I work at home and our home has a solar heater with a minimum consumption of energy. I have two young kids who walk to summer camp so we don't go anywhere but, if we do get a chance to go away, we generally take a passenger plan which uses about 5 gallons per mile but, since it's distributed over 200 people, it's really not so awful.
Now I will ask you a question. Does my own (or Al Gore's) carbon footprint really invalidate any ideas I may have to help conserve a planet's worth of resources? I'm thinking it must because your repetition of ridiculous personal questions during the discussion of important macro topics that effect us all certiainly invalidates anything you may have to say...
Canada and Mexico are, of course, net exporters so thier policies are more complex.
Our energy policy was co-opted in 2005 by the "National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency," which was touted as a way for the free market to solve our energy problems and to "create a sustainable, aggressive national commitment to energy efficiency through the collaborative efforts of gas and electric utilities, utility regulators, and other partner organizations."
5 years later, the group headed by Jim Rogers hasn't really accomplished much other than tripling Duke Energy's (he's the CEO) profits: www.epa.gov/cleanenerg...
So obviously I agree with you about the corruption. Someone suggested a 2-cent gas tax ($3Bn) that would go towards a consumer lobbying group that works towards lower energy prices - I love that idea and I will be looking to promote it as best I can!
Hey, you free market guys are in luck! While you sit here and argue to keep the government from working to keep commodity prices in check, the commodity producers have seen the opportunity to grab that spare .50 for themselves:
The EIA’s short-term energy outlook figures oil will stay above $80/barrel this spring, average $82 by year-end and $85 by the end of 2011. The group predicts average gasoline will follow, going from $2.35/gallon last year to $2.84 this year and $2.96 in 2011.
Isn't that fantastic - the system works! They see that we can spend another .50 per gallon so Iran will make sure they get another .50 per gallon! Maybe now they can afford that ICBM they've had their eye on in time for Ramadan...
Congrats to all who would have us sit on our hands and do nothing while the free market contines to allow you patriots to make the Bin Laden family Billions of dollars per year while regimes like Iran and our friends in Venezuela, Russia, Libya laugh at the stupid Americans, who could be energy self-sufficient by simply driving smaller cars but instead we drive big cars and have a fleet that gets 42% less mpg than Europe or Asia - WITH CARS MADE BY THE SAME EXACT AUTO COMPANIES. The auto companies make more money selling gas-guzzlers and this is the only country that allows them (on a fleet basis) so they feed enough commercials into your brain to make you think you're not a man if you own a small car and Ka-ching!, the car companies make money, the terrorists make money and you not only pay but you sit here and argue for the right to keep being used by them. Ah freeedom! Where would we be without you?
Even TBoone thinks it's nuts to keep spending money to finance terrorsim: www.terrorfreeoil.org//
But let's do nothing. Let's not be constructive. Let's talk about our rights to be wasteful and irrational while we wait for deux ex machina to save us in the future so we can justify our reprehensible actions today.
Keep going down this path and one day this discussion will be about water, then air. Fresh water is already being commoditized and privatized and if you think fresh air seems like an insane thing to be charged for, go back 100 years and try to tell people you were going to charge them for water.....
Hoss - Not to single you out but this is what bothers me about these discussions. It is so easy to sit there and say "this won't work" or government is incompetent or these things always get out of control as if that excuses doing nothing while the World falls apart.
If I thought (and I really hope you don't) that our only problem was speculation then, sure, that would be the solution but we will, in fact, run out of oil in 50 years so perhaps we should address that sooner, rather than later. Wiping out speculators (which is very easy to do by enforcing current regulations and also, as you say, stopping the flow of easy money to them) is a great idea but not if all it accomlishes is driving global consumption from 80 to 100Mbd so we run out of oil in 40 years instead of 50.
The tax code shouldn't be used to modify behavior? We know that it CAN be used that way so let's look at SHOULD. We have a criminal code that is used to modify behavior. I'm sure it works for you all the time when workmen you invite into your home don't kill you and take all your stuff rather than settle for a couple of hundred bucks for whatever task they perform.
So there's a way behavior is modified for the good of society at large right? My plan does not play favorites. Rather than make a law it presents the consumer with a choice and it presents the manufacturers with a choice. The consumer can buy any car they want and they can take money out of their pockets to waste fuel so or they can get a bonus to conserve it.
By the way - my premise is that fuel is finite so anyone who takes more than their share is, in fact, taking someone else's. That is not "fair" is it?
