurring fully two months before the summer season, have created alarm. The familiar cries in the press are back and predictably, politicians are looking for the usual suspects. Obviously, crude oil prices can in part explain the recent gasoline price increases, which almost mirror last year’s. Crude oil, which a...