Prices

The economic ignorance of politicians and bureaucrats never surprises me, and the recent events concerning rising oil prices are no different. Recently Sen. Dick Durbin (D- Illinois) accused the oil industry of "gouging" the public stating "It's an increase directly attributable to profit-taking by the oil companies." EPA Secretary Carol Browner said "The oil companies . . . owe us an answer." So it went throughout the Clinton administration and Gore campaign, as spokesman after spokesman issued condemnations wrapped in fallacy.

Good economic reasoning advises sharp constraints on the size and scope of government. Don Mathews says Gore's bad economics is merely a political tool. 

For the GOP's vice presidential nominee, oil prices shouldn't be too high or too low, but rather exactly what the government wants them to be. 

University students are going berserk again. No, they are not swallowing goldfish, going on panty raids or stuffing themselves into phone booths, the excesses of a bygone day (the first two are now politically incorrect, and what with modern technology there is nary a phone booth to be found). Nor are they taking over deans' offices and entire college campuses in the name of stopping their institutions from buying real estate in surrounding poor communities. Nor, yet, at the moment, are they protesting in favor of the environment, or bashing free trade, other favorite activities of theirs. What, then, you may ask, are they up to nowadays? They are insisting that the university logo t-shirts and baseball caps sold in campus stores not be manufactured under sweatshop conditions, nor with contributions from child labor.

Regulations increase the price of gasoline, housing, software, and much more, says Thomas DiLorenzo. 

It is time to refute claims of gas gouging and explain (once again) that not only were these price increases inevitable, but they have been specially packaged in Washington, D.C.

Americans are concerned about the rising cost of pharmaceutical drugs. This has drawn the attention of writers, politicians, and others who have attempted to deal with the issue in typical fashion by advocating the use of government force to implement their plan.

In a display of amazing ignorance or brazen political grandstanding, he strode up to a gas station and berated the owner for charging too high a price.

Higher prices have unleashed a torrent of economic fallacy, from boycotts on gas stations to agitations for price controls. Paul Cwik responds.

We could have another on our hands if the bureaucrats get involved in regulating prices again.