If the price goes high enough the demand is supposed to decrease.
If it fails to perform according to theory then economists add a fudge factor called "elasticity"
Anyway, even if the price elasticity of demand is calculated as time varies we get strange results. Both price and demand for oil have increased (on average) over the past two years. So the price elasticity of demand has the wrong sign in this case: it would seem that to reduce demand one would have to bring prices back to what they were two years ago.
But it is not "demand" I'm actually talking about in the previous paragraph, it's "consumption". "Demand" actually seems unobservable.
The markets have failed, not the theory. That's why they don't call it "theory failure".
Then I would have felt sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct. As quoted in Reality and Scientific Truth : Discussions with Einstein, von Laue, and Planck (1980) by Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider, p. 74 When asked by a student what he would have done if Sir Arthur Eddington's famous 1919 gravitational lensing experiment, which confirmed relativity, had instead disproved it.
The second is to encourage the younger generation of economists to break out of the dogma and examine things afresh. There is some progress on this front. In France there are the post-autistic economists (although I can't quite figure out what their viewpoint is). In the US there are various groups including the heterodox economists, the environmental economists and the ecological economists.
There has been a similar activity with regard to the hold of religion in the US. Several writers have come forth (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, etc.) and attempted to debunk religious dogma. Once they broke the ice many who were afraid to speak up joined in the discussion. They also provided forums where such discussions could take place. I won't say that the power of the religious right has been eliminated by this effort, but there has been a noticeable change in tone in the US. The entry on YouTube with the most comments (over 200,000!) is a clip of a woman condemning Islamic dogma in Arabic (with English subtitles). This shows the power of bold ideas when presented in the right forum.
As for your discussion of elasticity and oil, you ignored the fact that the market for oil has been increasing over the same period. That's why use and price can both go up at once. I suggest looking at the rise in auto ownership in both India and China over the past decade as an example.
I don't see why, if you feel strongly that the axioms of economics are wrong, you are unwilling to discuss this in an economics forum. You won't get much disagreement on this site, nor will you get much detailed criticism of your remarks from professionals in the field. One should always be willing to have one's ideas tested in the proper setting. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
I don't see why, if you feel strongly that the axioms of economics are wrong, you are unwilling to discuss this in an economics forum. You won't get much disagreement on this site, nor will you get much detailed criticism of your remarks from professionals in the field. One should always be willing to have one's ideas tested in the proper setting.
And I'm afraid I expect if I say these things in a forum full of academic economists they're going to just tell me go read a textbook.
And the problem with that would be... ???
