Mitt Romney apparently believes that the president has the power to wave his magic president wand and cause gas prices to fall, and he just can’t figure out why Obama won’t do it. It’s hard to find another explanation for his increasingly strident and irrational rhetoric on gas prices.
Here’s the latest variant of the rhetoric:
Mitt Romney on Sunday morning not only blamed President Obama for the rising gasoline prices, but said that the president should fire three of his cabinet members who oversee energy issues.
Tagging them the “gas hike trio” – and pointing to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson – the former Massachusetts governor said they should lose their jobs.
Yet here is the reality: under President Obama, domestic oil production is much higher than it was at any point during the Bush years. Similarly, our use of foreign oil as a percentage of all consumption is way down – again, lower than at any point during the Bush years (this is due to decreased consumption as well as increased domestic production). The NYT has helpfully assembled some charts that accompany an editorial castigating Republicans for continuing to make sh!t up about gas prices.
Source: Energy Information Administration
The NYT has also demonstrated that local issues such as how many oil wells we’re drilling at home don’t really have much to do with gas prices. It’s a global phenomenon.
Source: Energy Information Administration
So the next time Mitt Romney says something about gas prices, you can relax. Odds are pretty good that it’s not true.
Letter from 68 members of congress to the CTFC:
March 5, 2012
The Honorable Gary Gensler The Honorable Bart Chilton
Chairman Commissioner
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Three Lafayette Centre Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW 1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581 Washington, DC 20581
The Honorable Mark Wetjen The Honorable Jill Sommers
Commissioner Commissioner
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Three Lafayette Centre Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW 1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581 Washington, DC 20581
The Honorable Scott O’Malia
Commissioner
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Three Lafayette Centre
1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581
Dear Chairman Gensler, and Commissioners Chilton, Wetjen, Sommers, and O’Malia:
We are writing to urge you to immediately enact strong position limits to eliminate excessive
oil speculation as required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
Act of 2010. As you know, the Dodd-Frank Act mandated that your agency promulgate and
enforce such limits no later than January 17, 2011. We are disappointed that, more than a
year later, the Commission has not fulfilled this important regulatory duty.
Congress determined that speculative position limits are an effective and critically important
tool to address excessive speculation in America’s oil and gasoline markets. It is one of your
primary duties–indeed, perhaps your most important–to ensure that the prices Americans
pay for gasoline and heating oil are fair, and that the markets in which prices are discovered
operate free from fraud, abuse, and manipulation.
There has been a major debate over the last several years as to whether spikes in oil prices are
caused entirely by the fundamentals of supply and demand or whether excessive speculation
in the oil futures market is playing a major role. It is clear to us that debate has
ended. Exxon Mobil, Goldman Sachs, the Saudi Arabian government, the American
Trucking Association, Delta Airlines, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, and
even a report last year from the St. Louis Federal Reserve have all indicated that excessive oil
speculation significantly increases oil and gasoline prices. According to a February 27, 2012
article in Forbes, excessive oil speculation “translates out into a premium for gasoline at the
pump of $.56 a gallon” based on a recent report from Goldman Sachs.
The facts bear this out. According to the Energy Information Administration, the supply of
oil and gasoline is higher today than it was three years ago, when the national average price
for a gallon of gasoline was just $1.90. And, while the national average price of gasoline is
now over $3.70 a gallon, the demand for oil in the U.S. is at its lowest level since April of
1997. Nor is the global supply of oil at issue. According to the International Energy Agency,
in the last quarter of 2011 the world oil supply rose by 1.3 million barrels per day while
demand only increased by 0.7 million barrels per day. Yet, during this same period, the price
of Texas light sweet crude rose by over 12%. Meanwhile, oil speculators now control over
80 percent of the energy futures market, a figure that has more than doubled over the past
decade.
As the cost for American people to fill their gas tanks continues to skyrocket, the CFTC
continues to drag its feet on imposing strict speculation limits to eliminate, prevent, or
diminish excessive oil speculation as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. Although the CFTC
has adopted initial position limits, they are not strong enough and not yet in force owing to
industry opposition, delays in swaps oversight and data collection. This is simply
unacceptable and must change.
