Supply and what?
Ok, this is a rant since I'm referencing NO sources to back it up.
But the crisis du jour (FRENCH! NOOOO!) is gas prices. And they say they have to be fixed. Why is this a good idea? Gas prices are too high! So why fix the prices? Because I NEED my gasoline! Ok, so leave the prices alone. (Hey, look! Rhetoric! I'm just like St. Paul!) But what happens when gas reaches $20 a gallon? Maybe folks will not use it as much? Maybe they'll stop investing in THE ULLLLLLLLTIMATE EEEEEEEEEVIL (the SUV). Maybe we'll get serious about an alternative fuel? Maybe we'll drill in ANWR? (The U.S. must keep its preserves pristine. Let all of those unwashed heathen savage countries go drill in THIER nature preserves, ok?) Maybe Barbera Streisand and Ted Kennedy will take a bus? (Bahahahahaha! Somebody photoshop that, please!) (I want to invent a product that becomes a verb!)
Do I like high gas prices? No, faithful reader, but I address that point shortly.
Instead, we're talking about subverting supply and demand. That worked real well for the Soviets. And the Germans c. 1935. The way it's SUPPOSED to happen, prices go WAY up, demand falls off. Prices come back down. Life is good. Instead, we're going to keep the prices the SAME and then nobody will CHANGE and then we'll just run OUT OF GAS. (My favorite episode of Firefly, btw.) (See? No links whatsoever!) Or the demand will stay stay the same and we'll at least need to keep fixing the prices. So the problem goes on LONGER. (Told you I'd get to it.) We're not fixing it, we're extending it.
Here in the Valley of the Sun (not a hundred degrees yet, and it's April! What the heck?) we had a MAJOR crunch a couple of years ago when a pipeline burst. Nobody did anything about the crazy prices. Plus, prices be darned, we were just OUT. You waited in line for hours and the pumps were just empty. Can't overcharge for NOTHING. (Unless your name is Lucas.) You know what happened? People started working from home if they could. They rode bikes. The BUSSES GOT CROWDED (we in Phx etc. are not known for our transit system). (Monorail!) (I almost linked to something. Go look it up.)
So all we're really going to do is maintain the status quo (Latin, not French) and keep the same problem. Grrr. Arrgh.
And it looks like the President is going to go for this. I haven't been this disapointed since Attack of the Clones.
(Did you know they now make Coke-a-Cola with COFFEE in it?)
3 comments:
I see what your saying about keeping prices high to curb demand, but the fact is that the current prices have nothing to do with supply or demand, it's just what the oil companies know they can charge before some repurcussions begin to occur.
The repercussions are that people will buy less and you will make less money. They should not be "The Man will come down on you." It's not KEEPING prices high, it's allowing them to be what they should be. It has everything to do with supply and demand. If the price can go up and people buy it, there is a demand. If people stop buying it (through choice or necessity), the price comes down. Has to. If it doesn't, then the Big Bad Corporations are no longer acting on their Insatiable Greed(TM) because they've decided they have enough (which according to popular wisdom CANNOT happen).
People seem to want petroleum to be both a precious resource ("We're killing the planet") as well as a common commodity (everybody should be able to have it). Nobody complains that gold is too expensive. Or plutonium. Or F-16s. Or Cessnas. Or Jaguars (The car. OR the cat, either one.) These are acknowledged to have a high price and people are ok with that. Their scarcity gives them value. There are a lot of things that cost a lot that we still use a lot. I guess we just don't buy them as OFTEN or something.
If we really run out of cheap fuel (and it is cheap, even at $4.00 a gallon - ask someone in 1780 how much they'd pay for the power we take for granted) then an alternative will be found. (For you conspiracy theorists out there that think the Big Bads are having inventive folk WHACKED when they develop Mr. Fusion, then THAT'S the problem that needs to be addressed, not fixing prices.)
Heh, I think it was Heinlein who wrote about somebody who came up with a gizmo that provided virtually unlimited power. The McGuffin was that it was SO complicated that the inventor didn't patent it because to patent it you have to explain it. He figured (rightly) that if he didn't patent it, no one would be able to figure it out. He wound up being the most successful (and I would imagine, reviled) man on the planet. Of course, Heinlein's views on supply and demand make me look like Gene Roddenberry.
Gas, $3+ a gallon, made from crude oil that is basically a limited resource and refined through a difficult expensive process requiring skilled engineers and labor workers.
Starbucks Coffee, $32+ a gallon ($4/16oz grande), made from beans that grow on plants, ground and brewed with water, (some add milk that comes from cows) - a process so simple it can be done at home.
Supply and demand.
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