The car company has a choice too. They can make Hummers and subsidize your purchase by charging $10,000 less so the $19,000 penalty doesn't hit their target buyer too badly. They can make their Hummers more fuel efficient. They can market cars that get good mileage and appeal to the Hummer crowd without using 10 gallons of gas to go 100 miles.
So choice, choice, choice - isn't that what America is all about? All we are doing is shifting the speculative $80 x 19Mbd x 365 days = $554Bn we currently spend on oil to $122 (42 gallons a barrel and $1 tax) x 14 x 365 days = $623Bn assuming we shave about 25% off our consumption.
Since our imports would drop from 11Mbd to 6Mbd we are now sending $146Bn a year LESS out of the country, improving our trade balance, strenghtening the dollar and the money we don't send off to OPEC recirculates in this country and produces GDP, jobs and growth.
Since we are targeting $214Bn ($42 tax x 14Mbd x 365) a year to build a fuel-efficient fleet and provide for alt enegy, it is possible that oil will NOT continue to cost $80 a barrel which could make the whole program revenue neutral and, as I pointed out earlier - to the citizens who participate and cut their personal consumption back by 1/3 - they will actually pay less for energy than they were AND they will have all kinds of ways to gain incentives to become more efficient.
My contest idea is a very American way to promote R&D in the private sector as well as at universities and in garages. State contests will give away $2M a month to the best enerty solution (could be battery storage, enerrgy creation, insulation - whatever works) in the state and those solutions will compete nationally for $100M and one of those 12 winners will get $1Bn.
Will that spur innovation? Tell me how it won't. It's a very simple idea for relatively little money that can change the direction of the country. Knowing it's not a one-time thing means companies, schools and entrepreneurs will always be encouraged to strive for the very realistically obtainable state prizes. Look how well the X Prize worked with dozens of people building their own spaceships...
We want to make it worthwhile for High Schools and Colleges to beef up science departments, we want companies and venture capitalists to be looking for innovative solutions to our nation's energy problems. I bet you within 10 years - we'd be the world's leading exporter of energy solutions. 50 prizes a month, 600 ideas a year to market to the world.
So do about 100M people in this country who don't make enough money to pay any taxes. (and I'll save some of you the trouble of saying it: Freeloaders!)
"National, which had been in operation since 1920, was organized into a holding company, and General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack, and the Federal Engineering Corporation made investments in the City Lines companies in return for exclusive supply contracts.[3] Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities,[4] including Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, and replaced them with GM buses. American City Lines merged with National in 1946.[3
Just because someone is found not guilty, doesn't mean they are not guilty (OJ, for example). If you seriously belive that the fact that a group of rich and powerful men got off on conspiracy charges with a slap on the wrist means they were unjustly accused then there's nothing I'll be able to say to change your mind is there?
Here's more fun stuff for you to refute: \ GM first replaced trolleys with free-roaming buses, eliminating the need for tracks embedded in the street and clearing the way for cars. As dramatized in a 1996 PBS docudrama, Taken for a Ride, Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s president at the time, said, “We’ve got 90 percent of the market out there that we can…turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars.” And they did just that, with the help of GM subsidiaries Yellow Coach and Greyhound Bus. Sloan predicted that the jolting rides of buses would soon lead people to not want them and to buy GM’s cars instead.
GM was later instrumental in the creation of the National Highway Users Conference, which became the most powerful lobby in Washington. Highway lobbyists worked directly with lawmakers to craft highway-friendly legislation, and GM’s promotional films were showcasing America’s burgeoning interstate highway system as the realization of the so-called “American dream of freedom on wheels.”
When GM President Charles Wilson became Secretary of Defense in 1953, he worked with Congress to craft the $25 billion Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Referred to at the time as the “greatest public works project in the history of the world,” the federally funded race to build roads from coast-to-coast was on.
In all seriousness, we just need to create an awarness among the 90% of the Fortune 500 companies that would rather see US (and global) consumers spend money on their products rather than commodities to build a PAC/Lobbying group with us and we can start making some waves on the hill.
The system is already vile, corrupt and for sale - we just need to put in a good offer!
My bad, it was GM that partnered with Standard oil, not Ford.
As to taxing, it's revenue neutral to the consumer if they reduce consumption and even better than that if they reduce by more than average. Rewarding good societal behavior and punishing poor societal behavior should not be a function of governement?
