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Boutons, how old are you? Are you in school?
"This administrations run-away spending"
You Lie
Most of the deficit is due to dubya's tax cuts, his wars, and the conservatives' unregulated Banksters' Great Depression. Tarp and stimulus are trivial in comparison.
Boutons, how old are you? Are you in school?
... which is pretty much how I view your proclamations regarding global warming.
I guess we are even in that regard.
The fact that you have been unable or unwilling to challenge any of the underlying assumptions I have made, nor the logical arguments based on those assumptions, says all we need to know about your opinion.
By the way, I understand inflation and that things generally get a bit more expensive over time.
My assertion here is that the cost of oil will start going up faster than inflation, and will actually be an underlying source of inflation. This problem will actually suck a larger and larger portion of disposable income from people's pockets as time goes on.
This is the primary reason for my assertion that it will never be cheaper economically do start the switchover than it is now.
You do understand that if the demand curve goes to the right while the supply curve shifts left, that makes the price point climb fairly quickly, right? (not sure how familiar you are with the supply/demand curves)
I don't have to challenge them. They are assumptions. Not proven. i am pointing that out.
Are you saying I'm wrong and that they are fact?
I have made your case. If the only thing you can say is "but you haven't completely proven your case, because you don't know everything", you are making the same argument about this that creationists make about the theory of evolution.
Are you making that argument in your dimissal of this data?
No, I am only pointing out that none of us really know. To stick to the notion of the Hubbard curve is ridiculous when we constantly find more and more. We simply don't know where the peak is.
You may not. But the fact is, many, many educated people in the field do. Just ask T Boone Pickens.
you have gotta to quite with the confusion of the issues. When it comes to anything credible, typical repub response is to try to shake confidence in the voter public. Thats the easiest way to defeat the opposition...confuse the issues.
Actually, come to think of it, arguing with someone who pushes so hard to confuse the issues is probably the biggest waste of time I can think of. It means less time spent trying to claryify for those minds that still possess the ability to reason.
LOL...
You want me to believe a man who needs that to be real to make money on wind and solar?
My point is, we already have decent technology for alternate power. Why do you and others think we can just magically change, before we are ready in a real market supply and demand?
It will happen. just wait, and let the natural laws take effect.
I try to look at things from a realistic point of view. The free market actually works, if you are cautions with regulation. You don't want to try to control free market activities, just abuses in it.
One of the embedded assumptions of the Hubbert curve is that there will be new discoveries.
As for not knowing where the peak is, let's examine that a little.
Do manufacturing companies need to know the precise number of units sold in a year to plan for expansions or contractions in capacity?
What if waiting to let the free market handle it costs more in the long run?
No, but they work with best estimates. They sometimes profit from such decisions, and they sometimes go bankrupt.
What risks are you willing to take?
I was in an interesting meeting once with Leo Yau. He explained when and how they decide to do their risk taking. It was extremely interesting.
The market IS ALREADY CONTROLLED. BIG CORPS DONT ALLOW A FREE MARKET. THE LOBBY INFLUENCE HAS SWAMPED ANY HOPES OF A FREE MARKET.
big business in bed with big government. the worst of all worlds.
Because it is relevant:
The Economist has a series of debates on various topics of interest.
Their most recent one was whether it is good for governments to pick winners and losers.
The house has taken the position that this is never a good idea, and both a supporting essay and a contrary essay taking on this statement have been published.
So far the consensus is running 20% for the statement, and 80% against the statement.
Here is the opposing viewpoint that has garnered the overwhelming support of readers:
Main debate page, for those interested:Since Karl Popper, every student of scientific method knows that a statement such as "all swans are white" can be proved wrong, but it cannot be proved right. So I start with a natural advantage vis-ŕ-vis my colleague, Josh Lerner, who is stuck in a rather unenviable position in this debate. Industrial policy "fails most of the time", or "fails more often than it succeeds"—these are at least plausible arguments. But industrial policy fails always?
My advantage is greatly heightened by the fact that Mr Lerner is a scholar who is as reasonable as he is knowledgeable. So it is in his book "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (2009) that we find one of the most effective ripostes directed at the market-fundamentalist account of American technological prowess. "The public sector", Lerner writes, referring especially to the role of the Department of Defense, "proved a critical catalyst to growth in Silicon Valley." And what is true of America is true worldwide as well: "Public programs played an important role in triggering the explosive growth of every other major venture market around the globe." With this said, what is left for me to add?
The white swans of this debate are known as "white elephants"—those colossal projects spawned by industrial policies that never fulfil their architects' dreams and end up bleeding their national treasuries dry. As we know, the landscape is strewn with such white elephants—Concorde, the Proton and the countless factories in the developing world operating at half capacity and at great loss.
But there are black elephants too, and in truth they are far more pervasive than the Tasmanian black swans that adorn the flag of the state of Western Australia. Beyond Mr Lerner's Silicon Valley and venture capital examples, we might mention South Korea's POSCO, possibly the world's most productive steel firm, and Dubai's Jebel Ali port, one of the world's largest and most successful ports—both established by public money and widely derided as uneconomic at the outset. Or we might mention the Chilean salmon industry—the creation of a public venture fund (Fundación Chile)—which stands in sharp contrast to the free-market brush with which Chile's economic success is so frequently (and so misleadingly) painted. If pressed further, we might add to the list Brazil's aircraft industry, Taiwan's and Singapore's electronics industries, China's auto and auto components industries, and many others.
