Thanks to my red-headed Daddy–who forsook Kentucky hills in the 1920s, surveyed in the Florida Land Boom, and then worked in West Texas oilfields—I learned:
No legislative body, dictator, or president ever repealed the Law of Supply and Demand.
Dad’s wisdom reminded me of when I spent a 1930s week with Aunt Muriel and Uncle W.R. Lacy. They owned a grocery store and gasoline station in West Texas Peyote. In those days you pumped gasoline in the gas station tank up into a clear bowl that measured the gallons the customer wanted. Uncle W.R. let me pump up what the driver wanted, then he filled their tank.
You may not believe this now, but back then gasoline cost around 12 or 14 cents a gallon. A daughter remembers when she was in 1970s high school and paid 32 cents for a gallon. She dreads paying over four dollars when she refills soon.
Our President apparently understands that we need more supply to meet demand, and lower prices. He contemplates importing oil from a sanctioned dictator’s Venezuela because he just—with a penned executive order—stopped imports of Russian oil. At the same time the president calls for more production from Texas and oil operators in other states, while Congresswoman Maggie from New Hampshire says tax the oilmen if they raise their prices during this windfall.
Red Elam spent sixty years working and investing in the oilfields of Texas. Part of that time he spent at the morning coffee gathering.
If he were still around, Dad would be telling President Joe that governments can’t legislate or dictate a change in the law of supply and demand. The old guys gathering for morning coffee would agree. So do I.
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