Looking Back

Something that has been rattling around in my head for the last couple of days is the inability of the American people to remember for only a few short weeks the profound pronouncements of our elected masters. It is much like the attribution of particular wisdom to rockers, athletes, movie stars and the inheritance-blessed wealthy. We eagerly wait for Oprah, Barbra, Bono, Hanoi Jane, Penn or Affleck to speak ex cathedra on economics, the environment, morality, justice and the world while totally ignoring the fact that they possess no expertise in these disciplines beyond a fame which gives them a platform to blather.

Similarly the political class seldom possesses any credentials other than the ability to raise campaign funds, milk a social network, promise everything to everyone, and then run the nation into penury. Consider for a moment the academic credentials of Al Gore. Here we have someone who has received an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for pronouncements on global warming yet he has absolutely no credentials on meteorology, climatology, environmental science. Amazing ain’t it?

Remember last summer when gasoline prices at the pump soared past $4 a gallon? Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid along with their eco-Nazi fellow travelers prognosticated on a continued climb to $5, $6 and more. The cost of oil had gone to $147/bbl and the talk was $200 or more with nothing that we could do about it. When wise men said that we possess abundant untapped resources, they looked past their pince-nez and tut-tutted that even if we started drilling that very day, it would take ten years before the supply adjustment would swing the market and then it might amount to a penny or two a gallon.

That was five months ago. Today, gasoline is $1.49 a gallon where I live and oil closed yesterday at $36/bbl. That wasn’t a result of adding supply, it was a result of dropping demand as the financial crisis loomed. The market responded quite clearly and government never got around to intervening. Does anyone hold Pelosi, Reid, et.al. accountable for their blatant ignorance?

Malone Vandam expounds on our Brit friends and “stabilizing” oil prices there:

Laissez Faire Redux

And, he’s got it exactly right. An interference-free market is a wonderful thing for commodities, for labor, for credit and for virtually all resources requiring allocation.