Blame Speculators (2)

No seguimento de Blame Speculators, Gasoline and Onions por John Stossel:

.. Think back to a previous time when a Senate committee said that "speculative activity causes severe and unwarranted fluctuations in the price. ..." That was in 1958, when people got upset about the price of onions. Fools in Congress addressed that problem by banning speculation on onion prices.

The result? A Financial Times analysis found that the ban made prices less stable. This year, the retail price of onions rose more than the price of gasoline — 36 versus 24 percent. Most years, the price of onions fluctuates more than other goods.

No mystery there. Speculators help keep prices stable. When they foresee a future oil shortage — that is, when prices are lower than anticipated in the future — speculators buy lots of it, store it and then sell it when the shortage hits. They know they can charge more when there's relatively little oil on the market. But their selling during the shortage brings prices down from what they would have been had speculators not acted.

Speculators are like the ants in Aesop's "Ants and the Grasshopper" fable: They save resources for lean times. Everyone benefits because everyone has a chance to buy from them in those lean times.