We urge you to take immediate action to impose strong and meaningful position limits, and
to utilize all authorities available to you to make sure that the price of oil and gasoline
reflects the fundamentals of supply and demand. This could entail promulgation of rules
only with regard to the currently regulated exchange markets. Swaps rules should also be
implemented immediately, but even so, waiting for swaps rules to trigger all position limits is
simply not adequate to protect consumers. We urge you to develop alternative methods of
moving forward and to do so as swiftly and expeditiously as possible.
We have a responsibility to ensure that the price of oil is no longer allowed to be driven up
by the same Wall Street speculators who caused the devastating recession that working
families are now experiencing. That means that the CFTC must do what the law mandates
and end excessive oil speculation once and for all.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to receiving your
response.
Sincerely,
____________________ ____________________
Bernard Sanders Bill Nelson
United States Senator United States Senator
____________________ ____________________
Ron Wyden John D. Rockefeller IV
United States Senator United States Senator
…and 64 others.
gasoline prices..?
Romney’s continual lying has become constant and habitual. Unlike Nixon, though, he doesn’t seem like a liar. He doesn’t swear. He’s well-spoken. He acts completely sure of himself. He even equivocates with conviction. When news personalities try to corner him, his response comes across as one part lecture and one part condescension as if to a subordinate.
Painting him as a liar takes some work. How to do it? Who’ll do it?
Responsible journalists should report the facts, and should call politicians (of all persuasions) when their public statements don’t line up with the facts. Since the Reagan era, most mainstream journalists are (for whatever reason) reticent to fulfill this basic responsibility — they instead do the “he said, she said” style of reporting that makes everything seem to be a matter of opinion.
A prime example is global warming, and this is another. Mitt Romney’s attempts to tie high gas prices to Barack Obama (as if Mitt Romney could do any different) are simply dishonest.
Lost in all the smoke and mirrors is the reality that gas prices (together with ALL petroleum prices) are actually too low — they do not begin to reflect the full cost of both using and replacing them. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have kept gas prices far too low for decades — as a result, our alternative energy industries are still-born, our public transportation system is dead or dying, and we still rely largely on huge SUVs carrying one person 50-100 miles (at least) each and every day.
Progressives have been waiting since at least the presidential election of 2000 for “responsible journalists [to] report the facts” and “call [out] politicians …when their public statements don’t line up with the facts.” We could go on playing Vladimir and Estragon for many more election cycles. Instead, the practical and prudent progressive should recognize that “responsible journalists” have become an endangered species. Some stuffed representatives may even sit in behind glass at the Harvard Natural History Museum.
Until such journalists reappear in the wild, other measures are required.
And thanks for the edit … yes, I did mean “call out”.
CNN:
The noted Marxist welfare thugs at the Economist fulminate thusly:
The words “snake oil” and “cockamamie” are also used, in the contexts you would expect.
Do you know if it works as fuel for murder vehicles?
Happy days.
Obama will still be wiped out if he expects us to swallow gas prices 3-5 times what they were in the early 2000s.
The constitution gives the congress the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. Oil isn’t expensive, the dollar is cheap. Congress has the power to change that, they should use it.
Right now neither Romney nor Obama are close to the solution, but Romney is closer. If prices are the problem, it’s unlikely that Romney will stumble into the right solution on his own, but at least a few of his advisers are familiar with the context and the Republican Congress could be much better than the Democrats who are hopeless on the issue.
Say, I know – let’s redefine a quart as a gallon. Buck-a-gallon gas – problem solved!
I am growing increasingly convinced that the GOP primaries may not harm the GOP in the general so much at all, because the issues that could drive voters away will be thoroughly drowned by this issue in November. That is, I don’t think it matters that much if the GOP nominates Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, or John Birch: if people are skimping on groceries so they can buy gas to drive to work in November, then the GOP candidate has a huge advantage.
In the real world, I don’t think people pay any attention at all to the position that Mitt Romney took on the auto bailout in March. In the real world, people only pay attention when they’re pissed about something. And people get pissed when gas is dear. So Romney is going to talk about this a lot, so that when people get pissed, they find him talking about what they are pissed about.
