Clearly, the new EFCA legislation will be a step forward for workers in America but any delusions that workers will be close to a level playing field are misplaced. There are simply too many flaws in our free market system to overcome with a bandage solution while ignoring the real structural problems.

High gas and oil prices are not a problem of supply and demand. I get a bit riled when I see Democrats try to explain this problem as if it were all about supply. Supply is certainly a component, since demand has increased dramatically in the last ten years. But the high prices we have been experiencing for the last four years - are not about supply.

If it is a supply problem, then explain how it is that in 2000, Exxon profited around $5 billion for the year, while the last four years or so, they've profited $35 - $40 billion a year. They made an extra $100 billion over the last four years - and there is a supply problem?

cross posted from The Dream Antilles and docuDharma

This past week we were all treated to a proposed executive repeal of the venerable Law of Supply and Demand by McCain and Clinton.  Today, not to be undone, El Presidente made it clear that they were too late, he had already issued an executive order nullifying the Law of Supply and Demand.  And by golly, he was going to take credit for that.

Join me in Hooverville.

The oil industry is enjoying the way that the global market is responding to the apparent supply of its product. Demand is off the charts; supply is under tight control. Prices have never been higher. So, what kind of regulation is insuring that all this market driven, supply and demand , response is on the up and up. I never hear much about regulating oil. I only hear about letting the market drive the price. What about production? What about refineries? What about manipulation?

As ExxonMobil announces record quarterly ($11.7 billion) and yearly ($40.6 billion) profits at the same time as net job destructions are announced for the US economy for the first time since 2003, the contrast in economic fortunes could not be starker.

With Shell (at $31.3 billion yearly profit, a European record) and other oil majors announcing massive profits, the clamor for windfall profits on oil companies will increase.

It might make political sense, but, quite frankly, it's a terrible idea.

I've said many times before that the best place for information is the business press. The material is written for people who need cold, hard information in order to make money, rather than for the professional political pontificators who are aroused by Beltway spin. The only challenge when reading the business press is to get through the corporate PR. But if you have the patience, you will find out what's really going on and who is lying to you. This week's piece in Businessweek on the job market is a good example.