Four-dollar diesel (forgive an agricultural bias) is an ugly thing–but not the ugliest of things. To grossly paraphrase John Stuart Mill, the state of moral feeling that thinks that government should “keep prices reasonable” is far worse.

Prices at the pump are (for the most part) an elegant demonstration of market forces at work. It should come as no surprise then, that they tend to raise the ire of those who distrust markets and favor their manipulation. (And what goes up also comes down–the trend is positive right now.)

Whether it’s because the prices are so prominently displayed, or because so many of us so often pay them, fuel prices are a tempting target for the command-and-control set.

Economies (and Psychologies) of Taxation

The keen attention we Americans pay to fuel prices is both a blessing and a curse.…

MasterResource, a premier free-market energy blog, is two-and-a-half years old. Since beginning in late 2008, we have published approximately eight hundred posts from 100 authors. Our total views will exceed the magical one million mark in the current quarter. Comments from our loyal, sophisticated readership add substance to many of the in-depth posts.

This site has covered a variety of energy issues on the state, national, and even international level. But our most active area has been the growing backlash against industrial wind turbines. MasterResource is pleased to have become a leading voice for citizens, environmentalists, and small-government  advocates who have united against this intrusive, wildly uneconomic, and government-enabled energy form.

Our concept is different from most blogs. With one in-depth post per day, we have created an open book of mini-chapters, creating a scholarly resource and a historical record for the energy and energy/environmental debates.…

“‘I think Al Gore’s done more to hurt this cause than he has to help it…. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want to get within 10 miles of Al Gore on climate policy, because he’s seen by a lot of Americans as being on a crusade, and he doesn’t mind turning the economy upside-down because of sort of a religious zeal he has.”

– Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted in Jean Chemnick, “Graham says Gore to Blame, not Obama, for Congress’ Antipathy toward Climate Bill,” E&E News (sub. req.) June 23, 2011.

Al Gore in his most recent pronouncements on the climate-change issue (“Climate of Denial,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2011) went so far as to pin blame on President Obama for the failure to excite the electorate on energy sacrifice in the name of averting catastrophic climate change.…

Energy is ubiquitous to modern industrial life. It is the fourth factor of production in addition to the textbook triad of land, labor, and capital. Julian Simon coined the term master resource to describe the resource of resources, energy.

Energy as been recognized as a unique driver of economic activity and human betterment for almost two centuries–about as long as carbon-based energies came to be recognized as a sea change from the inherently dilute, unreliable renewable energies of before. The Industrial Revolution was enabled by coal, the energy required by the new machinery, as W. S. Jevons so brilliantly saw in his day.

The quotations below, some classic, resonate as well or better today than ever before. They are as ‘right” as the peak-oil quotations (compiled here and here) have been wrong.…