Oil Prices (and what doesn't change them).

Hey Ya'll,

Remember how, a little over a week ago, a portion of the Alaskan oil fields were shut down to conduct repairs on the pipeline? At the time pretty much every news outlet (at least that I saw) was predicting doom, gloom, and rising oil prices. Speculation prices did rise - but not by very much and certainly not for very long. In fact, today we get the news (see article here) that oil prices have reached what is an eight-week low due to robust oil stocks and the expectations of declining demand as we reach the end of the summer. The price (and supply) of oil continues, as always, to be driven by demand. Scare tactics based on mistaken economics bother me.

Oh, and in other news... I'm done with my field exams! Two three hour exams on subsequent nights.

Economists and Taxes

This morning, before I left for work, my roommate asked me if the paycheck he recently received for his teaching services was substantially smaller than he expected exclusively due to taxes.

It was.

Ouch!

I stopped for a moment, and we shared a moment of sadness and disgust about the inefficiencies of the various levels of government and the amount of servitude they require from workers in the United States. Both of us also realized that the government has a pretty slick game going on - as long as most Americans are relatively content to pay the current level of taxes, no one will find it worth their while to really work for change. For example, my roommate, while perfectly willing and eager to jump onto someone else's efforts for lower (or no) taxes, finds that even the substantial amount of money he lost to the government is not enough to prompt him into personal, individual, action.

It's all about incentives, costs, and benefits my friends.