The visible hand in economics

Being urged to blog, I shall respond with a counter-knee-jerk against kneejerking by others. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4492587a11.html is a link to a great DomPost article, one of the most recent in a series that reports on the rising outrage amongst the New Zealand population as petrol prices rise. Does anyone else get the impression that New Zealanders believe they have a human right to cheap petrol? So we’ve constructed whole aspects of our economy and society around cheap petrol. So now we’re feeling the pinch in a whole lot of ways… Well, cry me a river, people! Granted that the effects of a price rise are likely to cut the deepest on low-income families who aren’t those driving Pajeros to the dairy and back, isn’t it about time we started paying something even approaching the true cost of this environmentally disastrous stuff? We’ve no entitlement to be profligate with fossil fuels when their use is threatening our climate system (a.k.a. the thing what makes the earth a liveable planet). If it takes a price rise to wean New Zealanders off the private car and onto walking or – shock, horror! – public transport, then it’s a damn good thing.

Metrosideros