The mainstream media is happily donning rose colored glasses again, this time when discussing rising gas price.
It's amazing how Democrat administrationust make everything seem brighter for the MSM! Just as Obama-era unemployment has become an opportunity to get back to the simple, more important things in life, gas prices that under President Bush would have been cast as an oil-baron conspiracy to crush the poor are now merely a nuisance.
Daniel Gross at Yahoo explains, for example, why this gas spike is so much easier to bare than previous spikes.
For starters, Americans simply use less gasoline than we used to. That's supposed to be good news. Cash-strapped Americans have grown accustomed to forgoing summer driving vacations and seeing loved ones less. These diminished expectations will serve us well as we start losing more of our monthly disposable income to our gas tanks.
Another silver lining: American domestic oil production is up, so more of that extra money we shell out at least stays state-side.
Ponder that one for moment…. We are supposed to feel comforted by the idea that big energy companies will benefit from high energy costs. Under the Bush Administration, oil company profits were the grounds for Congressional hearings, with Members propagating the notion that speculators and oil execs were in cahoots to fleece consumers.
Sure, it's nice that American companies and automobiles have become more efficient, which may cushion the blow that higher energy costs inflict on the economy. But Americans aren't going to be fooled by the spin.
Higher energy prices mean Americans have less money in their pockets and businesses have less to hire workers and have to charge consumers more. This is bad news for the economy, and policymakers should be focused on ways to bring oil prices down by encouraging more domestic oil production and cutting unnecessary mandates that drive energy prices up.