Reply #4: Myth: "because there is a shortage, there are gasoline lines." [View All]

[leveymg]

In reality, according to DOE statistics, the supply of crude oil stocks and refined petroleum products in storage across the U.S. during 1979-80 "shortage" in most regions across the country was as high as it had been during previous years. Supplies were not reaching the retail consumer because the big refiners reduced output and distributors were withholding product from the market as prices ran up.

I looked at this in 1980. The facts were available then, but were overshadowed by massive energy industry-driven hysteria that drove Carter from office. More than any other factor, Carter's failure to deal effectively with fuel supply and price speculators was responsible for the embrace of Ronald Reagan by the American people.

More than any other factor, the collusion of the energy giants in keeping US gas prices well below skyrocketing world prices and spot market prices today is responsible for the false sense of economic invulnerability that afflicts Americans under the * regime.

The contrast is startling. For more on this, see: http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040825Levey.shtml