More on Oil Profits

Speaking of Russ Roberts, check out his appearance yesterday on National Public Radio to discuss the U.S. Senate's hearings on fuel prices. A quote:

"Those Senate hearings on the high cost of gasoline prices should be really brief. Three words: Supply. And. Demand."

You have to sign up for a trial subscription to read all of it, but Al Walling's op-ed in The New York Sun assessing Senator Clinton's call for an additional $20 billion tax on oil company profits is also worth a read. Choice quote:

"Threatening to make businesses give back their money is a surefire way to prevent their expansion and push gasoline prices even higher. . . Senator Clinton somehow believes that $20 billion in new taxes will lead to lower gasoline prices, but since when has taxing something ever made it cheaper?"

Walling, like Russ Roberts, is a scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a top economics-oriented research organization, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Comments

[Mark]

Here is a link to the full article (no subscription required). http://www.mercatus.org/article.php/1426.html

Ditto on the Mercatus Center.