Richard Scaife? hahahahahaha!  Did that strike anyone besides Hill and me as funny?

Whaaat?  There are only two legitimate ways to bring down the price of gasoline, increase supply or cut demand.  Those, however, are the two ideas voters do not want to hear.  OK, there's the banana republic way, decree that gasoline shall be 25 cents a gallon, what it was when I got my first license in the mid 1950s.  

By the way, 25 cents a gallon then was more expensive than $3.50 a gallon today.  So, in a funny way, it is 25 cents a gallon today, not that the voters want to hear that either.

Dan

Why does Israel, specifically, need us to provide deterrence?  Israel's a nuclear power to all who care to know, and has submarines and other second-strike capability.  It makes more sense for us to expand a general nuclear umbrella to the other nations of the Middle East so as to make them, who lack MAD capability, safe.  Specifically going for Israel is pointless (They can destroy Iran all on their own) and only makes for more PR of the US in the Middle East as Israel's big brother.  It leaves other proliferation risks like Saudi Arabia or elsewhere unprotected.  

Actually Dan, from what I've read we did pass the highest previous price for a gallon of gas when adjusted for inflation.  The previous high had been in the 1970s.

CPI says that .25 1959 dollars is $1.83.  You'd be paying $.48 at the pump in 1959 to match the current prices.  Of course back then it was leaded and god knows what else, but a stewardess on roller skates would fill your tank using something like the "Hot Dog on a Stick" lemonade maker.  So on average I think the external expenses even out

data.bls.gov/.../cpicalc.pl

If Olberman were as intelligent, witty, and clever as he thinks he is, his would be a hell of a good show and I'd watch every night.

His assignation with Hillary was quite amusing though, as he got her to emit her inimmitable cackle several times.

I hope George Stephonopolus was watching. Maybe some day when he grows up he too can become a real journalist.

Per www.measuring worth.com/ there are six different metrics for deterimining the relative value of a U.S. dollar over time.  Comparing the value of one dollar in 1956 vs. in 2007 (the most recent year for which data exists), results in sums ranging from $7.63 to $31.64.

The value in 2007 of a 1956 two-bit piece,  thus, would range from 1.90 to 7.91-- if you like averages, that would be $4.90 among all six metrics.

Anyhoo, whether the price of a gallon of gas in 2007 is relatively more, less, or equal to a gallon in 1956 is an issue separate from law of the supply and demand.  Some commodities will rise in price faster than, say, the rate of inflation, because more people want what there is less of -- or more people want what there is the same of.

.

Think of your local gas station as an eBay outlet.

Dan

You're quite right dbuck, but that doesn't invalidate what Clinton said.  In a perfect market, the only way to change gas prices would be to increase supply or decrease demand.  Note that one of Clinton's three suggestions -- tapping the strategic reserve -- is, in fact, a supply-increasing policy.  The other two are intended to correct market inefficiencies/distortions.  Obviously, taxes distort the equilibrium price (although taxing gas producers more and consumers less would probably have little or no net effect).  If there is market manipulation going on, that should be corrected, although I doubt that it will have very much effect on prices.

Nothing Clinton said was illegitimate.  And she did state they were only short-term fixes.  I'm no fan of Hillary, but that's a fairly decent answer.  What did you expect her to say: prices are going to get higher, deal with it?

Of course, I didn't see the show -- who watches TV anymore? -- so I'm just going based on Cohn's summary.

"Short-term" doesn't do justice to the idea of tapping the strategic petroleum reserve. Even were we to open the taps on the SPR today and start extracting as much oil as technically possible, we would only add about 4 million barrels per day for a period of less than six months. That could, in theory, reduce gas prices at the pump by about 50 cents (back-of-envelope calculations here, but I'm pretty sure the correct answer is between about 25 and 75 cents) for half a year. Then prices would instantly revert to the pre-SPR levels, and in addition we would suffer several really fun consequences:

1. We would have no strategic petroleum reserve to tap in case of emergency.

2. We would be in noncompliance with treaty obligations to Israel to supply it from the SPR in case of emergency.

3. Because of 1 and 2, and to preserve the physical infrastructure of the SPR, the government would have to start buying 1 or 2 million barrels per day. From a government fiscal standpoint, that would be selling low and buying high with your tax revenue. From a market standpoint, that would raise oil prices even further, adding perhaps 10-25 cents to the price of a gallon at the pump.

If those sound like fun consequences to you, and long-term prices worth paying to cut the cost of a gallon by a quarter or two for a few weeks, then yeah, tapping the SPR is a "decent answer."

What do I expect her (or any politician) to say? How about: Prices are going to get higher. Here is how we as a nation can deal with the fact. That kind of straight talk that treats citizens like grownups is what made Bill Clinton so refreshing in 1992 (and at critical points in his presidency). Bill was willing to tell people that their old jobs weren't coming back, or that prices weren't going down, and then offer solutions to the real problems rather than making foolish promises to wave a magic wand and make the bad news go away. Shame his wife didn't learn _that_ virtue from her years at his side.

Oil prices.  Look to Wall Street.

ratty, tapping the strategic reserve is the worst of all ideas, negating the very reason we have a reserve in the first place. Does she imagine oil prices will go down later so we can replenish the reserve? Shall we eat the seed corn now, and when a catastrophe occurs be caught utterly unprepared just so Hillary can get a bounce on 1% at the polls? Absolutely. And the consumer tax holiday is another nutty idea since we all know holidays come to an end, but again, we must get that 1% bounce at the polls.

