On 9/2/05, Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> I have. But you haven't, apparently, because you
> don't seem to know what it is. The Strategic
> Petroleum Reserve is a very good idea designed to deal
> with political (i.e. non-market) disruptions in crude
> oil supplies. 


So you are opposed to the administration's plan to use oil from the SPR now?

 They're the idea of people who think that
> they are somehow morally exempt from the laws of
> supply and demand, a position that makes about as much
> sense as claiming you're morally exempt from the law
> of gravity. 


Over-simplified prattle.

"Supply and demand" is a human invention that tries -- and mostly fails -- 
to explain *why* pricing behaves as it does, not *how* they behave. It only 
works in a utopian setting, which is a rare thing indeed. This must have 
been taught in the third week of freshman economics, probably around when 
they talked about elasticity, which belongs in any discussion of pricing. 
Economists these days realize that pricing has a great deal to do with 
perception, subjectivity, than supply and demand.

The law of gravity doesn't tell us *why* masses attact, it describes *how* 
they attract each other. And it describes them very, very well. Not 
perfectly, but very well -- at the opposite end of the pragmatics spectrum 
from the "law" of supply and demand.

Unless you're a member of the left, I guess, which
> seems to believe that the entire world should be run
> like the DMV.


Ah there's the prejudice against half the country again. Evil, bad lefties. 
All of 'em. Snort.

Nick

-- 
Nick Arnett
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages: 408-904-7198
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