Allowing price gouging for gas benefits Putin and profiteers
To the editor:
How can the USA and EU allow gas profiteering during the crisis in Ukraine to go completely unregulated?
If “economic” sanctions are intended to curtail Putin’s activity because he would lose money, and he gets his money from oil/gas, and gas prices can fluctuate unfettered; does it not obviously follow that any sanction cost to Putin can be offset by raising the world’s gas prices?
Should we not instead set a cap on the price of oil sold in the USA during the crisis in Ukraine? The European Union has a month’s reserve of gas. The USA produces its own oil, in self-sufficient amounts. Any rise in price now is profiteering.
Financially incentivizing Putin to pull out of Ukraine cannot occur if gas price gouging is allowed to be set by Putin and other market sellers.
Ellen Starbird
Cape Coral