Uncle Bob on Life, the Universe, and Everything

If you are concerned about high gas prices, then buy less gas.  Buy a fuel saving car.  Use more public transportation.  Walk.  Ride your bike.  Carpool.  That’s really all you can do.

What should government do?  Nothing.  Or rather, get out of the way.  Government should lift the ban on drilling in ANWR and other "protected" sites.  Government should loosen restrictions on building refineries.  Government should loosen restrictions on building nuclear power plants.  Government should give tax breaks to companies doing research into alternative fuels.  In other words, government should do a lot less than it is currently doing.  Government should get out of the way and let the free market do it’s job. 

Government should not:

• Offer a rebate to the American people.  That’s just "silly".  (– Brit Hume).  Actually, it’s worse than silly since the shortfall would have to come from somewhere.  Wouldn’t it be a hoot if they made it up by increasing the gasoline tax!
• Tax the oil companies more.  That’s not just silly, it’s downright stupid.  How do you suppose the oil companies would pay such a tax?  I think it’s just possible, let see, hmm, they might just increase prices.
• Break up the oil companies.  I could understand the anti-trust claim if there were just one oil company.  But there are five.  Breaking them up just eliminates economies of scale and would probably drive prices up.
• Reduce the gasoline tax.  Well actually I think they should reduce the gasoline tax; but not in response to high prices.  It’s not at all clear that the oil companies would pass that savings on to the consumer.  After all the consumer has already shown what the market will bear, simply by continuing to buy.  Americans do not seem to be changing their gasoline buying habits in any significant degree.  So, OK, reduce the gasoline tax in order to reduce government spending.  Fine.  But not to protect consumers from high prices.
• React in any other way.  We don’t need a knee-jerk reaction; (i.e. a Knee-dless reaction by a bunch of jerks) just because it’s an election year.  What we need is a "hands-off" policy that lets the market work.

By the way, I think it’s hysterical that all these politicians are dancing and leaping and otherwise wringing their hands over high gas prices.  Aren’t these the same guys who refused to drill in ANWR?  Aren’t the Democrats, at least, always trying to raise the gasoline tax by .25 or .50 per gallon?  Haven’t the liberals at least wanted the price of gasoline to be high; because that would be good for the environment, etc. etc.?  So, now they got what they wanted!  So why are they so upset?  Perhaps it’s because they got what they wanted, but they didn’t do anything to get it, so they can’t claim credit.  Or maybe it’s just a bunch of jerking knees.