Chasing Invisible Profiteers

Apparently, the President’s big answer to high gas prices is to investigate imaginary crimes.

The article mentions the word “gouging” six times, two of them in quotes from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and once from White House Spokesman Scott McClellan.

The only problem? There’s no actual evidence that any price-gouging is going on. None. Zero. Zip.

There is this, though.

“Consumers around the nation have expressed concerns about what they have perceived as anticompetitive or otherwise unfair conduct by the world’s major oil companies,” said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.

Okay, so they have stories, from consumers who aren’t happy about high prices. I’m not happy about high prices either, but I haven’t seen a single indication that those prices were influenced by anything other than pure economics and government greed and incompetence.

Let’s look at the “solutions” proposed by all the political sides here. Here’s how the article explains the President’s plan.

President Bush has decided to temporarily halt deposits to the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available for consumer needs and relieve pressure on pump prices, a senior administration official said Tuesday

And the Republicans:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., urged Bush in a letter Monday to order a federal investigation into any gasoline price gouging or market speculation.

“There is no silver bullet,” Frist said Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” but “we need to make sure that any efforts at price-gouging be addressed and addressed aggressively.” Meanwhile, Frist said, consumers should take steps to conserve gasoline _ drive at slower speeds, tune up car engines for maximum efficiency and carpool.

And the Democrats:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dispatched his own letter, calling for a multi-pronged approach to restrain gas prices. Among the steps were swift enactment of anti-price gouging legislation, an appeal to oil companies to refrain from further price increases, use of more alternative fuels and increased attention to existing fuel-saving laws and regulations.

You know what’s not in any one of those plans?

More gasoline.

Simple economics says that the price of anything is dependent on two things: how hard it is to get and how much people want it. Well, we already know that plenty of folks want gasoline – not just here in America but in exploding economies like China and India. We also know that the oil-producing nations aren’t in a big hurry to crank up the supply.

So what are we to do? Simple. Get more oil. Drill for it, build new refineries to handle the increase, and get it into the domestic market.

That, though, is the one thing we seem to be incapable of doing. Through a mixture of ignorance, political opportunism, and agenda-driven deceit, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that any oil we could get lies under the feet or fins of delicate creatures around which we are completely unable to maneuver without destroying them, no matter what the technology says.

And so, instead of facing the facts, we’re facing 3 dollar gasoline and a mobilization of government resources to solve a problem they have no evidence exists.

Enjoy.