I have no idea who I am voting for in this upcoming Presidential election, but I’m certainly looking more favorably upon Barack Obama after reading his reactions to John McCain and Hillary Clinton’s populist attack against gas taxes. From the New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.

I wholeheartedly agree. And so does one of today’s brightest economists, Greg Mankiw:

I don’t know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal.

First, we have to realize that the increased gas prices are, although inconvenient in the short run, somewhat of a blessing. People are quickly starting shift away from driving larger cars, which will lower gasoline consumption in the long run. Additionally, if gas prices remain high for a long period of time, economic theory tells us that people will start taking larger actions to lower their gas prices, such as telecommuting or living closer to where they work. Additionally, this shifts more demand toward alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles, such as electric cars, that don’t pollute and are by nature more efficient per mile than gasoline cars.

The Washington DC Metro (the DC subway system) just approved a $1 million plan to employ “mystery riders” to ride the subway trains.  Their job description:

The mystery riders would travel on nearly all routes, evaluate the service from a customer’s perspective and provide feedback to Metro.

Hmm.  Hiring someone to serve as a proxy for a customer is a great idea.  That is, unless you actually have customers who fill the role perfectly.

Metro already hears from many customers about what does not work. The agency receives between 3,000 and 4,000 complaints a month, according to agency reports. The most common complaints are late buses, rude and discourteous behavior, and a lack of reliability for MetroAccess, the paratransit service. More than 1.2 million trips are taken systemwide on an average weekday.

I am so not looking forward to riding the Metro yet again this summer.  It’s awesome to see the system make yet another boneheaded move.

Happy end of Earth Day, everybody.  Speaking of exciting Earth Day news, I just read that in 2009, an all-electric vehicle will be sold in the United States:

A Norwegian automaker backed by Silicon Valley investors plans to sell in the United States an electric car that goes 110 miles without a charge and costs less than $25,000.

Downsides?  It only goes 65 miles per hour and only has two seats.  But hey, if you’re commuting to and from a city all the time, this is a sweet ride.  I’ll have to do some more research when I get a chance to find out more… looks neat!

My Story:

Three years ago, I noticed my left middle fingernail began turning white instead of its normal healthy pink. I did not know what was going on, but after a few weeks, the entire nail became white and flaky. At first I did not think much of it, but then I started getting regular questions along the lines of “what the heck is wrong with your nail, you freak?” Subsequently, I decided to go to the doctor.

After a short appointment, the doctor told me I had “onychomycosis,” which means nail fungus in regular-person language. He said that I needed to take a medication called Lamisil for two months. That sounded easy enough. But there was a catch: I needed to get a blood test to make sure that my liver could handle the medication.

At that point, since I like my liver, I asked the doctor if I had any other options. I told him I understood the medication was probably more convenient than the other options, but that I would much rather see if I could try a solution that didn’t involve damaging my liver. He told me this was my only option, and that if I did not take the Lamisil, my nail would grow thick and I would get frequent fingernail infections and live with constant fingernail pain. He then wrote me a prescription for Lamisil, using a pen with the Lamisil logo, and I walked out of his office dreading what might happen to my finger if I did not take the drug.

I’m writing this article for the primary purpose of getting my thoughts onto a page.  I always hear all of this talk about how the only reason that oil prices are so high is because of speculation.  But that argument does not sit well with me because it ignores the underlying reason for speculation.  The argument runs that oil/gas is not really as expensive as it is, because the prices are only high because of speculators screwing around in the market.

There is some truth to the speculation argument.  Sure, speculators are buying oil, and the more demand to buy a commodity, the higher the price goes.  But, this begs the question: why are they buying oil?

Speculators in this case are people that predict the price of oil will be higher in the future than it is now, so they, in the simplest case, buy oil now so they can sell it later when it is more valuable.  If the price of oil goes up, it is because lots of people believe the price will go up in the future.  That begs the question: why do they think oil will go up in the future?