No one. Have you heard of any congressional investigation? The oversight committees for the Departments of Energy and Commerce are two likely starting points. Nothing. President Obama is threatening to tap the US strategic oil reserve to use market forces to push crude oil and gas prices down. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sees commodity price increases, including crude oil, as a temporary phenomenon. They may create a problem, however.
"Rises in the prices of oil or other
commodities would represent a threat both to economic growth and to
overall price stability, particularly if they were to cause inflation
expectations to become less well anchored," Bernanke said before
Congress last week. Ben Bernanke, March 1
Doing nothing, like Congress, and trying to manipulate market forces, as the president says he might, are not the heavy-hitters needed to stop this latest rip off. They both buy into the belief that there is some sort of occult mystery to why prices are going up. Everyone who benefits will raise prices because they can. They have no concept of enough and there is nobody standing in their way.
What would JFK do?
There was a time when the president of the United States stood up to big business. President John F. Kennedy put his prestige and word on the line when he helped the steel industry and labor unions negotiate a contract that the president thought was fair to all, a deal he hailed as "non inflationary." Just days after the settlement, US Steel turned around and issued a major price increase. This would have hurt the economy due to the central role of steel at the time.
Kennedy felt betrayed by US Steel and the others that raised prices. He wasted no time in his response. The Department of defense said it would buy steel from the lowest bidder. This would have excluded US Steel and their fellow price gougers. The Justice Department began investigations and issued antitrust indictments by the big steel producers. Kennedy also went to the public to gain support for his efforts.
Big steel backed down. The broader business community complained. The Kennedy administration and others reminded everyone that the government acts in the public interest when business threatens the interests of the people. What a novel concept.
END
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