Stupid pundits

For a second week in a row, Juan Williams makes a fool of himself on gasoline prices:

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, I'm glad to hear you saying that you know inventories are high this week, and so that you understand that there's no reason for the prices to keep going up except some kind of gouging or exploitation here by oil companies. I mean, I'm glad to hear you finally turn around this, because supply and demand -- I mean, there are certain basic rules that we should obey in the country.

But if you look at the profits this week, profits are soaring through the roof -- 50 percent rise in profits for these oil companies.

KRISTOL: What were Exxon Mobil's profits up?

WILLIAMS: I think Exxon Mobil...

KRISTOL: Seven percent. What were their sales up? Eight percent. Is that price gouging, sales up 8 percent, profits up 7 percent?

WILLIAMS: Yes. It seems to me there's no basis at this point for explaining this except that there's some corruption, and the corruption comes from people who are speculating and pushing prices up unnecessarily and, I think, hurting the economy and, by the way, hurting President Bush. That's why I think he's in such trouble.

WALLACE: I'm surprised to hear this week -- and you know, one of the good things that does come out of this is -- and I must say, it was on "Special Report" -- you actually learned some facts. And one of the facts, apparently, is that the return on investment in the gas industry, the oil industry, these big companies, is no higher than the industrial average.

HUME: And it has not been a great place to invest your money over time. And there's been a -- because of the run-up in petroleum prices, companies that had reserves of crude oil have made a lot of money on those things, because the demand is up, and the supply, while it has increased, has not kept pace.

And so you get more profit out of that, and that's the way that works. And you know, to argue that somehow this is collusion is -- we don't need to go there.

There's no way to explain it except 'corruption'...?

I look over at my bookshelf and spy a copy of Intermediate Microeconomics and it's Application, a fair-to-middlin' economic text and I wonder if Juan has ever picked up a copy of it or any other textbook in an effort to actually understand what he's talking about.

Collusion at this level would be near impossible to hide, and as Brit pointed out, every time since 1979 that it's been investigated has yielded the same result. An answer of "No."