What does it take to have a free market? You need willing buyers and sellers, a supply of goods to be purchased with money or bartered for (I’ll give you six ears of corn and a measure of flour for twelve eggs—that sort of thing) and an environment—a market—in which this can happen. What you do not need is a lot of governmental interference in how that trade is conducted. I am not talking about common sense things like health and product safety regulations, or even rules on how and where certain items, firearms for example, may be bought and sold. I am also not talking about taxes. In each and every transaction, the taxman takes his portion one way or another. Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 What I am talking about is the current attempt by—you guessed it—Congress, to put limits on oil trading. Not buying into the idea that the market... [Read Full Article]

It isn’t often that we see a real, tangible result from the assorted bureaucrats, technocrats, plutocrats and republicrats that scurry around the halls of government. That probably explains why the various branches of the U.S. government get such low confidence ratings while the military, which thrives on concrete results, is at the top of the recent 2008 Gallup Annual Update on Confidence in Institutions poll. However, President Bush has delivered on one thing—he lowered oil prices by $9.26 per barrel. That is a 6.3% drop on the price of crude oil for August delivery.  How did he manage it? After months of insanely rising oil prices, trips to the Saudis to beg for relief, preening and posturing on the part of congressional leaders and members alike and grade-school style finger pointing by everyone involved, Bush finally remembered that he has some power as President and lifted the Executive Order... [Read Full Article]