Steve Byas
The Fat Police
By Steve Byas
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.” This piece of advice came from Calvin Coolidge, reflecting on his time in the Massachusetts Legislature.
It is good advice, and it makes a fine companion quotation to another fine quotation from the man Coolidge would later serve as vice-president: Warren Harding. In a rejection of the terrible “progressive” philosophy that has plagued our body politic for decades, Harding, running for president in 1920 said, “All human ills are not curable by legislation.”
Harding used the term ills to refer to the unfortunate circumstances of living, not some sickness, or health problem. Unfortunately, there exist far too many persons in our society who believe that they can “cure” not only unfortunate circumstances, but that they should simply dictate (like a dictator) how we live our lives.
Along comes state Representative Richard Morrissette (D-Oklahoma City), who has filed legislation requiring school kids be checked for weight problems on an annual basis. The cost of the scales would be less than $3 million Morrissette said (which reminds me of the comment of Illinois Congressman Everett Dirksen, who once said that in Congress, “a million here, and a million there, and after awhile, it adds up to some real money.”
My concern here, however, is not mainly about the money. It is the chilling idea, rapidly growing in acceptance, that it is the job of the government to tell us what to do with our own lives. Even home schooled children would be screened, if Morrissette has his way. For those children found fatter than what Morrissette finds acceptable, a letter would be sent to the parents of the fat kid, or the too skinny kid.
If parents ignored the letter, the matter could then be turned over to the state Department of Human Services for possible investigation.
Morrissette said that the intent of his legislation is to educate parents about their child who might not be eating the right kind of food!
About twenty years ago, I wrote a column in which I opined that the seat belt laws set a terrible precedent. I contended that once the precedent was established that government could tell someone to buckle up for their own protection, and not just to stop from hurting someone else (the traditional role of government), government would move to tell us what to eat. I caught flak about that prediction at the time, but it has come to pass.
While Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has simply asked for the people of his city to voluntarily lose weight, I am fearful that his efforts (intentionally or not) are laying the groundwork for government requirements for you to hold to a certain weight.
In that same column, I said that these efforts were part of the move toward socialized medicine. After all, if the government is going to pay for your health care, they want you to be healthy. That means wearing your seat belt, eating the right kind of foods, and exercising. In the novel by George Orwell, 1984, the central character of the book, Winston Smith, is awakened by the telescreen, and ordered to do his morning calisthenics. Adolf Hitler required Germans to work out at the gym, and other such stuff.
I say let’s tell the Fat Police, mind your own business.
It is Economics, Stupid
By Steve Byas
Back in 1992, the Clinton for president campaign summed up the issue of the race as, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Well, today, when dealing with oil prices we hear all sorts of emotional, demagogic, and may I say stupid comments. It is simple economics, stupid. There are so many emotional, demagogic, and stupid things said about oil prices, I hardly know where to start. Let us deal with some of the more common arguments:
Fallacy One: Well, I think it is awfully suspicious that I can stand on the street corner and observe four stores all charging the same price for gasoline. First of all, for every street corner that I see such a thing, I see others where different stores have different prices. It really is not surprising that neighboring stores charge the same retail price for gasoline. After all, most other product prices are not prominently placed on a sign near the street. When consumers are driving along, looking for cheaper gasoline prices, they will naturally turn into a store that has the lower price.
So, when store A lowers its price, store B often follows suit, fearing customer loss. Likewise, when store A raises its price three cents, store B, having suffered a similar increase in their own wholesale price for gasoline, breathes a sigh of relief, and does the same. But, it would be lunacy for a store owner to arbitrarily raise his price twenty cents above his neighboring store, when every driver can see the difference from the street.
Fallacy Two: Well, OK, there may have been a disaster that knocked out a refinery (or whatever), but that gasoline in the tank at the store was already purchased for a cheaper price. So, they are just using the disaster as an excuse to jack up the price. Really? My question back is this: If the wholesale price has gone up, where does the store owner get the money to buy that higher-priced gasoline? The price that the store owner paid for the gasoline already in the tank is irrelevant. The market has now changed the price, including gasoline already in the tank.
It could also happen the other way, as well. The store owner could buy gasoline at X dollars, but a drop in consumer demand causes a fall in the market price. A neighbor store owner will probably drop his price to get some more business, which will put pressure on our first store owner to follow suit, or lose business (see fallacy one above).
Let us say that a person bought a house in the early 70s for $15,000. Since that time, you may have noticed that the market price for homes has risen (even with the recent fall in home prices). The homeowner is desirous of buying a new home for $165,000. In order to make that purchase feasible, he sells his own home for $95,000. Wait a minute! That house was already purchased for $15,000. Where does he get off selling it such an increased amount of money? Why is he “jacking up” the price? He isn’t, of course. The market price has changed, just like it does for milk and oil.
Fallacy Three: The Big Oil companies set the price of oil through some conspiratorial method. I am sure they would, if they could. But, the largest privately owned oil company in the world, Exxon, only has about two percent of the market, worldwide. Most of the world’s oil is owned by governments like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. In other words, monopoly socialism is the problem, not free enterprise. I have no doubt that if all the world’s oil was privately owned, instead of socialistically owned, the price would be lower. How much I can’t say.
Other factors that enter into the price of oil are the increased demand from expanding economies like India and Communist China, speculation, and the decline in the value of the dollar through our own government’s inflationary policies. The recent economic collapse has caused a downward pressure on just about all prices, including oil. But just a few short months ago, we suffered as the price of oil raced past $100 a barrel, onto new heights of nearly $150 a barrel. Consumers groaned under the weight of four dollar a gallon gasoline.
The free market, if allowed to work under such skyrocketing price increases, would operate in the following manner: Suppliers, to make more profits, would drill more oil, and refine more gasoline. And, that would bring down the price.
But, where in the United States can they do that? No drilling is allowed in ANWAR, thanks to Bill Clinton’s veto of ten years ago. We can’t drill off the coast of Florida because of George Bush’s brother, Governor Jeb Bush, and his successor, John McCain’s buddy, Charlie Crist. Environmentalists won’t let us mine for coal to convert it into gasoline, and they throw up roadblocks to nuclear power (which would free up more oil to be used for cars). They don’t even let us build windmills off the coast of Massachusetts! Look, if you told me that you would give me one million dollars if I would carry a copy of Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance from Norman to Wichita, Kansas, by foot, I would do that. It might take a little time, but I would get there. But, not if you tied me up, and I could not walk.
That is what oil suppliers face now. To call oil executives before Congress and berate them for the high price of gasoline might make some suffering consumers feel better, but it does not put one drop of gasoline in our cars. Funny thing is, with the recent collapse in oil prices, no one in Congress is suggesting calling oil executives in to explain the lower prices at the pump. No, the pattern for our government leaders is clear: if you make money, we will berate you, threaten you, and tax you. If you lose money, we will consider taking money from those who earned it, and give you a bail out.
Steve Byas is Editor of the Oklahoma Constitution.
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