If you want to continue driving a car that gets 11 miles per gallon then all you have to do is go to the dealership and pay your $19,000 fuel tax on top of the cost of the car. Then the 15,000 miles you drive will cost you another $750 in fuel taxes at .50 per gallon and you can go enjoy your Hummer.
I can choose instead to buy a 45 mpg car for which I will get a $15,000 rebate and my 15,000 miles will cost me $167 in fuel taxes. So the $167 I'll be paying in taxes are far more than offset by my reward for buying a car that uses just 333 gallons of gas for the year vs the 1,500 you feel it's necessary to consume to show us how free you are.
Do you really think that one citizen consuming 5x more resources than another another citizen should be subsidized by everyone else? That's what's happening now as we just turn the other cheek when 10% of the population uses 50% of the fuel.
Alt energy/Hoss - The reason we "choose" to use oil in the first palce is that Standard Oil Company, who actually were the definition of monopoly that the laws were written to prevent - used their power to destroy public transportation, buying up and scrapping trolly lines in every city and they also bought up all electric car patents (in 1900 most cars were electric), pushed for highway legislaiton and subsidized the price of model Ts (Ford was a subsidiary of Standard Oil) while putting up gas stations all over the country - it’s the same pattern a heroin dealer uses to hook his clients early on…
So for Alt energy to work, we need nat gas fueling stations, electric car charging stations, a grid that works with solar and wind and that just can’t happen without legislation.
And why should there not be a consumption tax on energy when one man’s wasting of energy, even if he can afford it, only serves to increase the cost for everyone else. If I drive a Hummer and you dont, then I use 2x more gas than you and I pay 2x more, which is fine and fair but if enough people drive a Hummer, lets’ say 25% of the population, then we Hummer drivers cause the entire country to use 25% more oil than before and our 50%, which we can afford (so that makes it OK) drives up the cost of the other 75% by 50% so now America is using 25% more gas but is paying 50% more - which upsets the entire nation's balance of trade and places a disproportionate burden on the poor.
Not only that, but look how often I hear - well if you don’t like it, just invest in oil! That’s fine for the top 10%, who have the means to invest in oil but then that allows them to consume even more energy (and the speculaiton itself drives new demand) and now we top 10% ers are USING 100% more oil than we used to but we have offset most of the cost through hedging so the cost triples and we continue to pay it because we hedged just for that purpose.
That’s great for us "investors" as our 25% jumps to 75% and we hedged the 50% increase in our own fuel costs by speculating in oil so we don’t cut our own consumption one drop. In fact, things are going so well, we go out and buy some boats and suck up even more gas!
The other 75% of the users didn’t get to hedge and they end up paying 225% for their share. Perhaps they try to cut back but oil and it's derivative products are a necessity - so they can only knock 10% off their bills which leaves them paying 200% of the old costs and we top 10% ers’ who use 1/4 of the fuel pay 75% of the old cost and WOW, oil is selling for 3x and people still "want" it so it MUST be by their own choice because if it was really hurting them, they’d cut down more wouldn’t they?
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
Now I will ask you a question. Does my own (or Al Gore's) carbon footprint really invalidate any ideas I may have to help conserve a planet's worth of resources? I'm thinking it must because your repetition of ridiculous personal questions during the discussion of important macro topics that effect us all certiainly invalidates anything you may have to say...
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
Here's Europe's: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Here's Japan's: www.authorstream.com/P.../
South Korea is great at conservation: www.allacademic.com/me...
Australia is very aggressive: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Canada and Mexico are, of course, net exporters so thier policies are more complex.
Our energy policy was co-opted in 2005 by the "National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency," which was touted as a way for the free market to solve our energy problems and to "create a sustainable, aggressive national commitment to energy efficiency through the collaborative efforts of gas and electric utilities, utility regulators, and other partner organizations."
5 years later, the group headed by Jim Rogers hasn't really accomplished much other than tripling Duke Energy's (he's the CEO) profits: www.epa.gov/cleanenerg...
So obviously I agree with you about the corruption. Someone suggested a 2-cent gas tax ($3Bn) that would go towards a consumer lobbying group that works towards lower energy prices - I love that idea and I will be looking to promote it as best I can!
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
The EIA’s short-term energy outlook figures oil will stay above $80/barrel this spring, average $82 by year-end and $85 by the end of 2011. The group predicts average gasoline will follow, going from $2.35/gallon last year to $2.84 this year and $2.96 in 2011.
