6/27 Thanks Republicans, for high gasoline prices!
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4m3lkm
\_ Link unread, no point.
\_ Wow, that's some awesome reasoning. And thihs guy is a professor?
\_ Wow, that's some awesome reasoning. And this guy is a professor?
What a moron.
\_ Yet, he still gets laid more than you by waiving his PhD
\_ Why did you bother to post this drivel?
\_ Wow, what a stunning rebuttal. You don't think CAFE standards
could have reduced our depedency on foreign oil?
\_ No. Conservation is good but ultimately only market forces
\_ The whole point about free-market vs. control isn't
about efficiency. No one is argueing that free-market
is much more efficient at changing the market. The point
is about *stability* of market. Boom/bust cycles have
been well studied in the past few decades and is a
naturally occurring phenomenon in free-market, and a
great driving force in optimizing supplier vs. consumer
patterns. It also creates a lot of instability which
destroys businesses and hurts consumers during
harsh transitional phases. Obviously, there is a
middle ground, a trade-off between efficiency and
stability that unfortunately the ultra Left and the
ultra Right have failed to compromise on.
\_ Stability is a crock. With "stability" comes complacence
and lack of responsibility/accountability. The prospect
of going bust keeps markets in check. But another issue
is that the boom/bust cycles that have been studied in
the past were not truly free markets... we've never
really had a free market. In all the 20th century
crises the government was an active player in leading
up to the problem. The government manipulates currency,
borrows and spends massively creating entire industries
sucking on its teat, and acts to "rescue" and subsidize
imprudent/inefficient businesses. And it never goes
bankrupt itself... we're all stuck with its stupid
decisions.
\_ Nice tautology: Free markets work, because we've
never had a free market.
\_ Markets work because it's experimentally proven
that they do. Some regulation is necessary such
as anti-monopolization and preventing destruction
of ownerless resources such as air quality. The
idea of boom/bust being an inherent problem is
simply not proven. We probably need high
simply not proven.
\_ nor is it proven that markets provide optimal
results in the real world. -tom
regulation of banks. It seems like a common
It seems like a common
source of problems is when companies/banks get
so huge that they individually make or break
the economy of a large region, and then they
cannot be allowed to fail. The solution
would be to enforce competition by limiting
company sizes.
company sizes. And if that is impractical, say
for a power distribution grid or other common
resource, then private ownership may not make
sense.
Markets work on basically the same principle
as genetic evolution. We see the same problems
in nature when there is too little diversity;
the system becomes vulnerable to individual
diseases and is unstable. For example, with
low genetic diversity of endangered species,
or with agricultural species such as bananas.
\_ Would you like to try to prove that evolution
always produces an optimal result for a
given species? -tom
\_ What is the definition of "optimal result
for a given species"?
\_ Do the semantics really matter? It's
pretty clear that evolution did not
produce an optimal result for the
dinosaurs, for example. And while some
\_ Well, it did: the dinosaurs were the
optimal things for their time. We
are apparently more optimal than they
for our time. If dinosaurs were a
business then they went out of
business... but then that was probably
a natural disaster that changed the
world so you can't plan on that.
Then again they say birds came from
dinosaurs and they're doing ok.
argue (without any real evidence) that
markets always produce optimal results,
there's no reason to believe that a
market will produce an optimal result
for the United States specifically, or
for people in the US. -tom
\_ No, but given that nobody is all-wise,
competitive markets are the best way
to let people decide for themselves
what they want the economy to do.
You never have "perfect competition"
and even then you need humans to
come up with ideas, but markets
do the best at optimizing results
for what people want. It doesn't
solve wealth disparity... but that
is a technicality. I think wealth
caps are reasonable just like
breaking up monopolies is reasonable.
I don't think unrestricted immigration
is reasonable, or that the government
is obligated to support everybody
on welfare.
\_ I understand your ideology; you
haven't provided any evidence
that it provides optimal results
in the real world. If you want to
talk about the dinosaurs and
evolution, we are in the position
that we *know* that an asteroid
is on its way. We can either
keep doing things the way we are
now and hope that it works after
the state of the world changes, or
we can use our higher brain
functions to anticipate and
prepare for the changes. -tom
\_ What you don't understand is
that I think it's better to let
people make choices and live with
them. I think we've adapted pretty
well so far and don't *know* that
there is an asteroid. Is that a
global warming reference? Make
your case, let people choose.
It's not so clear cut as you
imply. And "optimal" is not
the same for every person.
\_ The idea that aggregated
individual choice will
necessarily produce a result
which is best for the US in
the long run is unproven, and
frankly absurd. -tom
\_ Is democracy absurd?
\_ I certainly wouldn't
assert that democracy
necessarily produces
optimal results for the
people. -tom
\_ Well, neither do
other systems.
So far as it works,
it by definition gives
the people what they
want, subject to
their resources.
Our democracy is
really a republic
of course and the
system is flawed.
