How can 67% be so wrong?

In an interview with an oil executive Jim Lehrer asked about a survey that showed around 67% of the people surveyed believed that the oil companies were significantly responsible for rising oil prices.

This is of course ridiculous. How can so many people be so misinformed? Are we stupid? I don't think so.

One reason is a political class that sells to its customers, us that a particular group of people is responsible for each and every problem, and they above all can fix it if we only trust them to do it. The House of Representatives is about to vote on a measure that sets penalties for 'price gouging'. I put that in quotes, because my sense tells me that at some point if given their way any profit will be called price gouging. Let me say this clear, Price has a significant role in supply. As price increases quantity demanded goes down. This is law in economics. It is happening. Fox news reports this phenomena. This is not shocking, it is economics.

Another explanation is the dreadful level of education about economics. Public schools when they do teach economics, teach it from a liberal-leftist point of view. Teachers should teach subjects not indoctrinate!!

Major media sources report from a agenda point of view. Bernard Goldberg details this expertly in his book Bias.
They subscribe to a bias for bad news and anything that fits their world view. That world view happens to include the belief that corporations that make large profits are bad.

What do corporations do with huge profits? They don't redistribute them to their owners. They may redistribute some of it in the form of dividends. They may pass some of it along to the management and workers in the form of bonuses. Nothing is wrong with either of these practices. The vast majority of profit is invested in making more profits. In the case of oil companies that includes many things such as exploration, oil refining capacity, alternative fuel technology. These are all good things. They money that is given to employees, managers and stockholders also gets circulated to the private sector. I defy anyone to tell me where that is wrong!!!!!

Oil companies make somewhere in the area of 7 to 11 percent net profit in good years. Compare this to retail which return 15 -20 percent, banks that return in the 20 - 30 percent range. These numbers are not out of line.

So how can so many be so wrong? Sometimes it is just easier to blame someone that to admit that you just have to live with a bad situation. That doesn't make it true.