At the risk of driving away my last few readers by putting up yet another post about the necessity of a gas tax, I give you the following two clips.
The first comes from an editorial in the New York Times:
…During Congressional hearings last year on the automakers’ troubles, General Motors and Ford provided production plans to show that they would make more fuel-efficient cars. The Obama administration should make such vehicles a condition of any future help. No matter what Detroit does, the new administration must set much tougher fuel-economy standards…
The second comes from an article today in the Washington Post:
…”When it was $4 a gallon, we couldn’t make enough Cobalts,” Bob Lutz, General Motors’ vice chairman of global product development, said of the fuel-efficient Chevrolets that get 30 mpg on the highway. “Now we have trouble pushing the Cobalts out to the dealers.”
With fuel prices declining, government mandates that automakers build highly fuel-efficient cars will be no more effective than combating obesity by forcing clothing manufacturers to make only small sizes, Lutz said.
“It put us in the industry in the position where we are at war with the customer,” Lutz said. “Because the customer, given the gas prices, is going to want one thing. And we’re going to be forced by regulation to produce something entirely different.”…
The only solution, it’s clear, is to raise the price of gas.
I’d love to go on and dissect this ridiculous analogy of Lutz’s about combating obesity by forcing clothing manufactures to only make small sizes, but I’m suffering from a sever case of blog fatigue tonight. Seriously, I think I’ve reached my breaking point.
41 Comments
Rather than a tax, something that can easily be done to effect the price of oil is to fill the strategic petroleum reserve. Filling the SPR not only decreases supply causing the price to go up, but oil is released from the SPR in emergencies when the price of gas is the very highest, moderating the spikes in price.
When the Energy Department announced last week that shipments to the SPR were resuming, Democrats threw a fit, calling it Bush’s final present to the oil industry.
Since you’re breaking, I’ll extend your post…
…and, you may ask yourself, who will power tomorrow’s non-oil consuming vehicles? Today’s oil producing states. Our lack of gumption and investment has left the door open for exceedingly rich, middle east countries to take the lead in future energy producing technologies. According to today’s NY Times:
The crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, announced last January that he would invest $15 billion in renewable energy. That is the same amount that President-elect Obama has proposed investing – in the entire United States – “to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future.”
This new investment aims to maintain the gulf’s dominant position as a global energy supplier, gaining patents from the new technologies and promoting green manufacturing.
In Abu Dhabi, wealth built on oil is funding the worlds first zero car, carbon neutral city.
We are en route of replacing foreign oil with foreign energy. It’s worth a moment of pause, I think, to reflect on how many US dollars have been exported to oil producing nations. The transfer of wealth is staggering.
But, I’m sure that when our children and grandchildren realize how comfortable our cars were, how pastoral our surroundings, they’ll forgive us. Certainly, they wouldn’t expect us to have done anything difficult like alter our lifestyles or pay more to invest in their future. After all, we’re Americans, we don’t protect our country, we protect our freedom.
Sorry not very many people agreed with you on the gas tax. I admire the strength of your conviction in the face of the unpopularity of your position. Nice balls.
Thanks for that comment KB, I wish I’d written it.
KB wrote, “In Abu Dhabi, wealth built on oil is funding the worlds first zero car, carbon neutral city.”
That is hye-larious.
Incidentally, today on “Marketplace”, I heard that after the $350 billion gift to the banks(yes, I am calling it a gift, for that money will never return to its owners), the banks are not lending it out, except to customers with very good credit. In other words, they are not helping directly the situation that caused the trouble. The banks are “sitting on” the money.
As much as I would like to praise the banks for doing what they should have done with their money in the first place; lend to people who have a chance to pay back, I don’t see why they should have $350 billion in taxpayer money to do it.
“Marketplace” also mentioned that the “credit crunch” is getting better, but if the $350 billion is not what is making it better, then chalk one up for the non-interventionists. So, the market is working itself out, we have lost $350 billion, and now our gov’t is desperately looking for ways to blow the other $350 billion before the public realizes that we are completely fucked.
Now, the question is, will the auto companies get their money and “sit on it” like the banks? Limited resposibility is great, but not so great. It is nice to put people’s asses in jail sometimes for what their company does.
As far as the dress size analogy goes, I would consider the United States a very hedonistic society. The diet industry, for example has nothing to do with personal health and all the risk factors for heart attack and all that. The only thing that is keeping people on diets is the idea that they won’t get married or laid if they are fat, sloppy, lard-asses. They won’t get to join the right clubs and sororities, and their friends will laugh at them behind their backs for being fat.
So, the small dress sizes ARE what is keeping people from allowing themselves to go completely whole hog obese and nasty.
You see, peer pressure works on a very hedonistic, ignorant, gluttonous, teenager-like, immature society. And if you look at the Untied States today, and do not see a hedonistic, ignorant, gluttonous, reality show of a society, then you and I will just have to agree to disagree.
So keep up the blog, MarkMaynard. If nobody reads it, fuck them.
Sincerely,
Your Grandfather
Yep, the U.S. is just a festering shithole full of people who aren’t as good as you, mepatrickyounot. Thank you for pointing out our collective failing. Clearly, YOU should have been president. Fuck it, you should be emperor since you have all the answers.
The hatred for the general population on display here sometimes blows my mind. No wonder you people all want to live way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere and commute 50,000 miles per year. Wait, that caused all the energy problems to begin with. Wait, so the assholes who hate and blame everybody else for all the ills in the world are causing a bunch of them? Hmmm…..
