God, I hate it when Paul Krugman’s right.

June 27th, 2008 | by Scott Jennings |

We are screwed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we are rightly and truly and deservedly and predictably screwed. When Barack Obama and John McCain try to blame high gas prices on the hedge funds and the evil evil free marketeers, smile and walk away. You can’t fault them for trying — it’s the game of politics, finding the easy bogeyman and ignoring the real problem. (Real problem: refineries operating at capacity, subsidized demand from developing nations, weak dollar owing in part to all of this, rising prices owing to the weak dollar and higher fuel costs and that thing where we burn a quarter of our corn supply for fuel, inflation, and absolutely no easy fix for any of it. SAVE YOUR FUCKING MONEY.)

Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman - Fuels on the Hill

Regulating futures markets more tightly isn’t a bad idea, but it won’t bring back the days of cheap oil. Nothing will. Oil prices will fluctuate in the coming years — I wouldn’t be surprised if they slip for a while as consumers drive less, switch to more fuel-efficient cars, and so on — but the long-term trend is surely up.

And I was really hoping that Congress was going to take care of this today before I gassed up the Stratus for the trip to Maryland.

  1. One Response to “God, I hate it when Paul Krugman’s right.”

  2. By Damon D. on Jun 27, 2008 | Reply

    Oh Scott, I hate it when Krugman is right too.

    Luckily it rarely happens.

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