Lower Oil Prices Are a Free-Market Victory

[Adre]

Buried under 60 tons of left wing regulation...a real free market.

Oh really? Who started the EPA? List the left wing regulations of the oil market you are referring to. (I detect some Vettestyle gasbaggery here.)

 

[BotanyBoy]

Oh really? Who started the EPA? List the left wing regulations of the oil market you are referring to. (I detect some Vettestyle gasbaggery here.)

Awwwwww

I wonder if he will admit it was St.Nixon or if he will try and worm it into being 100% democrat...LOL I bet the latter.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There you go again, repeating the same old tired mantras and sophisms of the Socialists...



You just cannot have a conversation with the lwcj and their managed utopian dream castles built on clouds.

Skittles for everyone! It's on the rich!!!

 

[Busybody]

Oh really? Who started the EPA? List the left wing regulations of the oil market you are referring to. (I detect some Vettestyle gasbaggery here.)

mindless fat fuck

 

[Que]

There you go again, repeating the same old tired mantras and sophisms of the Socialists...



You just cannot have a conversation with the lwcj and their managed utopian dream castles built on clouds.

Skittles for everyone! It's on the rich!!!

Skiddles for everyone? Perish the thought.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Skiddles for everyone? Perish the thought.

My thoughts, like my mortal coil, alas are perishable...



bb's arrived pre-perished and smelling like yesterday's smelt.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Give credit where credit is due:

...

[in conclusion] "People often don't realize that a political system is sometimes effective when it does not do certain things." Pietro Nivola, a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, argued in 2012. "You can't just measure the things it does, the actions it takes; you also have to measure the actions it does not take." Nivola was impressed by how gridlock has the ability to stop the Republican House from cutting spending too abruptly for the economy.

And perhaps he's right. Gridlock has caused an odd but pervasive stability in Washington. Spending has been static. No jarring reforms have passed—no cap and trade, which would have artificially spiked energy prices and undercut the growth we're now experiencing. The inadvertent but reigning policy over the past four years has been "do no harm."

On the strength of good economic news, Politico reports that Obama will use his State of the Union address to roll out an agenda aimed at the stagnating wages and those Americans left behind to build on the growth. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's going to incorporate a lot of happy talk about "infrastructure" and a fairer reallocation of wealth. We need to grow from the middle out, if you will. No doubt, politically speaking, Democrats' fortunes are bound to improve somewhat as economic anxieties ebb. The president will surely see better approval numbers.

But let's hear specifics. As I remember it, the administration hasn't done anything in a long time. I know this because an incalculable number of op-eds have informed me that the president has had to contend with militant ideologues and has been unable to implement his agenda. I know this because I've had to listen to years of hand-wringing about politicians' inaction. You can't have it both ways.

David Harsanyi
http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/02/thank-gridlock-for-economic-turnaround

 

[Ishmael]

Give credit where credit is due:

"I know this because I've had to listen to years of hand-wringing about politicians' inaction."

David Harsanyi
http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/02/thank-gridlock-for-economic-turnaround

Following that train of thought. For years now there has been this pervasive impulse that has captured the imagination of the public, mostly driven by the press and special interest groups, that congress and the president must do something. Do something about, well, damn near everything. Yet time and time again we see that when they do do something, especially big things, there is a hew and cry for them to do something about the something they just did something about.

It would be easy to conjecture that they are purposely passing and enacting flawed legislation as part of a grand conspiracy to make sure they always have something to do. Quite frankly I don't think they're that intelligent.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And how often do something is coupled to an unassailable victim (/group) so that anyone who is in opposition to meaningless, symbolic and possibly even harmful hasty action can then be portrayed as some sort of monster opposed to science, education, charity, reason...,

 

[Ishmael]

And how often do something is coupled to an unassailable victim (/group) so that anyone who is in opposition to meaningless, symbolic and possibly even harmful hasty action can then be portrayed as some sort of monster opposed to science, education, charity, reason...,

The endless parade of anecdotal victims. Both sides play that game.

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

FWIW, gas is gong for $1.64/gal. locally now.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Coming soon: How President Obama was right to want the price to remain high and how lower gas prices are actually costing us jobs...

 

[warrior queen]

Lower oil prices are a win for the fuel companies you mean
Where I live, the price has only gone down by 7 cents a litre - nowhere near the predicted 50 cents a litre that was promised.

 

[Ishmael]

Coming soon: How President Obama was right to want the price to remain high and how lower gas prices are actually costing us jobs...

Krugman will write the op-ed.

Ishmael

 

[rosco rathbone]

Awwwwww

I wonder if he will admit it was St.Nixon or if he will try and worm it into being 100% democrat...LOL I bet the latter.

There's no clear-cut line between Nixon and the modern ruling faction of the Democratic Party. He governed as a cold-war liberal even though his electoral politics prefaced Reagan and his junior henchmen became the Bush team.

 

[Beco]

FWIW, gas is gong for $1.64/gal. locally now.

Ishmael

Lower prices wont last forever, lets not panic...........kind of funny, but was watching a Volt owner charge up his car in our parking garage, he seemed like a millennial. Just passing by but I thought, "happy you bought that now?".

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Krugman will write the op-ed.

Ishmael

Cutting edge...

 

[Ishmael]

Interesting little article here.

Enemies of Iran and Venezuela

"This can only be a political act... Our enemies use petrol as a political lever and have certainly a role to play in the lowering of prices," he said in reference to Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Obviously they understand that this is as much a political move as it is routine market swings.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I keep in mind that they are paranoid.



Everyone seems to be out to get them.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The price looks like it is beginning to stabilize...

 

[Ishmael]

I keep in mind that they are paranoid.



Everyone seems to be out to get them.

Just as long as you keep in mind that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

*chuckle*

 

[Que]

Interesting little article here.

Enemies of Iran and Venezuela



Obviously they understand that this is as much a political move as it is routine market swings.

Ishmael

Interesting. If only it were true that the US side of the equation had done anything to manipulate the price. Enacting policies that have the effect of causing analysts to predict lower output is not conducive to lower prices. The US consumers of oil are just happily surprised that the administration did not succeed in making oil more scarce.

Imagine, whatever the price domestically, the pain the would be feeling if the US had done everything possible to increase oil production as quickly as possible as suggested by Romney, or had even maintained the level of approval and permitting of the prior administration.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Don't look now, but Republicans want to join with the Dems to raise gas taxes...

 

[Ishmael]

Don't look now, but Republicans want to join with the Dems to raise gas taxes...

Of course they do, and they'll have all sorts of reasons for doing so. But prices will have to rise again to industry sustainable levels and then who's going to get fucked? Right off the top of my head, the working poor. How will they fix that? Monthly gas allowances for the poor? And how will that be paid for?

Ishmael