So, when we look at the world today, what do we see? Okay, that's a depressing exercise. Let's look at oil, the lifeblood of our cars, economy, and the purpose for most of our wars. So, gas prices keep skyrocketing, despite record corporate profits. The oil companies insist they're not gouging us, and as we all know, they're always honest, even when it's not in their best interest.
So, we're in a bind. On a positive note, it would seem that one of the key ingredients in our quasi-socialistic experiment known as the New Deal would be in order. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you price controls! Yes, this is a real concept. The government can tell the big oil companies exactly how much they can charge for a gallon of gas. Yes, our tax dollars do subsidize the gasoline. Yes, the entire congressional delegation of Texas would start caning people. Still, nobody talks about what would be an easy and obvious fix to our current dilemma.
Why not? Because the Democrats have moved so far to the right on economics issues that price controls, aside from the minimum wage, aren't even a part of the party's lexicon anymore. Shame, too, because this concept would be a surpassingly easy sell to swing voters who moan about gas prices while loading up the kids and Rex (the dog) into their brand new huge SUV. Plus, it would actually help out poorer people who are proportionally going to have to spend more of their money on gas than the rich. It would actually help the oil companies in the long term as well, since the reduced prices wouldn't force people to find alternative routes of transportation and thus ruin their empire of greed. Don't count on this to happen, however, and don't count on any of the Democratic Presidential Candidates to mention this idea.