This is likely to become a pretty big fly in the ointment to the President’s campaign plans.
I know the famous aphorism (attributed to Mencken) “No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public”.
Still, anybody who is stupid enough to fall for this pitch deserves whatever comes next. Seriously, this is about as valid as the Nigerian banker scam.
It is a shame that those Republicans would resort to such tactics
The reality is that this is a killer issue for Obama, as it was for his predecessor. And that there really isn’t very much he can do about it.
that comment worked better when it had the clip of Obama’s 2008 campaign ad complaining about high gasoline prices embedded from youtube. Won’t be able to go back and get the link for a little while now.
Candidate Barack Obama, in 2008, was trying to spur momentum for changing our energy policy. He failed.
He didn’t fail because he didn’t try. The same forces that stopped Barack Obama in 2008 will stop whomever is president in February of 2013 unless and until America does something about our gasoline addiction.
Failing that, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney nor Rick Santorum nor anybody else will make a difference.
Gasoline prices will continue to climb until we break our petroleum addiction. There is no way to avoid the pain that liveandletlive accurately and heartbreakingly describes. The trouble is that attempting to deny the inevitable will only make that pain worse … and worse and worse.
but compared to what currency? Back in ’08 you had a drastic fall of the dollar v. the Euro which was a huge contributing factor to the last runup, but I’m not seeing that now:
Dollar v. Euro 1 year chart
In the middle of tax season so my head is a bit in the sand, but to what currency preferred by OPEC has the dollar dropped dramatically to explain the runup? I don’t see the Euro as the one.
Your question assumes that the Euro is stable or tied to a stable unit of account like gold. In fact the Euro alters its value too, and if the ECB sees that the Fed is devaluing the dollar, then the ECB will devalue the Euro too, so that European producers don’t face a disadvantage in export pricing.
is what currency is the dollar falling against? Looked at the Chinese Yuan as well to see if that was the deal, but a year runup of .152 to .159 is only a 4.6% increase (despite deceptive scaling of y axis, not as dramatic as appears), which is far outstripping oil rise.
Keep hearing about dollar falling as a cause, but seriously, against what currency right now? Based on what I can see maybe a small contributing factor but probably outstripped by Iran fears.
To step in for seascraper:
He wants to measure the dollar against a “stable unit of account.” Because other worldwide currencies float, they are not “stable” and therefore any statement about the dollar vs. another currency can be discounted.
The “stable unit of currency” is gold, an ounce of which shall always be an ounce. So, says he, the dollar fell relative to gold (see the spike in gold prices) and therefore is worth less, which means more dollars are required to buy 1 unit of oil.
This is not entirely hogwash: historically, commodity prices of gold and oil seem to move in tandem. This may be because, for a long time, oil was sold by the producing nations for gold, and because when the price of oil rises, the doomsday preppers go running to buy gold as an inflation hedge, thus driving up the price of gold.
The problem is that if this were the problem today, one would expect the price of gold to be increasing again. But gold hit a peak late last summer, and has been bouncing around since then without approaching that peak. This means that the dollar hasn’t been falling against gold for the last six months or so, which means that the dollar falling against gold does not explain the present spike in oil prices.
The theory also suffers from the problem that an economy cannot produce new wealth with a fixed money supply, but that is not necessarily germane to this thread.
The relative value of any commodity is based on demand, yes? Is gold an exception that makes it stable? Is the idea that the demand of gold is constant relative to any particular currency and therefor can serve as a common denominator? Even if that’s true, is there any reason to think that the demand for oil is just as constant? That seems unlikely since oil is taxed very very differently across the globe which must necessarily affect the relative demand at any given moment. As such, it seems incorrect to think that a dollar fall relative to gold must necessarily be congruous to the fall relative to oil. Rather than “more dollars are required to buy 1 unit of oil”, shouldn’t it be “more dollars are required to buy 1 unit of gold”?
The notion is partly that if gold is a constant relative to any particular currency, that it can serve as a common denominator. I think that this is why oil was originally priced in gold, when the world oil market was beginning.
