I'm John Batchler. The price of petrol in Europe illustrates perfectly.

And a presentation I have from John Cochran, the grumpy economist himself on a substack page.

John's at the Hoover Institution.

He's a senior fellow.

He guides me through what you'd have to say is the witticism of economics.

And that is, subsidies are the

worst thing you can do to yourself, and yet they're most attractive to politicians. So here

comes a subsidy. John, a very good evening to you. You have a wonderful example of government

and gasoline prices, and you use $5 a gallon, which is a California price when you can find it.

And you talk about limiting gasoline stock because of, well, a crisis like in the Middle East.

I have a real-life example that I thought of while I was reading your piece.

Here it is.

In the south of France, farm country, national rally.

Marine Le Pen owns this part of France.

All the farm equipment runs on diesel.

Two little villages nearby have diesel pumps and gasoline pumps.

The first week of the war, one pump was out, but there was diesel.

And it costing one euro 79 a liter. Then the second week of the war, it was two euros a liter, which translates into

$7.70 a gallon of diesel. And one pump was still out, hadn't been replenished.

Now the third and fourth week, this is the 26th day of the war. Two pumps are out, nothing,

and only gasoline for sale if you can find it. And if you can pay the price. I didn't ask the

price because that's not what the farm instruments need.

...