Isn't that fantastic - the system works! They see that we can spend another .50 per gallon so Iran will make sure they get another .50 per gallon! Maybe now they can afford that ICBM they've had their eye on in time for Ramadan...
Congrats to all who would have us sit on our hands and do nothing while the free market contines to allow you patriots to make the Bin Laden family Billions of dollars per year while regimes like Iran and our friends in Venezuela, Russia, Libya laugh at the stupid Americans, who could be energy self-sufficient by simply driving smaller cars but instead we drive big cars and have a fleet that gets 42% less mpg than Europe or Asia - WITH CARS MADE BY THE SAME EXACT AUTO COMPANIES. The auto companies make more money selling gas-guzzlers and this is the only country that allows them (on a fleet basis) so they feed enough commercials into your brain to make you think you're not a man if you own a small car and Ka-ching!, the car companies make money, the terrorists make money and you not only pay but you sit here and argue for the right to keep being used by them. Ah freeedom! Where would we be without you?
Even TBoone thinks it's nuts to keep spending money to finance terrorsim: www.terrorfreeoil.org//
But let's do nothing. Let's not be constructive. Let's talk about our rights to be wasteful and irrational while we wait for deux ex machina to save us in the future so we can justify our reprehensible actions today.
Keep going down this path and one day this discussion will be about water, then air. Fresh water is already being commoditized and privatized and if you think fresh air seems like an insane thing to be charged for, go back 100 years and try to tell people you were going to charge them for water.....
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
If I thought (and I really hope you don't) that our only problem was speculation then, sure, that would be the solution but we will, in fact, run out of oil in 50 years so perhaps we should address that sooner, rather than later. Wiping out speculators (which is very easy to do by enforcing current regulations and also, as you say, stopping the flow of easy money to them) is a great idea but not if all it accomlishes is driving global consumption from 80 to 100Mbd so we run out of oil in 40 years instead of 50.
The tax code shouldn't be used to modify behavior? We know that it CAN be used that way so let's look at SHOULD. We have a criminal code that is used to modify behavior. I'm sure it works for you all the time when workmen you invite into your home don't kill you and take all your stuff rather than settle for a couple of hundred bucks for whatever task they perform.
So there's a way behavior is modified for the good of society at large right? My plan does not play favorites. Rather than make a law it presents the consumer with a choice and it presents the manufacturers with a choice. The consumer can buy any car they want and they can take money out of their pockets to waste fuel so or they can get a bonus to conserve it.
By the way - my premise is that fuel is finite so anyone who takes more than their share is, in fact, taking someone else's. That is not "fair" is it?
The car company has a choice too. They can make Hummers and subsidize your purchase by charging $10,000 less so the $19,000 penalty doesn't hit their target buyer too badly. They can make their Hummers more fuel efficient. They can market cars that get good mileage and appeal to the Hummer crowd without using 10 gallons of gas to go 100 miles.
So choice, choice, choice - isn't that what America is all about? All we are doing is shifting the speculative $80 x 19Mbd x 365 days = $554Bn we currently spend on oil to $122 (42 gallons a barrel and $1 tax) x 14 x 365 days = $623Bn assuming we shave about 25% off our consumption.
Since our imports would drop from 11Mbd to 6Mbd we are now sending $146Bn a year LESS out of the country, improving our trade balance, strenghtening the dollar and the money we don't send off to OPEC recirculates in this country and produces GDP, jobs and growth.
Since we are targeting $214Bn ($42 tax x 14Mbd x 365) a year to build a fuel-efficient fleet and provide for alt enegy, it is possible that oil will NOT continue to cost $80 a barrel which could make the whole program revenue neutral and, as I pointed out earlier - to the citizens who participate and cut their personal consumption back by 1/3 - they will actually pay less for energy than they were AND they will have all kinds of ways to gain incentives to become more efficient.
My contest idea is a very American way to promote R&D in the private sector as well as at universities and in garages. State contests will give away $2M a month to the best enerty solution (could be battery storage, enerrgy creation, insulation - whatever works) in the state and those solutions will compete nationally for $100M and one of those 12 winners will get $1Bn.
Will that spur innovation? Tell me how it won't. It's a very simple idea for relatively little money that can change the direction of the country. Knowing it's not a one-time thing means companies, schools and entrepreneurs will always be encouraged to strive for the very realistically obtainable state prizes. Look how well the X Prize worked with dozens of people building their own spaceships...