Hey, how about real changes, raise the CAFE standards, have special taxes on high mpg non commercial vehicles, give tax breaks to hybrids, invest in alternative fuels, build nuclear plants, etc. Oh wait, these are long term solutions. That has nothing to do with now. sorry.

rhub, you went online while I was posting but I see we think alike (again)

Given Cohn's summary, my impression is that Clinton *wasn't* saying we can wave a magic wand to lower gas prices.  Olbermann asked her what tools the President has to accomplish this and she listed some options.  I don't think that was a policy position; Clinton wasn't saying "elect me, and I'll draw down the SPR to reduce your price at the pump."  That would not be a wise decision, for all the reasons you listed.  But the fact remains that tapping the SPR is one of the very few tools that a President has to reduce short term gas prices.

Many of us (especially me) are fed up with politicians not answering questions straight.  The other day, I had to interview a prospective job applicant for a technical position; I asked him how he would create a perl script to accomplish a simple task.  I didn't want to hear him say "I wouldn't use perl" or "you'll have to live without that task," but I also didn't expect him to go deploy it live on the server as soon as he was hired.  

Look, I'm a damned Obama contributor.  I want Hillary to drop out now so we can finally end this long national nightmare primary.  But the woman isn't Satan and not everything that comes out of her mouth is evil witchery.

Blackie, I don't know where I ever advocated drawing down the SPR.

I agree with Cohn --Hillary was very solid on Olbermann last night (video here ). Her answers on the

ratner, I didn't mean to suggest that I think everything Hillary says is evil witchery. Even granting SPR=tapping as a strictly technical answer to a technical question (what _could_ the president do), I'm still not sure it's an acceptable answer. In no meaningful sense would tapping the SPR reduce prices at the pump, unless we went full-bore to the max of 4ish million barrles per day. That would affect prices, for a few weeks, but not much and not for long and by any measure the nation, the economy, the government, and individual gas-users would be worse off when the tapping was done.

I mean, technically the president and Congress could also pass a law to subsidize gas at $2.00 per gallon. Why didn't Hillary list that among the options if she was merely listing the responses that a president might, in theory, offer?

But I've heard SPR-tapping nonsense from at least one candidate in each of the last several elections, so I really don't mean to single out Hillary for this criticism either. It's a stupid idea no matter who raises it. It's just that the idea is so stupid that it must be called out harshly whenever it's raised, no matter how much one might otherwise like the person making the proposal. I'd boo Obama if he said such a thing too.

blackton -- what I think you do is take all those and Rhubs' great ideas and you put them in a bill with short term measures -- open ANWAR, loosen (gasp!) some air quality regs for coal for a couple of years.  A lot of the oil market is psychological anyway.  The justification is that we're at war as well as in a recession and need to cut oil prices now as well as immediately start on the path to serious energy independence in the future.  And not a single one of the candidates will try to speak these truths to power.  

Hillary Clinton’s bold, astonishing suggestion in the Philadelphia debate with Obama on April 16th that, if Iran attacked Israel, there would be massive retaliation by the United States against Iran, in short, that our sons and daughters would die in the defense of Israel, is cause for a national movement against any politician who takes that outrageous position with respect to Israel. Either we oppose politicians of that type now, or our sons and daughters, if not ourselves, will pay for it in our blood later.

The obligation of the President and Congress is the protection of the lives of the men, women, and children of this country. In the absence of a supervening cause, such as self-defense, any military identification of this country with the defense of Israel, or of any other country having, as does Israel, hundreds of atomic missiles, would justify a political rebellion in this country of the like that has never been seen. Her statement is a clear warning of the influence of the American-Israeli Lobby, the people who worked to drive us into our war with Iraq. Unless that lobby is confronted by a strong movement against it, self-seeking politicians disloyal to this country will shove us into the center of the chaos that will follow an attack against Iran.

Finally I can write something effusive about Obama:

I see that Hillary Clinton has endorsed John McCain's pathetic proposal to lift the gas tax for the summer.  If energy independence is the overwhelmingly most important issue facing the nation (which I think it is), then "First Do No Harm" should apply.  McCain and Clinton's position reflects a belief that the voters are stupid and can't understand the simpliest argument of putting energy independence and infrastructure ahead of fleeting price relief at the pump.  

Josie19: if we can have a war to liberate Kuwait then I don't see this as *that* different from our policy of retaliating against enemies of our allies as long as they aren't black Africans or southern Asians.  

OK, even I don't dislike Hillary enough to believe that she would endorse McCain's gas tax holiday without hearing it from Hillary in her own words. I mean, gosh. Which roads and bridges would McCain like to go unrepaired while we're not collecting the taxes that pay for road and bridge repair? From which foreign tyrants does he intend to borrow the money to run the government? Which future taxes does he intend to raise to pay for the debt incurred now? Which economy-growing private business investments does he want to go unfunded while the government sucks even more money out of the bond market? Which foreign tyrants does McCain wish to enrich with increased oil sales to U.S. consumers?

lymon, agree with what you wrote above. The bizarre thing is Hillary does have a lot of good proposals about how to deal with energy, why couldn't she just recite them, why the pander? Of all the candidates she has come up with the nuttiest pandering ones of all. Remember a $5,000 bond for every baby?

It is like she doesn't trust her generally sound views on economics enough to use them to convince people to vote for her.