The other notion is that if a dollar is directly convertible to gold, then this is a protection against inflation of the dollar. This theory is silly (i) because gold reserves can only grow at the rate that the slow rate that the metal is mined, which makes economic growth is ipso facto deflationary and therefore difficult; and (ii) because of (i), governments eventually jettison the gold standard, which means that it doesn’t reinforce confidence in the currency anyway.
It seems to be true, rather roughly, that the price of gold and the price of oil in dollars both tend to move in tandem. I think that happens to be because the demand for both commodities is driven by similar factors, and doesn’t imply a cause-effect relationship, and so the comparison is not particularly edifying.
From time to time you may see a chart of the price of oil, in gold, which is interesting. But I often find that the date range and other parameters of the chart are chosen to make the ratio look artificially stable.
And yes, I think you are quite right to point out that gold isn’t some platonic ideal of “value” but is a commodity itself. It is possible that some of the increase in the price of that commodity is a reflection of increased demand in consumer electronics, rather than by inflation hedging.
… Beck’s crooks were able to move people’s understanding of the relative value of gold I’d say there is probably more caution warranted on the use of …gold as a universally congruent store of value. As commodities gold and oil are subject to calls for speculation and/or hoarding. Unless the market behaviors of speculation and hoarding affect each in exactly the same percentages, the use of the valuation of one commodity as a measure of the valuation of the other is prone to distortion.
The ‘rough truth’ you point out seems practical enough as a postulate, but I’d worry as such ‘general rules of thumb’ are prone to over-application.
And more direct than that.
It is a feedback loop.
1. Israel and Iran get everyone nervous about another war in the Middle East.
2. Future oil contracts rise in price, to account for perceived supply risk.
3. Price of oil up, price of gasoline up.
4. Glenn Beck: Blah blah blah oil prices blah blah Hayek blah blah gold standard blah blah gold blah blah Hitler blah blah buy gold now.
5. People buy gold now, price of gold rises.
6. Glen Beck: See? price of gold rose! Blah blah Hitler blah end of the world as we know it and I feel fine
… thing makes me that much more grateful for president Jackson’s failure to eliminate paper money.
The god standard would certainly have some advantages.
But they are like the advantages of sulfa drugs: other, modern things can achieve the same ends, better, and without the harmful side effects.
It made a lot more sense in a pre- or early industrial economy. Not so much when you can, in theory, sit at your computer for a long time and make something worth billions of dollars.
… though the gold market was prone to even more manipulation than now. Remember that not too long after Jackson was the Gould-Fisk disaster.
Not so much now. Probably the bigger problem now is the looming question of whether there is going to a be new war in the Middle East– with Iran.
our last discussion before I started to agree with you on oil prices affected by the weak dollar. I wasn’t being partisan, just not understanding the what you were saying and not going to take the WSJ’s editorial page’s opinion on it.
You are wrong to say that the weak dollar is the cause of gas prices, but right in that it is a factor:
Happy days.
I’m sorry I couldn’t stick with the last discussion, I’m trying to learn some new stuff and it’s soaking up my time on the ‘net.
I feel you are describing the mechanics of how prices go up and down, when the lunar view is just simpler to understand. When you get yourself wrapped up in the speculators, the drillers, the drivers etc, you open yourself up to solutions that don’t address the root of the problem. For instance let’s stop speculators or something like that.
I don’t see how you can realistically stop speculation. Closing down the market or trying to fix prices at a certain level for a certain period of time would lead to pent up demand from the market and probably more volatility down the line. Maybe you could somehow tax speculation or something, but even if it’s a problem, it’s not one that has a solution.
I don’t think the weak dollar is the root of the problem, but it’s certainly a factor. So is actual supply and demand and anticipation of supply shocks in the Middle East.
Please unpack the statement that gas prices are too low. Too low because taxpayer subsidies are off-setting the actual costs but artificially high because of hedge fund manipulation?
