Many people do not realize that the American oil companies are relatively minor producers on the international scene. Because of our restrictive drilling policies, they do not have access to substantial quantities of oil in the ground. They are major refiners, but relatively small producers of crude oil. The largest American oil company, Exxon-Mobil, barely registers in terms of control over supplies of crude oil

In fact, the high price of petroleum, which in turn raises the cost of everything else, is due to a combination of market forces and the Obama administration’s terrible energy policies. When you have an administration that openly wishes for higher energy costs, it shouldn’t be a surprise when prices go up. But Obama doesn’t want to take the blame for the consequences of his policies, so he follows his usual Alinskyite policy–fabricate a villain and demonize him. Here, the villain is a group of nameless “speculators” who supposedly are driving up the price of oil

I’ll leave this old remark from the lay-philosopher Eric Hoffer that applies perfectly to the environmental establishment: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” The environmental movement entered the racket stage a long time ago.

This may seem like a trivial point, but there is a significant difference between being a citizen and being a customer. Citizenship, in its classical sense, involves obligations to the community and the need to engage in deliberation. It is infused with honor and virtue and is part of what it means to be truly human (in Aristotle’s words: “To take no part in the running of the community’s affairs is to be either a beast or a god!”). Customers, in contrast, are simply those who purchase a product or service. When I see polls revealing that the vast majority of Americans do not want any entitlements cut nor do they want to pay higher taxes (of course, they always want the wealthy to pay their “fair share”), it troubles me. As citizens, they should reflect on the incompatibility between current levels of spending and taxation; they should choose honorably to make sacrifices to prevent fiscal imbalances from creating a dire situation for future generations. But as customers, the logic is altogether different. Customers should demand the most they can get for their money and if services are being provided at a deep discount (e.g., subsidized by future generations of customers), all the better. And if customers seem unreasonable in their demand for products and services, the best one can do is mutter the age old dictum: “The customer is always right.” Customers love a sale. Customers do not voluntarily request to pay retail. Customers also vote and one can expect that they will vote for those who are willing to extend the sale for two, four, or six more years.

We are living in a bizarre moment in history. Our establishment–the press, the academy, all unions, most politicians, many in business who have skin in the Ponzi game–assure us that borrowing trillions of dollars to finance wasteful spending, while sticking our children with the tab plus interest, is perfectly sensible. On the other hand, believing that we should live within our means is? Crazy!

Michael Panzer published some data yesterday about the fact that government transfer payment exceeded tax revenues for the first time since the Great Depression.

Three years ago, we were told that speculators were responsible for driving gasoline prices to $4. However, the same people could not explain why it was that those same dastardly speculators could not keep the price from plummeting to $1.50 a gallon in three months.

Policies need to be defined by and interpreted according to their impact on social processes rather than the alleged desirability or undesirability of their stated goals. We all want to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. The problem is that a lot of the interventions advanced in the name of these laudable goals will lead to precisely the opposite of what the interventionists claim to want. Sheldon Richman once wrote that advocating policy without a careful understanding of how those policies will play out is the intellectual equivalent of drunk driving. We apply these insights and standards to issues like minimum wages, rent control, protectionism, taxes, and a whole litany of other interventions all the time. We need to apply them to war.