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Drill, Baby, Drill Update
Joe is Wypoxic
March 10, 2026
The photo above shows a glimpse of what gas lines looked like in the 70s.
Quick Update on my post from yesterday about Drill, Baby, Drill.
Beehiiv commenter TBone Dinosaur (love the moniker) pointed out that Paul Krugman posted today about this as well:
Krugman added some important information regarding the ability of governments to have some impact on oil/gas prices:
“So does U.S. oil production give Americans no insulation at all from world market events? Not under the current rules of the game.
It could be different. In the 1970s the U.S. imposed price controls on domestically produced oil and partially insulated consumers from global oil shocks. Over time, however, these price controls led to shortages — the infamous gasoline lines. When price controls were lifted, they were replaced by a windfall profits tax intended to capture part of the gains experienced by oil companies. This tax was repealed after prices plunged in the mid-1980s.
Whatever you think of these past policies, however, they took place in a political environment in which corporations and moneyed interests in general had far less power than they do now. It’s almost inconceivable that 1970s-type price controls or excess profits taxes would be imposed today. So US prices of gasoline and other oil products reflect world crude prices, and the fact that America produces a lot of oil doesn’t matter at all.
If anything, US families are more exposed to Middle East chaos than their counterparts in, say, Europe or Japan, mainly because we drive bigger, less fuel-efficient cars.
The people who decided to begin this war should have seen this coming. All the evidence, however, suggests that they didn’t.”
It is impossible to imagine a Windfall Profits Tax in today’s political environment, mostly because - as Krugman notes - corporations wield much more political power (due to financial contributions allowed by Citizens United, among other reasons). In addition, beginning with Reagan, Republicans promoted the idea that the “free market” - which is, well, not really fully free but skewed by laws that give breaks and preferences to certain industries/companies - will solve all of our issues/problems. Remember, he said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”
FYI, I majored in Mathematical Economics as an undergraduate student in college (don’t @ me with nerd jokes 😳), so I appreciate that Mr. Krugman agrees with my view (I will never be in the same class as the Nobel Laureate) and provides some more detail on how a functioning government might - might - react to oil price spikes.
“Functioning” is the operative word here…
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