You Can’t Manage Mother Nature, But Supply Can Lower the Cost of Oil

on June 24, 2008 at 8:27 am

An editorial in Tuesday’s Daily Times unintentionally highlights two concepts that the left simply refuse to accept – you can manage neither Mother Nature nor markets. Despite eons of historical evidence to the the contrary, the socialist-minded among us continue to try. A 60 Minutes piece on Sunday highlighted the ridiculous lengths that our federal government employs to manage the salmon population in the Columbia River.

This past year legislature in several states, including Maryland, rushed to place severe limits on the recreational and commercial harvest of blue crabs. If you listened to the environmental left, the blue crab was heading for extinction. This year’s harvest appears to be abundant, to say the least. Leftist enviro’s want the federal government to destroy dams providing cheap hydroelectric power to industry in our Pacific and Mountain states in order to protect salmon and other species.

With the price of gas over $4.00 per gallon and diesel over $5.00 in some parts of the country these same people refuse to accept the fact that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf to oil exploration and drilling could have an immense effect on the price of oil. They claim that it will be a “drop in the bucket” and won’t affect prices.

While it is true that it would take several years to get rigs online, new supply will affect price. It’s as true today as it was in 1776 when Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations or the thousands of years prior when people knew that the market worked, they just didn’t have a book explaining how.

When will the left learn a few basic concepts? Markets work. They always have and they always will. Despite innumerable unsuccessful attempts, we can’t manage God’s creation.

cross posted at Delmarva Dealings

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