Commentary 35- More Mulshine on Oil

From NJ Voices, 6/16/08

More slippery logic on oil
Posted by Paul Mulshine June 16, 2008 3:20PM


The press release below from the usual assortment of Democratic elected officials is self-refuting.

As every economist knows, when you reduce the price of a quantity demand goes up, not down. Yet these economic illiterates want to reduce dependence on oil by lowering the price.


Are they stupid? Or are the voters stupid for electing them?




MENENDEZ, LAUTENBERG CALL FOR ACTION TO LOWER GAS PRICES


Rep. Pascrell joined the Senators in discussing the effort in Congress to bring down artificially high prices, end dependence on oil.

Paterson, NJ - Today, New Jersey's U.S. Senators, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, and Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ8), spoke out about the need to implement the plan currently before the U.S. Senate that would address out-of-control gas prices. Both Senators are co-sponsors of the Consumer-First Energy Act, a bill to address the root causes of artificially-high gas prices, protect consumers from price gouging and force oil companies to change their ways. It was blocked by Republicans in the Senate last week, but Senators Menendez and Lautenberg and their colleagues remain hopeful that pressure stemming from the public's frustration over gas prices will help the bill's prospects in the near future. The New Jersey Senators also support additional legislation blocked by the Republicans last week that would spur development of renewable energy and help end the nation's dependence on oil in the long run.

"We have to ensure that our government is working for the families of this country, not for the oil companies and oil traders who have the power to push gas prices artificially high," said Senator Menendez. "The dramatic increase in oil prices has brought prices for food up along with it, and families are facing a painful financial choice when it comes time to fill up - do they buy a gallon of gasoline or a gallon of milk? Some families have already eliminated non-essentials and many are now cutting back on meals. Some people are even contemplating quitting their jobs because they can't afford the gas to get there. We're confident that the continuing public outcry about artificially high prices will spur a reversal by those who have sided with Big Oil. We'll be keeping the pressure on for change, because we know that's the only way to take the pressure off of New Jersey families."

"President Bush has sat on his hands as oil prices have gone through the roof," said Senator Lautenberg. "We Democrats have had enough and we are pushing an aggressive plan to bring down gas prices. The Republicans and the big oil companies are trying to block our efforts, but we will not give up this fight. Families should not have to choose between filling their stomachs or filling their gas tanks."

Original Referenced Link


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 06/16/08 at 10:26PM

"We have to ensure that our government is working for the families of this country, not for the oil companies and oil traders..."

The Dems will trample the rights of one group of people, the energy producers, in order to bestow government-enforced economic favors on another... "the families of America." Apparently, the rights of the people who produce the fuel that Americans need are not worthy of government protection, because they produce it. This is totally contrary to the revolutionary American principle that "to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men." Implicit and inherent in the "rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness" is the right to produce a product and to sell it to another at mutually agreed-upon prices...i.e., at the market price. The right to engage in the voluntary exchange of goods and services...i.e., to free production and trade...is a human right possessed equally by all people all of the time and subject to protection by government all of the time.

It is not so much stupidity as ignorance of the proper role of government on the part of many Americans that is the threat here. The predatory politicians are riding this ignorance as well as their own power-lust in order to expand government's control of the energy industry. By demanding that the government "do something" to control prices, the American people are demanding the basic principle of dictatorship. The oil companies have a fundamental right to sell the products they produce, to set the price based on market conditions, and to their profits. By granting to the government the power to violate those rights, we are also sacrificing our own rights. A government with that kind of power can also dictate the level of your wages, who you work for, when you can change jobs, what kind of car you drive, how much gas you can purchase, and when, etc. (We got a taste of some of those things in the 1970s, and survived it, so far.) The answer is not to surrender more of our freedom in exchange for some temporary gas price relief.

There are many reasons for the energy price run-up. Inflationary Fed policies, crippling restrictions on domestic energy production, excessive taxes and regulations, world market conditions (basic supply and demand), the rising cost of exploration and development, the control by world tyrants of vast oil reserves, etc. The oil companies and the "speculators" are just scapegoats, and should not be the targets of predatory government policies.


Others' Commentary:

Posted by drericablair on 06/16/08 at 10:31PM
Zemack:

Please stop making sense...you are making my head hurt with your great logic and facts.

It makes people actually think.

It's much easier to read the op ed pages and let the liberal editors of the Star Ledger do the thinking for you.



Posted by Politburo on 06/17/08 at 10:45AM

zemack: You are simply incorrect. Unhindered commerce is not a natural right, nor was it considered a natural right by the founders. One of the first acts of Congress was to impose a tariff (Hamilton Tariff). See also the First Congress' Whiskey Act, and the Indian Intercourse Act, which strictly regulated commerce with natives (for example, they could only sell their goods at specific locations designated by the government).


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 06/17/08 at 5:49PM
Politburo:

You are correct that the Founders allowed into our nation certain inconsistencies and loopholes and "hindrances" in regard to commerce. And we are paying the price for those "poison pills" today in the form of ever-expanding statism. But unhindered commerce is implicit in the whole concept of inalienable individual rights, and the Founding Fathers understood those rights to be natural...meaning outside the scope of any man-made hindrances. Commerce is another word for production and trade. Productive work and trade are the means by which people support and sustain their lives. To say that unhindered commerce is not a natural right is a negation of the concept of inalienable rights. How can one say that each individual has an inalienable right to his life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but not an inalienable right to engage in the very activity needed to support his life, exercise his liberty, and pursue his happiness? I believe that most of our Founders endorsed unhindered commerce in principle, even if not always in action.

Now unhindered commerce (or laissez-faire), by my (and I believe your) definition, means unhindered by physical force and coercion by others, whether those others are acting as private citizens or through the mechanism of government (political power). It does not mean anything goes. In a broader sense, then, unhindered commerce is a contradiction and impossibility. And this is the crux of the matter. In a free market, capitalist economy, there is a "hindrance," or governing principle, "regulating" commerce...individual rights. It is the government's job to protect those rights, not violate them. This means that so long as a person (or company) respects the rights of others...i.e., does not engage in physical coercion (real or threatened, as in blackmail), or indirect coercion (as in fraud and deception), etc...no one has the right to hinder his economic activities (to violate his rights). This means that the state has the obligation to protect all people's natural, inalienable rights, which includes the right to freedom of production and trade (unhindered commerce). To the extent that anyone violates others' rights by, say, polluting someone else's property or misrepresenting his product or service, then the government can and should step in and prosecute or enforce financial restitution. But that is the only way that commerce can properly be hindered, in my opinion.

We are a long way from this ideal, of course, and getting further away with each election, it seems. The extent to which we have strayed from our key founding principle of individual rights is shown by all of the predatory special interest pressure groups battling for temporary control of government in order to coerce some economic advantage for itself at everyone else's expense. My defense of the oil companies extends only to their right of production and trade, and not to their political attempts to gain special preferences, where they are as guilty as any other pressure group.

Still, the principle of the right of the people to engage in voluntary, uncoerced production and trade to mutual advantage, in an honest, non-fraudulent, and rights-respecting way, is natural and inalienable and must be recognized as such if we are going to turn the tide toward socialist tyranny. Despite the truth of your observation that the Founders did engage in some limited government interference in commerce, I can't believe that they would ever have endorsed the kind of assault now being contemplated in Washington against one of America's industrial crown jewels, the private oil industry.


Others' Commentary:

Posted by drericablair on 06/17/08 at 10:13PM
Thank you comrade Politburo.

Sometimes you have to put these free market capitalists and freedom lovers in their place.