Thursday, August 23, 2007

Local Sheriff Needs More Schooling

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones apparently slept through his Econ classes in school. I am making this assumption based on the stupid comments he had in yesterday's paper: Sheriff Takes On High Gas Prices (well...this was online, but it was probably printed somewhere, right?).

It reports that Jones wrote a letter to Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann asking him to carry out an investigation into the rising prices and whoever is behind it. I agree!!! Go get those dastardly people who are behind the rising prices. ARREST THEM AND SKIN THEM ALIVE!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

wait...what? really? You and I are the ones responsible? How? Oh. Supply and Demand huh. So you are trying to tell me that because I am demanding more gasoline, the prices goes up. Oh. Well, I was just kidding about the arresting and the skinning. heh heh.

Anyway, the best quote of the article goes like this:

I would like to know why the people of this great state and country seem to fall victim to the whims of whoever grabs at any possible catastrophic event to justify higher gas prices," said Jones. "All the while major oil companies continue to post record profits.

Back to School Time!!!

1. The purpose of prices is to efficiently disperse resources to the people who need them the most. This is called Supply and Demand. It is the most basic premise one could have in economics. In this case the resource is gasoline. When a catastrophe takes place, generally prices rise. Not because of gouging...but because the resources need to be moved to whoever needs them the most. In this case, the victims of the catastrophe. The owners of the gasoline stations aren't going to give their gas away because they can't get anymore. So they raise their prices. Now the people who need the gas the most will buy it. Prices aren't made up...there is a reason for them. (this is the demand part)


2. Oil companies are only making record profits because we are consuming record amounts of oil. Their profit margin continues to be the same, around 9%, as it has for a while now. There is only so much oil that can be produced at any one time. (This is the supply part)

Sheriff Jones is a total hothead and needs to find something better to do than writing angry letters that gas prices are too high. I recommend taking a primer course in economics. Or maybe reading Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell. Maybe then he'll learn how the world works.


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Labels: Cincinnati, Economics, Gasoline, Politics

Posted by Adam Wilson :: 1:47 PM :: 0 comments

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