Larry Kudlow, a contributor to Townhall, has this article that touchs on the free market, oil prices, and a great economy.
Today’s economy may be the greatest story never told. It’s an American boom, spurred by lower tax rates, huge profits, big productivity, plentiful jobs, and an ongoing free-market capitalist resiliency. It’s also a global boom, marked by a spread of free-market capitalism like we’ve never seen before.
Recent data on production, retail sales, and employment are stronger than expected. The latest durable-goods report shows huge gains in orders for big-ticket items like airplanes, transportation, metals, machinery, and computers — even cars and parts. These orders suggest that the economic boom will continue as far as the eye can see. And there’s more: The backlog of unfilled orders, the best leading-indicator of business activity, gained 12 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter. With this kind of real-world corporate activity in the pipeline, highly profitable businesses will be doing a lot of hiring in the months ahead in order to expand plant and equipment capacity. Just what the doctor ordered.
As for the energy angst, President Bush recently outlined a sensible pro-market mid-course policy correction. He is suspending the ethanol tax mandate that forced gasoline distributors to switch to the corn-based fuel from the MTBE oxygenate. This ethanol regulation was one of the great energy-policy bungles of all time. Neither refiners nor transporters were anywhere near ready to implement this misguided mandate, which drove up pump prices by 50 cents in just a few weeks. Energy secretary Sam Bodman was warned by industry leaders — like much-maligned former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond — that the ethanol-switch would be a disaster. But Bodman didn’t listen, although, according to the polls, it seems like America did.
But with Bush’s recent action, futures prices for unleaded gasoline are already retreating, and it wouldn’t surprise if the whole ethanol-price-hike effect was reversed. Crude oil is also declining in the aftermath of the Bush announcements, which included the decision to stop the crude-oil fill rate for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. At the margin, government deregulation is giving markets more latitude — always a good thing.
The big point here is that free markets work. Rising prices from the global boom will lead to more conservation, less consumption, and more production, but only so long as government stays out of the way. Instead of blaming ExxonMobil for high gas prices, irate motorists and voters should blame Congress for mandating, regulating, and taxing against energy.
Indeed, bashing big oil won’t create a drop of new energy. Nor will confiscating Lee Raymond’s bank account. Actually, over the past fifteen years, ExxonMobil’s total investment has exceeded the company’s earnings, according to Washington analyst James K. Glassman. Meanwhile, all the evidence from time immemorial shows that gas prices are set by market forces, not manipulation at the production level. So-called price gouging is nothing but a political red herring. Windfall profits taxes and special tax subsidies will only diminish energy investment, not increase it.
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