Mainstream Media Plays Catch Up. Again.
Once again, the establishment press rushes in after the shooting stops at Little Big Horn and says to General Custer, “Hold on! There’s a whole bunch of Indians down there! General? … General, can you hear us?”
Justin Gardner over at Donklephant notes that none other than corporate media stalwart 60 Minutes has now found that speculation in the oil markets contributed to the insane spike–and then plummet–in prices last year.
Egads! What a scoop!
Allow us to join Gardner in a tepid golf clap for the news titans over at CBS. It’s nice that they’re finally catching up to the real story of why a gallon of unleaded suddenly started costing more than a magnum of Dom Perignon and all, but come on already! What the hell took you so long? Where were you when this information could have been, you know, useful?
There were plenty of sources without multimillion dollar journalists on the payroll and the backing of one of the largest television networks in the world who were able to find and publicize this story a long time ago. Like, well, us. And Gardner. And it’s hard to forget that back then, most of the big media cognoscenti were too busy pushing the line about ‘increased demand from India and China’ being to blame to notice that yet another swindle was afoot.
“General Custer! We’ve got breaking news! You’re about to be ambushed, er, yesterday … General?”
Gardner has posted the video of the 60 Minutes report, for what it’s worth.
Here’s an even bigger revelation: prices go up, prices go down. Sometimes speculators cause it. Sometimes demand causes it. Sometimes supply causes it. Sometimes government causes it.
In an economy, prices are going to fluctuate. The great thing about a free economy is that it either corrects itself, or people adjust to the new prices through conservation.
This time, prices dropped back to earth and we got back to worrying about Wall Street. Next time it may be different.
The real revelation in the 60 Minutes report was that financial excess (ie too much printed money) was directly responsible for the increased speculative activity. The oil price peak and fall was the death squeak of the paper money bubble.