What has the GOP done to "block any means" to address high gas prices?
Um..
Sally.....Let us suppose for a moment we go to a system where comodities speculation on energy is banned.
That means a new market must be created. There must be a meeting of the minds fior the purpose of setting a fair price.
Who gets to do that? What is a fair price?
This on the surface may seem like a better solution. No crazy price spikes. No one making a living off the siuffering of motorists. But wait a minute......Let's also imagine a major oil supply inmteruption. Such as what we saw with Katrina. Now the price stays the same but production costs will rise dramatically. Given that the oil producing companies are business to turn a profit, they cannot afford to produce refined products at a set price when their costs have risen. So when costs rise and prices are set, the only thing left ot do is to ration supply. A business is not going to sell it's product at a loss if it that business is restricted on price point. The business will simply hold product from the marketplace or reduce or even stop production. Either way with set prices there will always be the potential for rationing.
Now, one could state that the government could put into place regulations that require oil companies to keep a minimum supply in the chain. To what end? Eventually as the situation worsens, the oil companies would have to shut dpwn production because of the high cost.
The only way price fixing could work is if the federal government went into the oil production/ refining buisness independent of the private sector.
