Gas Price Gouging's Eternal Return

Brian Doherty | April 25, 2006

President Bush will announce later today an investigation into possible price gouging in oil markets. The Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor explained a while back why anything substantial other than good old fashioned supply and demand--combined with a complicated system of taxes and regulation from the goverment--forging oil prices is extremely unlikely. In a study that you'd think Bush might remember, as it was only last summer, the FTC agreed, finding no collusion in the forging of oil prices.

Taylor further explained, along with Peter VanDoren, that when that system of supply and demand leads to rising prices--even higher prices in certain areas, and pump prices rising faster than oil prices--that shouldn't be the government's business anyway.

In the May issue of Reason--you'd have it already if you were a subscriber--Ron Bailey explores the likely future of the oil economy in the midst of "peak oil panic."