Oil, free market worship, and the QC Times

Read the following:

Slamming the oil companies over their profits is pointless.

...

Drivers whine of price gouging. There is no such thing. People who do not like the price of a product have a choice not to buy it. There are other modes of transportation available.

That the people of the United States ask their federal and state legislators to enact communistic rules that would inevitably restrict freedom is ample testimony to their lack of understanding of the laws of free market economics that when unfettered efficiently distribute the nation’s goods and services.

The above free-market zealotry and blindness emitted from none other than the Quad City Times editorial staff.

No such thing as price gouging? If people were selling bottled water at $10 a bottle and gas at $50 a gallon to desperate survivors of Hurricane Katrina, I guess they'd endorse it?

Oil companies have been making record profits, at such a level that oil executives report that the largest challenge facing them is what to do with it all. Where they once made profit margins of $0.25 a gallon, they're now making $0.50 or $0.75 a gallon, all in the midst of a supposed supply crisis.
Yet the Times seems to think that anyone with a problem with that is a lousy commie.

And it's simply hard to fathom the simple-minded ideology that resulted in their suggesting that if people don't like being gouged at the gas pump, they should just find another way to get around. If we don't like paying $3, $4, $5, or $10 for a gallon of gas we can just use solar-powered roller skates to get to work and take the kids to school I guess. It's just wrong to complain and expect something to be done about it.

I should note that I don't think rising gas prices are a bad thing necessarily, in that it will spur investment and research into alternative energy sources, increase conservation and efficiency, and wean us off our addiction to cheap gas. In that respect, the free-market works. But when huge price increases are coupled with enormous oil company profits, it is not "communisitic" to expect government to attempt to correct the situation or at least put some heat on oil companies to bring prices in line.

I suppose that if the private water company in Davenport doubled or tripled their rates overnight, the Times would tell people to stop whining, there's other sources of water. Go take a bath in the Mississippi. Do your dishes with water caught from the downspouts. Wash your clothes and your kids in Duck Creek. As to getting rid of waste, figure something out, you're on your own. But just don't whine about the fact you can't afford water. It's pointless. Ask the Times.

This ignores the fact that with corporations increasingly gobbling up more and more companies, and becoming global behemoths, often there is no option whatsoever for a consumer, as there is effectively no competition allowed. Wanna start a grocery store? Go ahead and try. Want to start an electronics store similar to Best Buy? HA!

Have you invented an exciting new software program? The best you could hope for is to not get ripped off too badly when Microsoft buys you out and then sits on your product to keep it off the market.

Want to challenge a corporation in court for an injustice? Go ahead and try. Your chances are slim that you'll prevail, as they'll simply spend you into the ground.

Contrary to right wing ideologues and apparently the Times' religious belief in the infalability of the free market, it isn't a magical solution to everything as they fervently believe. It ingores the moral duty to provide for those who are left behind and suffer from its often negative results. There's very large inherant problems with pure capitalism, and government has a legitimate role in mitigating the often serious disparities and hardships unfettered capitalism can create. The "survival of the fittest" attitude displayed in this zealous belief in the free-market without any effort to prevent people from simply falling through the cracks is both immoral and impractical and reflects a belief that those who can't make it are simply expendable. Let 'em die in the streets.

And every single one of these people spouting this belief are most assuredly profiting handsomely from the system already. They just fret that they may have to give up a little of it for the benefit of others who are not similarly situated. The thought of spreading the wealth to prevent suffering really pisses them off. Sure, they could give up a lot and still be living very, very well, and they begrudge intensely what they are forced to give in taxes, even though the US tax rate is among the lowest in the world, and they go to great lengths to avoid paying even those, with the result that the very wealthiest often pay much much lower effective tax rates than the poor and middle class. And as evidenced by the editorial, they whine mightily at the thought that windfall profits at a time of scarcity and exploding prices is so much as questioned.

Meanwhile, the predominately poor and middle class soldiers are fighting and dying for their economic interests. But if these soldiers parents are struggling or failing while corporations post record profits, tough luck. Shut up and start your own oil company.

Bear in mind that the Bush energy bill recently passed in the middle of the night by strong-arm tactics in the House of Representitives provided for millions and millions of dollars in subsidies for the very oil corporations currently making record profits.

Reported first quarter profits

Interesting, is it not, that the very free market the Times touts as the solution for everything actually isn't at work here. The Times labels any attempt to regulate oil company profits as communistic, yet these very oil companies are being subsidized up the yazoo by you and I. Is that the free-market capitalism the Times is so enamored of?

Nope.

I guess it's communism.

But, I should heed the Times' lesson. If I don't like editorial opinion like this, I shouldn't whine. There are other papers available.