Excessive Oil Profits?

We are hearing about those outrageous oil companies again. Next to the evil pharmaceutical companies, it seems that our friends in the oil business are the reasons for condemning capitalism. They are actually exploiting our society by making winfall profits after two terrible hurricanes. It is the height of greed and selfishness....or so some would have you believe.

Some of the wiser among us are calling for price caps on gas prices. Because this worked so well in the 70's, it seems that some of our nation's Senators believe it should be tried again. After all, people are more selfless now and will surely do everything they can to make certain they don't take any more gasoline than is needed, right? WRONG. Senator Byron Dorgan (D, North Dakota) was on National Public Radio this morning and made the following assertion:

"There’s no free market; that’s all nonsense. What there is is a market that takes an enormous amount of money out of the pockets of American consumers and sticks it in the treasuries of the major oil companies."

One can only wonder why someone like Senator Dorgan would make such a statement. As the good folks at Cafe Hayek pointed out, oil companies are no more determining gas prices than homeowners are determining the prices of their homes. If you think a few elected officials working together for political purposes are better at determining the fair market value of gas, then I certainly hope you enjoy spending your time waiting in long lines for gasoline. As for me, I trust the billions of people buying gas everyday who have never even met to continue to exercise far greater wisdom in setting gasoline prices than a few mislead Senators.