So is excruciating pain if the only other option is death. That doesn't make excruciating pain a good thing.
Buying the oil isn't excruciating pain.
Its a reduction in pain.
If you admit, and I assume you do, that $120 a barrel oil, up 600%, is a drag on our economy
The price increase is a hit to our economy (or to get more technical about it, the shift in supply and demand is a hit, the price just recognizes it, and actually mitigates it to a bit, if the price didn't increase when the supply/demand shift would cause it to increase, than it would be a worse situation than having the price increase, but I digress, its not like your calling for price controls) buying oil isn't a hit.
then the obvious remedy is to look for alternatives
Even if the price hadn't increased, looking at alternatives is almost always reasonable.
Actually trying to implement them quickly and massively OTOH, is another story, esp. since they are typically more expensive even after the increase.
The free market could probably, eventually, produce the needed changes, but in the meantime our economy and lifestyle would differ dramatically.
The political process is less likely to produce the adjustment smoothly and (to the extent that what's correct can ever really be known) correctly, than the free market, and its more likely to cause our economy and lifestyle to suffer. |
