Sometimes the rhetoric gets so thick I can't take it any more. Then I remember that I have this nice little political blog.
The next time you hear anyone tell you the surge in oil prices (which are at a near-record high $143 a barrel, pushing gas prices to their current level of $4.25 a gallon) is merely "a supply-and-demand issue", demand them to supply you with any piece of credible information that documents a sharp increase in our nation's consumption of oil over the past 26 months. Assuming my information is correct, domestic oil consumption in 2007 averaged 20.7 billion barrels a day, a number similar to totals from the previous year. And projections suggest that consumption will drop by nearly 300,000 barrels a day in 2008. (source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo)
So our nation's demand for oil doesn't seem to be sending prices through the roof. But clearly, something is. In April of 2006, oil averaged $70 a barrel, half of where it is today. The cost of a barrel of crude has shot up 100% in just over two years. So if the "experts" want to indirectly spread the blame to us consumers as well, then let's see some evidence.
I don't doubt the legitimacy of reports bemoaning our continually dwindling oil supplies. There are a number of reasons for that, which we know. And as we all remember from our 100-level Econ classes, demand increases as supply dwindles. But throwing one's hands up and citing basic economic principle for the current outrageous state of fossil fuels in this nation is an insult to all on the demand side of the chart, all those not benefitting from the record profits oil companies have enjoyed in recent months.
So when anyone hints that we are part of the problem, stop them right in their tracks and say, "you're only half right." It's a supply issue all right. But the minute they roll their eyes at the sight of anything non-hybrid in your driveway, feel free to bring up the point that high-level executives and politicians have more to do with this crisis than all of us combined. They sure have more to gain from it than we do. Then suggest they focus their outrage instead on the system that enables the monopolistic practices of the oil companies to dictate pump prices thereby allowing them to ignore that cost-controlling capitalistic mechanism every first-term Econ prof tosses out on day one: competition.