I wrote above:
I’m sure that various factors cause momentary peaks and valleys — none have been sufficient to alter our habits or culture. Whether intentional or not, the effect has been to keep petroleum fuels (gasoline and diesel) artificially cheap enough to choke competitive sustainable alternatives. We don’t build rail because we subsidize SUVs, highways and air travel, the vehicles we drive consume 2-3 times what is needed, and most contain one person for each daily round-trip — all because we keep petroleum artificially and unsustainably cheap.
is that these high oil/gas prices are a good thing, the higher the better! That means that green energy appears more affordable and people will turn to those options instead. The problem is that those options are not readily available. So the response to that is that the higher prices go on fossil fuels the better. Yay!! Keep on raising the price of gas, we like it!!!! What these activists don’t understand is that the price of gas and oil is causing real and desperate hardships for many people. Many living in barely heated homes all winter, buying less food so they can afford to drive to low wage jobs. No political party seems to share the message about the hardships these fuel prices are causing to the masses. Each party has it’s own agenda and uses the fuel price issue to support their agenda. The Republicans want more domestic drilling and the Democrats/Greens want alternative energy. Since alternative energy is still difficult to use, most people will prefer the message that we just need to drill domestically. When I talk to people about this, I do share that domestic drilling will not lower the price of gas. I have nothing to offer to people about affordable energy alternatives. They just aren’t there without a huge out of pocket investment that people can’t afford. If the Dems and environmentalist (of which I include myself) want people to use alternative energy, then they need to make it affordable and available. Applauding high gas prices as a means to get there will net you zero votes from Main St.
n/t
I meant to post it as an independent comment.
We’ve discussed this before.
To me, it is like discussing the “problem” of where to find the next needle-site on a smack-addict’s arm. The problem is, as you say, the alternative energy options aren’t available. They aren’t available because each and every time it starts to hurt, we just shoot up again. Low gas prices stop investors from risking investment in alternative energy companies. Low gas prices stop consumers from demanding rail alternatives, and so there aren’t any. It’s a vicious spiral, and it will continue until we either stop it or die.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I certainly do hear your pain. The difficulty is that trying to keep prices low makes it worse.
Nobody is “applauding high prices”. If you know of a way to make alternative energy affordable and available while using the full force and power of the federal government and US economy to keep gasoline cheap, I invite you to offer it.
The pain of acting today is less than the pain will be tomorrow. Ultimately, this addiction will kill all of us. It is real, and changing it will hurt. If the Democrats join the Republicans in lying about this in order to gain those Main Street votes, then what have we gained?
that are keeping investment in alternatives unappealing. Why look for alternatives when there is so much money to be made in fossil fuels?
Energy is a commodity, mostly. People will use the cheapest method to achieve a result. They don’t care if the vehicle is powered by gasoline or trilithium crystals, they just want to be able to reach their destination.
They are right that investment in “alternative” energy makes little sense if oil is cheaper. As oil becomes more expensive, other options that are presently expensive become viable, and– perhaps– may have some potential to become more cheap as they are scaled up.
The problem is that, as a political position, this is a huge difficulty. “We would like for you, and everyone you know, to be significantly poorer in every respect in order to stimulate alternative energy sources that may or may not be effective in changing the global-warming dynamic.” A tough sell.
I agree it’s a tough sell, and I agree that it’s a tough question politically. Perhaps insurmountably hard. If so, then our much-vaunted democratic system has failed.
We are attempting to deny the reality of our petroleum addiction just as we are attempting to deny the reality of global climate change.
I don’t know if the political leadership of earlier times could have solved this one. America has faced, and solved, similarly difficult political questions. So far, America — Democrats and Republicans alike — have failed to solve this one.
Perhaps the best we can do is drop back ten and punt (I hate sports metaphors). We should not delude ourselves into thinking that things will be any better tomorrow if we do, though. What we have been doing since the energy shocks of the Carter years is not working, and I see precious little indication that we have learned anything in the meantime.
when there are NO alternatives available? Investing in alternative energy makes no sense when you can’t possibly pull in billion dollar profits like you can in the oil industry. This does reinforce the idea that oil prices must rise to the point that those who invest in alternative energy can indeed make billion dollar profits too. But that is the greedy (American) way of doing things. It will create hardships on many, many people, for the sole purpose of lining the pockets of others. If oil profits weren’t so heart- stopping high, then profits on alternatives could look more appealing. As it is, I believe that the alternatives that are available, could be offered at a lower price, but the only incentive to get people to invest in it is ridiculous profits. We need to stop thinking that way. It’s getting us nowhere.
