>>>But you did make a point - it would have been natural to raise the price in 2003, but they didn't.
>>
>>
>>http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
>>
>>The price of gas in 2003 was the same in 2001 (9/11, presumably).
>>
>>Maybe they manipulated it down for 2002, in the best interest of the world, took a profit hit, and then worked their way back after life started getting back to normal.
>
>That's the only time I think they were actually unable to manipulate it. The fearmongering was so loud aftr 9/11 that the roads were rather empty for months. Note the depth and width of the dip in the graph in the last quarter of 2001. The fear of travel ran so deep that I remember seeing the price of gas veer around $1.05 for weeks, with occasional dips below the dollar line. I once even filled up for $.899/gal, and that was in the DC area, about January 2002 or so.
>
>They had to make up for this sooner or later, and "in the best interest of the world" is good for one wry chuckle.
>
>>You made the point we don't know what gas prices would be like on the natural path because we don't have an alternative universe.
>>
>>But that's my point. That before we say something like "Bush lives on another planet because he things the housing market is the reason for the economies condition, not the war", maybe we should have some evidence to back up that assertion.
>>
>>If we want to examine the situation objectively, that is, rather than automatically promoting and defending our biases.
>
>I can't promote my bias any further, it's already a four star general bias. Being a general, I think it can defend itself ;).
>
>Bush may be a bit right at the moment, in that there's nothing that war contributed to economic troubles in this year that wasn't there in the previous two years, and that the housing market is the main course on the table now. But then, it's superficial (which surprises me from this guy). It's not actually the housing market that caused anything per se - it's the investors' push that pumped the bubble until it burst just as it did with the previous one in 2000. Again, housing isn't so much of the problem by itself, it's the bad loans crisis.


The loans for houses?

I think the idea of a "bubble bursting" is a cliche sensational media device by now.

We have to say, he look, we've got an awful lot of infrastructure we're holding up, perhaps too much, but it still exists, and we have to support it money wise or eliminate it and deal with the difficult issues involved with doing that.

We'll probably do the same thing we did after the money coming from the web market did and create a new market with a strong cash flow, that will eventually go dry too.

If, on the other hand, that new market is business in Iraq, there's a strong possibility in 5 years we could see all sorts of new money (maybe savings on really cheap gas) that has a positive lasting effect on the economy, maybe centuries long.


>It's caused by the thesis that everyone, every middleman in the chain must make more profits than last year (or at least must show growing potential) or they're dead (on Walmart Street).


That thesis is essentially the defining characteristic of the modern West over the last 400 years.

We have the Internet.

Has it been all bad?


>One of the reasons that the capitalism survived was that it has found a mechanism to avert its cyclic nature and skip the crises before they happen.

Labels like capitalism are a dead end for me.

I believe "capitalism" and "socialism" and even "democracy" are at best attempts at humans describing how nature works best.

And, I believe that every system in nature exhibits characteristics worthy of all the descriptions.

The best democracy in the world is going to have some fascism at some level.

The best capitalist economy is going to have socialized elements.

These sorts of labels, and your post proves, are unnecessarily divisive.


>With Reaganomics, someone had the bright idea that the bubble/bust cycle is something that can actually make money in the process (money for those who press the buttons, screw everyone else), so the bubbles are sped up. The dot com bubble ran its course from what, 1993 or so until 2000. The housing market ran 2004-2007. We'll see what's next - Harper's has had a nice analysis a couple of months ago of how it may be working.

And more details on Harper's analysis?