When People Who Don't Understand Economics Talk About Supply and Demand...

it's maddening, isn't it?

For instance: "Mr. Yergin denigrated those warning of future imbalance between oil supply and demand as having no credibility and reassured all that to the contrary..."

Well, anyone who talks about an in balance between "supply and demand" should be denigrated, Because supply and demand our curves, or schedules, and by definition cannot be "imbalanced."

Nor does shifting the talk to "quantity supplied" and "quantity demanded" save it from being bladder. Those quantities are never in balance excepted the equilibrium price, and whatever the supply and demand conditions, they are in balance at the equilibrium price.

What the authors ought to have contended is that they see the price of oil rising in the future, but that does not sound as scary as an "oil supply crisis." And they would have a tough time making their case that international central planning of energy production is necessary if all they said was the price of oil is likely to go up.

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