Because increasing supply couldn’t possibly make the price go down.
Is the author off his meds? Increase supply. Newt's plan. duh!
The thing that makes me so heartsick is that it would be SO EASY to drive prices down and light this economy on fire. If we had a president who knew or cared about the basic principles of economics, this depression would be long gone. I suppose though, at this point, that’s the last thing we want... if he got smart now he could win re-election. I don’t want us to get so tied up in presidential politics that we forget about flooding the congress with strong conservative reformers. It could actually be fun to have a dominant house and a veto proof Senate, and a communist presi_ent. We could isolate him in that house, bottle him up completely with legislation. Put him in the bunker like the Russians taking Berlin. Make him a lame duck for four long years. Cut his funding, reverse his executive orders, filibuster (or vote down) his SC nominees. But I wouldn’t want to chance it.
1) Speculators are driving the price up because of concerns for future supply.
2) Drilling effects future supply.
Now the magic happens. We can't drill because it won't help the present supply and we have to punish the speculators because they are gouging.
We really do live in bizarro world.
Yes and no. Increasing the supply of oil won’t as long as large speculators can manipulate the market. However a currently available alternative fuel (natural gas) that can be used in a large percentage of existing and future vehicles can effectively decouple Americans from high gasoline prices.
If that happens oil inventories will go through the roof as some countries are forced to pump more and more oil to maintain their income in the face of steadily dropping oil prices as the American demand for imported oil to be used for gasoline production drops to near zero.