“…If people don’t understand what is happening, politicians can tell them anything — and get their support to take actions that look good, even when the consequences will be counterproductive.

Political responses to the current high price of gasoline are a classic example. World demand for oil has risen out of all proportion to the amount of oil supplied. That is the problem and prices are a symptom of that problem.

Politicians have long been known for seizing upon immediate symptoms and ignoring underlying causes and consequences. Back in the 18th century Adam Smith wrote of “that crafty animal” the politician, who is preoccupied with “the momentary fluctuation of affairs.”

Politicians are still crafty in the 21st century and still have their eyes on fleeting opportunities to make political hay. The high price of gasoline is the opportunity du jour.

Nothing is easier than to blame high prices on whoever charges those high prices, regardless of what the underlying cause is. It doesn’t matter whether you are talking about Big Oil or little stores in poor, high-crime neighborhoods that charge higher prices growing out of the economic consequences of poverty and crime.

In these and other cases, the economics behind the high prices is of far less interest politically than denouncing the sellers for “greed,” “exploitation,” “gouging” and the whole political vocabulary of undefined rhetoric and unsubstantiated notions.

Much is made of the fact that gasoline prices go up before the higher priced oil is turned into gasoline. What something cost is history, what it is worth now is economics…”