We want to make it worthwhile for High Schools and Colleges to beef up science departments, we want companies and venture capitalists to be looking for innovative solutions to our nation's energy problems. I bet you within 10 years - we'd be the world's leading exporter of energy solutions. 50 prizes a month, 600 ideas a year to market to the world.
Isn't that worth an extra $8 per tank?
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
Just because someone is found not guilty, doesn't mean they are not guilty (OJ, for example). If you seriously belive that the fact that a group of rich and powerful men got off on conspiracy charges with a slap on the wrist means they were unjustly accused then there's nothing I'll be able to say to change your mind is there?
Here's more fun stuff for you to refute:
\
GM first replaced trolleys with free-roaming buses, eliminating the need for tracks embedded in the street and clearing the way for cars. As dramatized in a 1996 PBS docudrama, Taken for a Ride, Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s president at the time, said, “We’ve got 90 percent of the market out there that we can…turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars.” And they did just that, with the help of GM subsidiaries Yellow Coach and Greyhound Bus. Sloan predicted that the jolting rides of buses would soon lead people to not want them and to buy GM’s cars instead.
GM was later instrumental in the creation of the National Highway Users Conference, which became the most powerful lobby in Washington. Highway lobbyists worked directly with lawmakers to craft highway-friendly legislation, and GM’s promotional films were showcasing America’s burgeoning interstate highway system as the realization of the so-called “American dream of freedom on wheels.”
When GM President Charles Wilson became Secretary of Defense in 1953, he worked with Congress to craft the $25 billion Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Referred to at the time as the “greatest public works project in the history of the world,” the federally funded race to build roads from coast-to-coast was on.
environment.about.com/...
saveourwetlands.org/st...
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
The system is already vile, corrupt and for sale - we just need to put in a good offer!
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
As to taxing, it's revenue neutral to the consumer if they reduce consumption and even better than that if they reduce by more than average. Rewarding good societal behavior and punishing poor societal behavior should not be a function of governement?
If you want to continue driving a car that gets 11 miles per gallon then all you have to do is go to the dealership and pay your $19,000 fuel tax on top of the cost of the car. Then the 15,000 miles you drive will cost you another $750 in fuel taxes at .50 per gallon and you can go enjoy your Hummer.
I can choose instead to buy a 45 mpg car for which I will get a $15,000 rebate and my 15,000 miles will cost me $167 in fuel taxes. So the $167 I'll be paying in taxes are far more than offset by my reward for buying a car that uses just 333 gallons of gas for the year vs the 1,500 you feel it's necessary to consume to show us how free you are.
Do you really think that one citizen consuming 5x more resources than another another citizen should be subsidized by everyone else? That's what's happening now as we just turn the other cheek when 10% of the population uses 50% of the fuel.
America's Commodity Crisis, 2010 Edition [View article]
So for Alt energy to work, we need nat gas fueling stations, electric car charging stations, a grid that works with solar and wind and that just can’t happen without legislation.
And why should there not be a consumption tax on energy when one man’s wasting of energy, even if he can afford it, only serves to increase the cost for everyone else. If I drive a Hummer and you dont, then I use 2x more gas than you and I pay 2x more, which is fine and fair but if enough people drive a Hummer, lets’ say 25% of the population, then we Hummer drivers cause the entire country to use 25% more oil than before and our 50%, which we can afford (so that makes it OK) drives up the cost of the other 75% by 50% so now America is using 25% more gas but is paying 50% more - which upsets the entire nation's balance of trade and places a disproportionate burden on the poor.
Not only that, but look how often I hear - well if you don’t like it, just invest in oil! That’s fine for the top 10%, who have the means to invest in oil but then that allows them to consume even more energy (and the speculaiton itself drives new demand) and now we top 10% ers are USING 100% more oil than we used to but we have offset most of the cost through hedging so the cost triples and we continue to pay it because we hedged just for that purpose.
That’s great for us "investors" as our 25% jumps to 75% and we hedged the 50% increase in our own fuel costs by speculating in oil so we don’t cut our own consumption one drop. In fact, things are going so well, we go out and buy some boats and suck up even more gas!
The other 75% of the users didn’t get to hedge and they end up paying 225% for their share. Perhaps they try to cut back but oil and it's derivative products are a necessity - so they can only knock 10% off their bills which leaves them paying 200% of the old costs and we top 10% ers’ who use 1/4 of the fuel pay 75% of the old cost and WOW, oil is selling for 3x and people still "want" it so it MUST be by their own choice because if it was really hurting them, they’d cut down more wouldn’t they?