Congress Allows US to Sue OPEC
Pointed to by Prince Corwin, it appears that congress passed a measure that allows the US to sue OPEC for setting oil prices. Um…. supply and demand anyone? Free markets? I personally believe that the price of gasoline has been kept artificially low for years and that is going to cause real problems in the future. Gas is expensive because there is less of it available. Hopefully it will continue to become more expensive in manageable chunks allowing our economy to move away from dependence on oil, and allowing people to adjust their lives to the absence of cheap oil. The alternative is to keep the price artificially low until we well and truly do run out, and then there will be a massive price jump rather than a smooth increase over time. This will be a disaster for our economy since we will have to transition instantly.
Oh and by the way, some people have complained that gas isn’t the “highest price ever” since it didn’t include inflation. Guess what, it was just the highest ever, including inflation, and there has been no hurricane or new international disaster (other than the ongoing one…). Supposedly the high prices reduced demand and the futures market will drive prices back down in the near term, but the fact is, long term gas prices are going up, and it would be nice to build the infrastructure we need to live without it, with the benefit of still having it.