But I certainly
prefer this principle
of freedom than to
put faith in fallible
and corrupt authority.
will change the way we live. When gas is too expensive,
people will drive smaller cars. There is no reason to force
people to do so however as the government is not fit to
engage in social engineering as they will only make things
even worse than they already have. The problem is lack of
\_ Complex problems need multi-prone solutions. Conservation
allows us to prolone the reserves longer, which will
allow us to buy more *time* to transition to alternative
energy. If we let the free-market force rule, we'll
get into a sharp, unpleasant transition where millions
of people will get priced out in a short period of
time and will unable to function in society (unable to
deliver goods, go to work, etc, which will cascade
down to the global economy). Free market will create
boom (cheap oil) followed by bust (breakdown of economy
when sharp shortage occurs within a small time span).
We need a middle ground of course. Conserve to buy more
time, and more drilling to buffer price instability
and to keep status quo. Not doing both hurts the market
in the short term, and in the long term.
\_ I disagree with your oil boom/bust scenario. If cheap
oil is foreseen to end, then there is a profit waiting
for those to take advantage of that. The market is
adapting and there are alternative energy sources,
and efficient tech. Where is the "breakdown of
economy"? The fundamental problems lately have had to
do with mass stupidity about housing prices and bad
loans, combined with the government borrowing and
spending like mad, natural disasters and political
instability affecting crops and oil production, and
cheapening of the dollar internationally. None of this
really dire stuff about peak oil has happened or ever
will happen as far as I'm concerned.
supply for current demand. If oil co's had been allowed to
start new drilling projects 10+ years ago we wouldn't be in
this situation today. That should be obvious. Over the long
term we *may* run out of easy oil or the definition of easy
may change as technology improves such that we have an
effectively infinite supply of cheap oil until other energy
tech catches up in 100+ years. But not drilling now (or ten
years ago) in the vague hope that something will change is
economic suicide.
\_ I don't think that even Adam Smith would have asserted
that only market forces can change the way we live.
Certainly there's no real evidence for that position. -tom
\_ And your answer is to instead distort the market with
the government sledgehammer? There are things the
government is good for: road building, border defense,
making sure the factory upstream doesn't pollute your
drinking water. Forcing conservation through an
artificial lack of supply? Don't think so.
\_ There is a middle ground to be met.
\_ Nice straw man.
Tell me, how would the free market solve the tree
shortange on Easter Island? -tom
\_ Reducing demand has the same effect on prices as increasing
supply. If we drilled in Alaska and the continental shelf,
the extra oil would only allow us one more year of oil
growth, and then we would be in the exact same situation
we are in now, but worse, because we would have less world
reserve to tap into. If we had forced improved gas milage
on cars 10 years ago, we would be in better shape, because
we wouldn't be stuck with a huge fleet of fuel innefficient
SUVs. Wise government policy cannot overturn the laws of
economics, but it can ameliorate the shocks from it. Do you
really think that doubling gasoline prices in a year is
the best way to reduce demand?
\_ Oil/energy is a necessity. Currently most of our
energy comes from oil. So yes you can reduce prices by
lowering demand but demand is mostly inelastic. You
can't lower prices by bringing our economy to a
crashing halt. The fields in Alaska are good for one
year *if* that was the *only* oil we imported that
year. That would obviously not be the case. Bringing
that oil online smooths the entire world supply. The
contintental shelf(s) is/are estimated to have decades
of oil, again without *any* other sources of oil which
again is not the case. I have no problem with some
reasonable standards for fuel efficiency. Have you
seen the new standards? They're simply ridiculous when
\- They're not ridiculous if you can consider
ALTERNATIVE vehicles. I'm talking about reducing
our "needs" for 5000 pound SUVs in favor of
more European-like mini vehicles. If you think
the current lifestyle of people driving
Hummers and turning up AC+heat for a 4000sqft
McMansion can be sustained forever with more oil
drilling and with solar energy (corn->ethanol),
maybe you should look at the documentary
The End of Suburbia: http://www.endofsuburbia.com
Current energy demands will clearly outpace
energy supply shortly and the transition will
be very harsh for global economies.
you take into account that MPG is now measured by real
world conditions, not lab conditions which is a large
part of why fuel efficiency has dropped or remained
flat across auto lines. I'm unclear how you got the
idea I'm in favor of doubling gas prices to reduce
demand. I'm in favor of adding supply to reduce gas
prices (95%) and in favor of reasonable CAFE-like
standards to nudge car companies in the right direction
but not the company wrecking random numbers they pulled
out of thin air on this latest round of CAFE standards.
Remember, energy use is mostly inelastic. Raise the
\_ This contradicts with your fucking free market
drivel. First free market will change usage
patterns based on price. Then you said usage
is mostly inelastic. Did you even graduate
from Cal?
price too high or simply not have enough supply and
real people living real lives will starve, go bankrupt,
or generally live crummier lives than they would have
if energy was cheaper. What we really should be doing
is building more nuclear power plants, spending on
cleaner coal technologies and sticking wind mills and
solar in places that can effectively use them (like off
Kennedy's coastline). Sorry, had to take the one cheap
shot.
\_ The "free market" is what has doubled gasoline prices
in such a short time. Perhaps I am not making my
argument clear enough: if all the oil in Alaska was
already online, prices today would be exactly where
they were last year, demand would be up 1M/day and
people like you would be arguing that there was no
shortage. Next year, prices would have doubled and
we would be in even worse shape than we are today.
Better to face our problems now. We can always
drill the Alaska oil when we actually need it (like
during a World War or something). Think of it as
The Strategic Reserve II.
\- this is a decent article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6459fb74-420b-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html |
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