Doug Henwood wrote: > It's very difficult to separate "speculation" from the normal operations of > capitalism, though populists, who want to separate a good productive > capitalism from a bad parasitical kind, would like to.
that's right about the populists, but from a purely scientific perspective (to the extent that it is possible in economics), it'd be good to know to what extent the prices of oil and gasoline are rising because of 1. speculation (which typically has only transitory effects), 2. conjunctural events (the blasting of pipe-lines in Nigeria, etc.), 3. institutional structures (inadequate investment in oil exploration and extraction by government-owned oil companies, etc.), 4. the normal difficulty involved in extracting more oil in response to increased demand (the short-run inelasticity of supply), and, last but not least, 5. permanent barriers to extraction (peak oil). -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
