Market contradictions.Kevin Clarke's diatribe di·a·tribe n. A bitter, abusive denunciation. [Latin diatriba, learned discourse, from Greek diatrib in the July Margin Notes ("Oil change") against the free market is self-destructive. Throughout the essay Clarke attacks the flee-market forces that supposedly gave us an era of cheap oil. Yet the essay constantly refers to acts that our government did (and does) to keep gasoline gasoline or petrol, light, volatile mixture of hydrocarbons for use in the internal-combustion engine and as an organic solvent, obtained primarily by fractional distillation and "cracking" of petroleum, but also obtained from natural gas, by affordable. That is the very definition of subsidy subsidy, financial assistance granted by a government or philanthropic foundation to a person or association for the purpose of promoting an enterprise considered beneficial to the public welfare. and therefore cannot be used as an example of a "free" market. I, like Clarke, would rather pay all the costs up front at the pump. To have that, though, we would need a truly free market. Harvey Herela Huntington Beach Huntington Beach, city (1990 pop. 181,519), Orange co., S Calif., on the Pacific coast, across from Santa Catalina Island, in an oil-producing area; inc. 1909. It manufactures aerospace vehicles, aircraft parts, optical instruments, and heat transfer equipment. , Calif. |
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