Hey, you mean that unbridled unrestrained self-interest isn’t the magic ingredient that makes us God’s chosen people?
Perhaps if some of those ridiculous profits were recaptured (even from alternative energy suppliers, if they ever materialize) and used to soften the impact on those who have no alternatives, we might all benefit.
We forget that America is a wealthy nation. The trouble is that most Americans have none of that wealth.
There are plenty of examples where people make investments in businesses with very low profit margins, just look at grocery stores or nursing homes. The key issue with investment in alternative energy is cost. Right now, the cost of many alternative energy sources are too high to make economic sense.
What follows is all made up, but I think will illustrate the key issue. If today, using solar, or wind, or biomass, I can produce the energy equivalent of 1 gallon of gas for $5, it doesn’t make sense to make it. There’s no market, people can buy gas for $3 or $4. However, if gas goes to $5.10 – and it looks like it’s going to stay there for a while, all of a sudden I can start making $0.10 for every gallon of energy I sell.
If I expect to be able to reduce my cost of producing that gallon of energy to $4.50 when I hit a certain volume, then I’m really in the money. If I expect gas prices to rise and my costs to stay the same, I’m in the money. I put together a business plan and someone with cash will invest in my business – viola a viable alternative energy market. I might not make billions, but I’ll be able to pay my investors – you don’t need billions, you only need 1% or 2% net margins…
Right now that gallon of alternative energy costs $1 or $2 more than the gasoline – the only way to make up the difference is to subsidize the difference, have the price of gas go up, or the price of my alternative drop. The first two are options, the latter probably isn’t.
Change is difficult. That’s always true.
It’s true, the Democrats want alternative energy. More precisely, they want less fossil fuel consumption [and maybe less nuclear, but that’s less consistent in policy]. Democrats have pushed for a number of policies which help make this happen, impacting all income and wealth levels.
* The MA lege has created and many MA cities and towns have implemented the stretch code, which requires higher building standards with respect to energy efficiency. Over time, more and more people will live in homes which require less oil or gas to stay warm, and less electricity to stay cool.
* The MA gov’t has created/funded/encouraged various home energy efficiency projects, including ones where you make a phone call and someone comes to your home to “audit” it for energy efficiency improvements — insulation and air sealing, boiler/furnace efficiency,
* At least some Dems are fighting to help the ~1,000,000 people who want to get to work each day without buying gasoline by helping to keep the MBTA and other regional transit agencies solvent.
* The Dems passed legislation which subsidizes on-home photovoltaic electric systems.
No single program works for everyone, and nobody is eligible for every program. Still, the idea is to help individuals use *less* energy [lower bills!] and, if we keep working at it, actually reduce the price of energy for all users due to a structural reduction in demand.
is that previous generations spent the massive amounts of money required to create an infrastructure to allow the use of fossil fuels. The infrastructure for non-fossil fueled transportation and electrical generation will be built, if our society doesn’t collapse first, because the costs of producing fossil fuels is going to become prohibitive. The smart thing to do would be to start building it now, which would help preserve the remaining fossil fuels and stimulate the economy. Once the new infrastructure is in place, a fossil-free electrical and transport system will be at least as “easy” as what we have now. Even if the present private-auto model is continued, it’s got to be much easier to fuel your car at home by plugging the thing into an outlet than it is to fill it with an explosive liquid bought at a special store.
They’re too low because none of the external costs are figured into the pump price. The costs of environmental degradation, respiratory disease, military adventures in support of the oil industry, and yes, the industry subsidies, are paid by everyone, whether they use gasoline or not.
.
But now you are. You are suggesting that the current spike in prices at the pump is the market self-correcting, and that is not the case.
I’m suggesting no such thing. Where in anything I wrote did you find any reference to the “market” or to “self-correcting”?
