Daniel Vasquez, The Sun Sentinel

March 3, 2008

Daniel Vasquez

The Sun-Sentinel

200 East Las Olas Boulevard

Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: About rising gasoline prices and as Lenin, the noted social activist asked, “What’s to be Done” as outlined by your astonishing column in today’s Sun-Sentinel

Mr. Vasquez,

I am far too old and I have seen far too many credits become debits to rely on assumptions, particularly unfounded assumptions.

I assume that if I read an article about television in the Sun-Sentinel that the writer knows something about television. I assume that if I read an article about travel in the Sun-Sentinel that the writer knows something about travel. In the two above mentioned subjects that is the case. Both subjects are covered by knowledgeable men who write very well about their subjects.

How easy it was for me to fall for the trap set by you and your employer. I assumed that an article in the business section would have been written by someone who…y’know what I’m saying?…like Wow!...knew something about business and about the way the world works. Not the way you want it to work, not the way you think it should work, but the way the damn thing, “warts and all”, works.

Simple things like knocking on the door of a perfect stranger and asking him to buy something from you. Simple things like trying to put together a budget. Simple things like trying to figure out how to get a customer to pay. Simple things like trying not to piss off a numbskull bureaucrat. Simple things like meeting a payroll. Simple things like trying to make sense of a tax code “designed by Martians for Martians”. Simple things like fully understanding from the evidence of your own eyes what the word “margin” means.

You would think I would have known better. Hell, I have more experience than Hillary Clinton. Mea culpa, my fault.

Your column is predicated on nobody noticing that based on what you write, have written, and will continue to write you have no experience in the arena.

I have no idea what your educational background or job background is. I know from your columns that you confuse correlation with causation thus indicating that Logic is Terra Incognita to you. I know that your solutions are predicated on “Balloon Juice” nostrums that would require the suspension of all the laws governing gravity to have any chance of succeeding.

Today’s economics lesson will be short and not so sweet. Think about the last time you were punched in the mouth.

When the price of any commodity spikes two things happen.

#1 – Demand drops.

#2 – Supply increases.

Am I going too fast for you?

The marginal user stops using as much. Does this fall disproportionately on the poor, the old, the halt, and the lame? Of course it does. There was a judge in Paris who said that the rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridges over the Seine. “The rich in the summer; the poor in the winter.” Does that sound cruel? If it does maybe you can explain why nobody swims to Cuba. Why are the swimmers always heading North?

“How sad of all the things that men endure

how few laws or kings can cause or cure.”

One of the vexing questions facing Western man has been the lack of bones to feed the dogs when the dinner bell rings. Do you decrease the number of dogs or do you increase the number of bones? Or do you try to allocate the number of bones going to each dog to make sure that each dog has its “fair share”? I leave it to you to explain to Thunder, the Bull Mastiff why FiFi, the 6 pound poodle gets first dibs on the left over ribs.

You may recall that I mentioned Lenin. His successor Stalin had a solution, unfortunately not unique, to a wheat shortage in Ukraine. He killed all the successful farmers. That solved the shortage problem. The technical terms for that solution are famine and genocide. [Google Kulaks]

One of your solutions is predictable in its simplicity and total disregard of facts, experience, and History. “Of course, we all should demand that Congress investigate oil profiteering.”

I have yet to see a declarative sentence defining what “profiteering” is. I have yet to have a satisfactory definition of “fair rate of return”.

You say that an inordinate increase in the price of gasoline is – pick one or pick them all – mean & rotten, illegal, and/or unfair. If the price of gasoline should fall it would greatly benefit the consumer. Would it not therefore follow Logically that the collapse of housing prices should be greeted with open arms and Te Deums? Would not the group of possible home buyers be expanding geometrically? Is not the problem of the lack of affordable housing curing itself as we speak? Of course, if your outrage about prices is eclectic then all bets are off.

You seem to be saying that oil companies make too much money. Should they be punished by the tax code or by increased mind boggling regulation would you be as kind as to explain to me how this will decrease the price of gasoline at the pump? Please tell me how, should your legislative kneecapping of oil companies succeed, this will lead to a new Spindletop, a new Elk Hills, or a new North Shore?

As a stop gap solution may I suggest that if gas goes above $4 per gallon that we put the Post Office in charge of the oil companies? If the price continues to climb let’s bring the very bright people from the Department of Motor Vehicles. They’re always looking for a new challenge.

18 centuries ago Diocletian’s answer to rising bread prices was to mandate a “fair” price. His solution for any baker not following his “guidelines” was to cut their hands off. No bread followed by no bakers. That was a plan. Talk about getting carbs out of your diet!

May I suggest that to show your solidarity with those “unlucky in life’s lottery” you get your employers to shun air conditioning in Sun-Sentinel world HQ this summer? Half the electricity generated in this country is used to air condition buildings. Half of power generated comes from burning coal. To Hell with SUVs and $4.00 a gallon gas to make them run. Coal is dirty. If you want to show your solidarity with drowning polar bears and the “wretched of the earth” turn off the A/C and wear loose fitting garments this summer.

May I suggest that your employer ban the use of private automobiles by its employees? The net effect on demand will be negligible but it will send a message to all like minded people.

Limiting the number of dogs at dinner time we can make the bones last longer is a premise both invalid and untruthful.

Economic progress comes from the Rule of Law, social mobility, and the simple dictum of what you have you keep. Your property rights are not predicated by the right Party being elected. It has only worked everywhere it has been tried. You seem to have wound up in the business section of the Sun-Sentinel without knowing any of this.

Accordingly, I name you

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK