4/02/2008

Truckers Protest

This article discusses the protest that was staged by some independent truckers on April 1. The truckers are hoping Pres. Bush will use the nation's oil reserves to help combat the rising price of diesel and hopefully influence some companies to pay more per mile. Though it was a small protest, some of the shippers chose not to send goods because they feared truckers who worked would be retaliated against. There are no articles about a continuing strike today or another strike being organized for a future date - yet. One wonders if any changes will come from this strike. Will the government help out the struggling truckers? Should the government step in and use the nation's oil reserves? Will there be more protests? How high will the price of food go as truckers protest more and shipments aren't delivered? Will there be any effect on food from these few hours of strike on April 1?

3 comments:

Isaac said...

I believe that the government will not step in to help the truckers. The number of truckers who actually protested was quite low. With a low outcome, government feels no threat to the country’s economy. I believe if the numbers were a lot higher, government would feel obligated to do something. With the price of gas continuing to rise, more protests are imminent.

Grace said...

I am conservative when it comes to government regulation--the less government involvement the better. Let the invisible hand guide the market place. However, oil prices are getting out of hand. At some point intervention is necessary, and I think we have reached that point. I don't really see that changes will result from just one strike but rather from muliple outcries from the American people. What are our oil reserves for? What constitutes an emergency that validates the use of our own oil reserves?

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Grace for a spelling error.

This all seems fanciful. There are a lot of conspiracy theorists who think the government is just sitting on huge piles of oil. They are, but not in proportion to demand.

As to truckers specifically, this is a prisoners' dilemma. They don't need help against employers, they need help against each other. If they had some regulatory protection that kept them from undercutting each other, the problem would go away. I'm actually not averse to that sort of regulatory fix.