SAY IT AIN’T SO!

-Hannah Mead, MCPP 2008

You knew it was coming: Antitrust legislation that completely violates every notion of justice and economic sense: Granholm Announces Legislation to Help Protect Consumers at the Pump.

Here’s the appalling part:

The legislation would amend the Michigan Consumer Protection Act by granting the attorney general the ability to issue a civil investigative demand against companies believed to be in violation of the act without having to first obtain a court-ordered subpoena based on probable cause. And the legislation would clearly define what is considered to be a grossly excessive price for goods and services. With these amendments, the attorney general would be able to more efficiently and readily investigate a potential violation of the act, including consumer complaints against the gasoline industry for price-gouging. [emphasis mine]

So now we can sue companies whenever we’d rather pay a cheaper price. I can’t even believe this — and you know it’ll pass.

As if Arizona, Connecticut, California and Maryland’s experience with regulation to protect the consumer backfiring and raising gas prices weren’t enough, some awesome experimental economics explains why these interventions are bound to fail. At the very basic level, however, it violates the principle of a free economy: Voluntary exchange inherently yields mutually beneficial results. I prefer a gallon of gas over $4, and the gas station prefers the money.

The solution to high gas prices is a free economy based on competition, not government regulation. With Michigan’s unemployment at an almost laughably high rate, the last thing we need is to make the state that much more business-unfriendly.