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Companies in the oil, hotel, meat and other sectors are price-gouging the US public. They’re not hiding it, eitherIn 2022, the Biden administration and the oil industry were in a brutal fight over oil prices. The president was demanding that domestic oil producers invest and drill more to address spiking costs, but Texas frackers were recalcitrant. “Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,” the Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said, echoing comments from other leaders at different domestic firms. Profits would go to investors, not to more rigs to address pain at the pump.The oil barons won the fight. Profits in the oil industry jumped from virtually nothing in 2020 in the hundreds of billions in 2021, and then doubled again in 2022. And yet, economists did not see any sort of plot at work. “Don’t blame the oil companies for their high profits,” said the economist Olivier Blanchard. “It is not price gouging, just how markets work.”Matt Stoller is a writer and former policymaker who focuses on the politics of market power and antitrust Continue reading…
Companies in the oil, hotel, meat and other sectors are price-gouging the US public. They’re not hiding it, either
In 2022, the Biden administration and the oil industry were in a brutal fight over oil prices. The president was demanding that domestic oil producers invest and drill more to address spiking costs, but Texas frackers were recalcitrant. “Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,” the Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said, echoing comments from other leaders at different domestic firms. Profits would go to investors, not to more rigs to address pain at the pump.
The oil barons won the fight. Profits in the oil industry jumped from virtually nothing in 2020 in the hundreds of billions in 2021, and then doubled again in 2022. And yet, economists did not see any sort of plot at work. “Don’t blame the oil companies for their high profits,” said the economist Olivier Blanchard. “It is not price gouging, just how markets work.”
Matt Stoller is a writer and former policymaker who focuses on the politics of market power and antitrust
