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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (78699)	8/1/2006 5:54:09 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Everyone knows there's massive gouging, pal. You are either a criminal accomplice or in complete denial. en.wikipedia.org At that's even giving your statement credit for being an accurate reflection of people's opinions. Its not true even in the most general sense that "everyone knows" any such thing. So you take a false statement, plug it in to an invalid argument, and you expect people to arrive at your conclusion... Do you believe Enron was just an isolated bunch of crooks Enron has and had next to nothing to do with world oil prices, or refinery capacity. Do you not believe Bob Woodward's quote of Prince Bandar in the Oval Office offering to bring down oil prices before the election if Bush wanted him to? Are you calling Woodward a liar? No accepting that it is true, is not the same as asserting its false. I consider it to be unproven and thus not serious evidence of anything. If you assume its true it would only show that 1 - OPEC has or thinks it has power over the world oil price, and 2 - That Bandar wanted Bush to be president for some reason or wanted Bush to think he wanted that. 1 - Is obvious, and says nothing about Bush or American oil companies. And building your argument off of #2 is like trying to replace the World Trade Center's office space with a Lego construction. Do you for one second think Bush-Cheney are not greedy guys who butter their own bread with whatever power they can use to manipulate friendly business interests? I have no reason to think they are more or less greedy than other politicians. Do you think Bush's strong support of Dubai Ports is just some ethical standard of his? I think Bush thought it was the right, and practically best thing to do. I also think Bush underestimated the political fallout. But even if you assume it was an act done solely to please the UAE its meaningless in the context of your assertions. Even if you assume that he was bribed by the UAE to support the ports deal it still doesn't support your larger argument.

To: American Spirit who wrote (78699)	8/1/2006 6:20:14 PM
From: tonto	Respond to of 81568

In colloquial terms "price gouging" has come to be somewhat misunderstood by the general public, becoming frequently attached, inappropriately or disparagingly, to any situation where, even in the presence of a free market with many different options, prices rise uniformly for a commodity in high demand. This is not strictly price gouging, i.e. exploiting an emergency situation where the free market participants are facing lack of information or competitors, but rather a populist reaction to a natural (although very sudden) market driven change in prices.