Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Kinsley gets gas

"Ordinarily, we shouldn't want the government to decide when profits become "excess." But the case of huge profits from the run-up in oil prices is different for two reasons. First, it is unusually clear that these profits have nothing to do with productivity. Diverting them to the U.S. Treasury would have no effect on the incentive to extract more oil from American ground. Second, some or all of these profits are directly related to a situation that is imposing huge sacrifices—financial and otherwise—from others; that is, the Iraq war.

Because of the war, the government is adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the burden of debt that all taxpayers, including other businesses, will have to pay off. Because of the war, American soldiers by the hundreds, and Iraqis by the thousands, are paying the ultimate tax of death by government policy. And because of the war, American oil companies are raking in extra billions of dollars of profits.

The oil companies, like other big corporations, are mostly owned by ordinary citizens, either directly or through mutual and retirement funds. Presumably some of them support the war and others don't. Do any of these shareholders, pro-war or anti-war, want to pocket $45 billion (or whatever number you choose) from a war that is costing others so much?"

Is it right to make huge profits on the backs of our soldiers and tax dollars? I'm all for free markets, but oil is different, and this article points out a few reasons why oil is a commodity unlike any other.