You breathe deep, squeeze the nozzle, then watch in horror… Two minutes later, you’ve traded $92.37 for a tank full of fuel… You think “”they” have got to do something about the price of gas!” Of course this “they” you’re referring to, conscious of it or not, is the government. At least that’s what the government thinks…
Enter South Carolina Senator Dick Elliott… He’s proposed a bill that would cap the wholesale price of gasoline for a full year… His opening statement on a CNBC debate this morning: “I’m a big believer in the free enterprise system, but the escalating price of gasoline is really breaking the budgets of families, it’s taking the money out of business accounts that they could be using to hire new employees with, and just wrecking our economy until we can stabilize the price of gas and hopefully get it down. That was the reason that I introduced the bill.”
With all due respect to Mr. Elliott, notwithstanding his good intentions, we’re all “big believers in the free enterprise system” as long as things are going our way… I.e., when a sitting senator’s constituents ain’t happy, capitalism is forever a wonderful scapegoat…
What Mr. Elliott supposedly believes (but I suppose doesn’t understand) is that the price of a given commodity, left to nature, will ultimately reflect its supply relative to its demand… Cap its price and you create supply issues…
Example; let’s say the wholesale price-cap translates to $3.00 at the pump. Assuming the [global] economy picks up, demand then rises, but suppliers can