“America deserves an international trade policy that is based on free-market mechanisms, not paying foreign companies to buy exports from large corporations with political connections. We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to oppose reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.”

– Christine Harbin Hanson (Americans for Prosperity), “Growing Coalition To Congress: End The Export-Import Bank,”  April 21, 2015.

“Enron was a political colossus with a unique range of rent-seeking and subsidy-receiving operations. Ken Lay’s announced visions for the company—to become the world’s first natural-gas major, then the world’s leading energy company, and, finally, the world’s leading company—relied on more than free-market entrepreneurship. They were premised on employing political means to catch up with, and outdistance, far larger and more-established corporations.

– Robert Bradley, “Enron: The Perils of Interventionism,” EconLib, September 3, 2012.

Here are some of my favorite quotations for a happy summer Friday.

Sustainability

“The problem is not too many people, but a lack of political and economic freedom.”

– Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton, N.Y.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 11.

“Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.”

– Ibid., p. 82.

Energy

“Energy is the master resource, because energy enables us to convert one material into another. As natural scientists continue to learn more about the transformation of materials from one form to another with the aid of energy, energy will be even more important.”

– Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 162.

Energy & the Environment

“The greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material that must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt.

[Editor note: This post completes a four-part history of the rise of self-service filling stations in the United States. Part I examined the discovery and early regulation of this new marketing strategy; Part II covered 1947–51; Part III reviewed the period 1950–70).]

“Government intervention unintentionally promoted self-service. The gasoline shortage of 1974 educated motorists to serve themselves to reduce waiting in line, and the seller’s market deteriorated the quality of service. Regulatory minimum wage and overtime pay scales, which had been steady for years, jumped 25 percent in 1974 and covered more stations.”

Prior to regulation under the Economic Stabilization Act and the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act (1973–81), independent gasoline retailers were foiling the ambitious expansion plans of the majors with their low-cost service and discount prices. Central to this success was self-service. …

“In the late 1960s, Mobil, Humble, Sun, Texaco, and Cities Service began self­-serve experiments. A reason behind the move to (capital-intensive) self-serve marketing by majors was the increasing cost of labor from the manpower drain of the Vietnam War and minimum wage and hour regulations.”

“More and more self-service bans were being challenged; five had been rescinded in 1968, and maverick dealers were converting to self-serve in illegal states to dare a court suit. By 1970, it was just a matter of time before motorists had the self-serve option coast to coast.”

In the 1950s, independent marketers of privately branded gasoline effectively competed against high quality, well adver­tised major brands by offering lower prices and maintaining high-volume, low-cost operations. It was the independent that popularized the tracksider, self-service, multi-bay pumps, and, now, premiums.  …