Petrol Prices

While I don’t like paying the extra cost of petrol, I am very relaxed with the recent increases in its price. That is because it is not some harbinger of doom but simply the market at work.

I am not a geologist so have no idea if oil will run out in ten years, 100 years or 200 years. But what I have confidence in is that if supplies do start to get scarce, then the price will rise and this will give the incentives for alternative fuel sources etc. Manufacturers will respond with different types of cars, consumers will buy them etc etc.

So the right response to petrol prices going up is in fact to do nothing and let prices create incentives. The NZ Herald editorial comes to much the same conclusion being that change will happen when it is economic to do so.

They are scathing of the Government’s list of proposals ranging from restricting car imports, petrol rationing or carless days, as one should be.

And idiot of the day award has to go to Dover Samuels who thinks the price increases are due to oil company profits and not due to currency fluctuations and rising global prices.

The global price went over US$66/barrel this week. Blaming NZ oil companies for this is politics at its daftest.