Anyone who thinks failure is the norm in industrial policy should consider this factoid. Latin America experienced far more rapid productivity growth during the early post-war decades when it was heavily subsidising and protecting its "infant" industries than it has since the 1990s when those policies were chucked overboard. I would not wish to go back to those old policies—we can certainly do better. But despite its evident excesses, it is surely telling that "import subs ution", as Latin America's earlier economic strategy was called, outperformed anything the region has experienced since (or before).
The essence of economic development is structural transformation, the rise of new industries to replace traditional ones. But this is not an easy or automatic process. It requires a mix of market forces and government support. If the government is too heavy-handed, it kills private entrepreneurship. If it is too standoffish, markets keep doing what they know how to do best, confining the country to its specialisation in traditional, low-productivity products.
Economists understand well the role that industrial policy plays in successful cases. New industries require lots of capital that private entrepreneurs may not have. They require co-ordinated investments in related industries that individual entrepreneurs cannot organise by themselves. They generate demonstration effects and technological spillovers that raise social returns way above private incentives. All these are valid reasons for governments to give private investors a nudge.
The critic responds that all these ideas are fine, but the problem is in practice. Fixing these "market failures" is difficult and governments can just as easily mess it up. Once you open up the door to intervention, all kinds of special interests are likely to get into the act and try to divert policy to their own, selfish ends.
Quite true. But then again this is not that different from what happens when governments engage in, say, education policy, health policy, or tax policy. In each of these areas, governments are driven by economic and social goals that are often articulated loosely and targeted imperfectly. In each of them the policy process can be hijacked by special interests. Few but libertarians draw the conclusion from this that government departments should be abolished and schooling, health, or social insurance should be left completely to markets. We debate how best to provide these public services, not whether they should be provided at all.
So it should be with industrial policy. Fostering structural transformation and innovation is a central public purpose. Governments cannot evade the challenge. The only debatable question about industrial policy is not "whether" but "how."
http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/177
As I have said before, I am not for a complete killing of the oil/gas/coal industry. That is silly.
I am for some fairly solid R & D funding, together with some added financial subsidies for renewables and taxes onoil/gas/coal.
I am willing to take the risk that we switch over prematurely. I see this risk as lesser in magnitude and impact than that of switching over too late.
The problem with the point you are trying to make is that we have a very good idea as to how much oil is left to discover. We do not know exactly, but we have a very high degree of confidence what the range is.
We do not know "exactly" how much oil there, but we don't have to, do we?
How can you justify that? We don't know how long it will be before wind, solar, etc. are marketable. How much money in tax payer subsidies might such a project use? Unknown, right? Now combine the
Too ing dangerous. Let's assume you decide to subsidize solar and wind to make it a primary power source for electricity to convert water to hydrogen. This would probably require in the high hundreds of billions annually to subsidize. What if you still lasts 50 years. How do you subsidize for so long?
Way to side step the argument which blows holes in your free market propoganda:
The market IS ALREADY CONTROLLED. BIG CORPS DONT ALLOW A FREE MARKET. THE LOBBY INFLUENCE HAS SWAMPED ANY HOPES OF A FREE MARKET.
If you are as smart as you say you are, you already know that the true cost of oil is never counted, because govt favors big contributors, and govt actively aids big oil and others in keeping thier grip on the market.
Free market is nonexistent in the US. We already have what the communists used to drain the life out of thier own countries: government control of markets.
If the true cost of burning hydrocarbons was factored in, the cheap price of oil wouldnt be so damn cheap. coal either.
count the destructive affect on the environment. sickness and lost wages. loss of personal wealth every time gas prices fluctuate wildly.
government is in bed with the industry, and actively hides all these things. government is on the take.
Yes, bu the government.
You mean like the friends of democrats.... the bankers?
You're right They have lobbied for deadbeat dads and mothers, Subsidies to push ethanol. The environmental groups recently proved power over the government by getting drilling rigs shut down.
Maybe lawmakers are extorting them not to enact harsher regulation?
Can you prove they are paying for the politicians?
So why do you want more?
[quote=Wild Cobra;4501840] Yes, bu the government.
abso-fuggin-lutely. draining the blood of the american people.
they throw the public a bone while the real story never sees the light of day.
Rick Perry, Joe Barton and others already did.
Maybe we just need to repeal the subsidies and legal protections we have given to big oil, let them be raped in the courts...oh wait, they are much too powerful to ever be held accountable in a court of law...so maybe as much as govt sucks, regulation is the only means to protect the people here, from the destruction of thier country by those who would drain it dry...big bankers and big oil.
What subsidies?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html
"the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.
the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by var-ious credits. These companies’ returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before.
Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers. By helping producers weather market fluctuations and invest in technology, tax incentives are supporting an industry that the officials say provides 9.2 million jobs."
Last edited by Parker2112; 07-12-2010 at 03:24 PM.
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