I’m suggesting that the overall price of gasoline is kept far below sustainable levels, and that it is pushed up and down around that too-low price-point by various factors — some of those include (1) parties who view a move up or down in their short-term economic interest, (2) parties who view a move up or down in their short-term political interest, (3) parties who view a move up or down in their short-term strategic (as in military) interest, and many more. As far as I’m concerned, that has little or nothing to do with any “market” or with “self-correcting”.
In my view, a better policy would be to impose an energy tax on all forms of energy, end the subsidies to big-oil, highways, and air travel, and invest the resulting revenue in some mix of alternative energy technologies and public transportation.
Seems to me that if Goldman Sachs admits to $.56/gallon gouge at the pumps that does right to Wall Street, and Frank-Dodd is supposed to regulate excessive speculation, and Warren is in the race, and Brown has voted against repeal of oil industry tax subsidies and against funding for enforcement of Dodd Frank, then that is a doable target. Leave the fact the prices are artificially low to a revised comprehensive energy policy. Niether Romney or Obama can actually talk about this before November.
So you want both candidates to lie, until at least after November?
Ok, fair enough.
sorry
I would prefer that we requlated the oil speculators who are clearly driving up the price in this instance and, in the process, put some teeth into Dodd-Frank. Obviously, you disagree. Apparently you think there is nothing to this argument; so what if Wall St makes a few unearned bucks at our expense, the real issue is that gas prices must be higher, not lower so we can devote our full attention to alternative fuels and walk to work in the meantime. How wise is it for Obama to say we’re going to raise prices before November?
BTW: lose the attitude.
Yes, of course we should regulate the oil speculators. Yes, of course we should put more teeth into Dodd-Frank, I agree with you about all that.
I think it’s intellectually dishonest to suggest that lower gas prices will result. I really do apologize for being impatient, but I’m really sick to death of the endless stream of rationalizations for why it doesn’t make sense to do anything “in this election cycle”. I’ve been hearing that ever since the Carter years.
Perhaps you are being sarcastic when you write “the real issue is that gas prices must be higher, not lower so we can devote our full attention to alternative fuels and walk to work in the meantime.” But the sad truth is that the real issue is that, at least in a market economy, gas prices must be higher if alternative fuels are ever going to be a viable option. That really IS the real issue. More of us DO need to “walk to work” — or bike, or take a train, or telecommute.
I’m not saying it’s good politics. I’m suggesting that gas prices are likely to rise before November. They’re likely to rise for several reasons — not the least of which is that it’s in the interest of oil companies, defense companies, the GOP, and various factions in the ME (significantly including Iran) for gas prices to rise during the campaign (especially in November).
There’s very little Barack Obama can do to stop that. If we passively accept the narrative that America can’t bear high gas prices, then we help assure the loss of Barack Obama. Then everyone will wail and gnash their teeth when President Romney (or President Santorum) goes on national TV to explain why they’re rising “for awhile longer” in his administration as well.
Candidate Mitt Romney is promising to end subsidies for Amtrak (our only passenger rail system). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (with a government totally dominated by erstwhile “Democrats”) is steadfastly refusing to take the steps needed to stop the unfolding collapse of the MBTA and commuter rail systems in Massachusetts.
While I agree with the steps you’ve proposed (regulate speculators, enforce Dodd-Frank, etc), they simply won’t matter if most Americans are still climbing behind the wheel of their SUV each workday morning in 2014.
And thanks for the response. I guess I’m more interested in the short game on this one as I don’t see how how the Pres or his opponents could possibly layout what needs to be done on a large scale in a way that would get them (re-)elected in Nov.
My sarcasm only reflects what seems to be a case of not being able to chew gum and walk down the street at the same time.This is is now part of the 0-sum game in D.C.
It is criminal what has been done to Amtrack and the T. So let’s take some oil subsidies and shift them to public transport as you suggest. got it.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why Democrats are not accusing Republicans of driving up the price of gasoline because of their irresponsible saber-rattling against Iran.
There’s all sort of business-oriented publications referring to Iran and potential disruptions of oil.