We Need An Oil BUYING Cartel

[xartlu]

Free Market devotees like to believe that market outcomes (price) are set by some magical force called supply and demand. Yet in reality the mix of buyers and sellers is quite arbitrary. Change the mix and that changes the those market outcomes

Seeing the insanity in the oil markets I'm reminded of a suggestion made back in 79 by Barry Commoner. Then, as now, rapid run-ups in price were in part due to concerns about supply, a far bigger problem in 79, and rampant speculation.

His suggestion was to create a US Oil Purchasing Agency that would act in behalf of all US oil firms. One immediate benefit would be to reduce the needles bidding up of prices by US oil companies. To that I'd add we MUST get the speculators out of the market.

[GoesTo11]

1. We need an oil conserving cartel

We already have an oil buying cartel. It goes to war when it needs more oil.

As for a consumer cartel - well, producers can sit on their stashes a lot more easily than US consumers and manufacturers and airlines can avoid using oil.