You shit on it, and yet you still expect the world to listen to your opinions. Do us “hedonistic, ignorant, gluttonous” assholes a favor and keep your opinions to yourself if you’re going to talk like that. Do you think you’re hurling insults at “other people”? No, you’re hurling them right here at my feet and I don’t like it. You don’t know me and you don’t know most of the people in the world so you speak only from ignorance and hatred. Please leave the ignorance to government and pop music where it belongs.
Curt gets mad when people group everyone together and say they’re stupid. A refreshing perspective with some validity. However, mepatrick, I thought a lot of your points were also valid.
pat. What, exactly, is so hilarious about Masdar?
I don’t mean to give offense, but isn’t it a good thing that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi is spending his own oil money on renewable energy, “to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future?”
I mean, somebody’s doing it. Who cares if it’s the crown prince of Abu Dhabi using his own cash now instead of the American government using everyone else’s cash in a slow, consensus-building, ponderous manner?
What’s the problem?
I think the thing that my fellow comment leaver was getting at is that we might very well get beyond oil and still find ourselves at the mercy of the Middle East. I’ve heard the same thing said with regard to battery technology. It seems that much of the stuff required isn’t from here in the States. So, we could find ourselves getting off oil, only to find that we still need to deal with madmen to get the metals that we need to power our electric cars. Where we ultimately want to be is independent of all of them.
So, should AI or Rip come off the bench?
Thanks Paw. Got it.
Still though, it’s gotta be cheaper to use middle eastern patents than middle eastern oil, in the long run. It’s not like they’ve got electric car battery trees or hydrogen fields just waiting to be tapped once the oil runs out.
I humbly admit I’m talking out my ass. I’ve done zero research on the subject of what other natural alternative energy resources are at Abu Dhabi’s disposal.
They’ve got sun and heat, which could translate to power, but you’re correct, having intellectual property isn’t as lucrative as having oil. If they were to discover some critical basic element, say to the functioning of a solar cell, we might have to pay them a shitload of money to use it. Or, like the Chinese, we could just buy one, crack it open, figure out how it works, and then never pay them another dime.
The thing that sucks about all this is that the U.S. has invested enormous sums of money in education and THIS is the perfect time to cash in and create all the inventions necessary to replace oil and here these people on the other side of the world, who haven’t invested hardly anything in higher ed, are just going to come along and spend the money we sent them to BUY the damn technology necessary. What a bite in the ass!
And yeah, I get pissy about all the general insults hurled at those “other people”. Such lumpen, malformed generalizations have no place in reasonable debate between civil people. Just strikes me as way too close to racist, sexism, etc. Too much: “The people who think like me (look like me, worship my deity, have a penis, etc.) are inherently and generally better than those who don’t.” Bah!!!
That’s a good point Curt. Sometimes it really feels like everybody’s a certain negative way, but really, how many specific people are we basing that pre-judgement on? Usually not that many — the rest are just imaginary people in our heads we’ve never actually gotten to know.
Also, even most assholes have an upside. I can get prejudiced against rednecks, having grown up with some real asshole rednecks, but they were also real handy when it came to fixing cars and plowing snow and a bunch of other practical, useful things that actually help people in concrete ways. Often, they’d even do those things without thought of reward.
Take Maurice from Northern Exposure: easily the biggest asshole in Cicily, but without his greedy ambition there’s be no KBHR (therefore no Chris in the Morning), no Ruth Ann’s store, and who knows what else.
Lutz and others are willing to let the government establish some general direction for the consumer. And they’ll build to those specs.
Once the world economy gets back on its feet, oil will once again pop from $37 a barrel back to $100+. But in the meantime, we’ll see which manufacturers can survive the credit crunch and other economic fallout from the global recession.
$4/gallon gasoline will be back soon enough … 2011, 2012? Sooner? And those consumers with enlightened self-interest who plan to buy a new vehicle in the next couple of years and keeping it for 100,000+ miles should plan for that. For those who trade out or lease … enjoy your Hummer while/if you can.
Oil should be used to heat homes in the winter, not propel Hummers down the highway between the McDonalds and the Walmart.
Better yet is to stockpile oil in reserves for heating and use renewable sources for heating like wood, other by-products (recyclables, pellets, etc.).
Best would be a new grid for Christmas transmitting locally produced wind and solar. But if and until Michigan gets its fuel pricing into the 21st century … alternative fuels and resources will not be widely applied. Once the consumer pays a full shot … conversions will begin to take place.
BTW … no one on this thread is screaming about their December heating bills. January looks bad, too.
Hillary, I like your idea about the strategic oil reserve. It seems like something that needs to be done anyway, so why not do it now, while the cost of oil is down…
And I can see where you’re coming from about Patrick’s comment, Carl, but I kind of like the phrase, “hedonistic, ignorant, gluttonous, reality show of a society.” It’s probably not a good way to go about winning converts over to our (my) way of thinking, but sometimes you just have to vent.
And, yeah, the concern is that we’ll just trade masters when we transition from oil to electricity. Lithium and all the heavy metals used in battery technologies are apparently mined by evil people in lawless places.
Strategic Oil Reserve is way to small to affect price of oil much. But it is a good buffer for supply disruptions. Use an oil tax to regulate the price of oil.
Oil should NOT be used to heat homes. Liquid fuels (e.g. oil) are the best transportation fuels because of the energy density and portability.
Homes should be heated with other forms of energy (solar, geothermal, natural gas, wood [pellets], etc.).
One would hope that we would find it informative that those who control most of the world’s oil, and are most keenly aware of the supply, are investing the most heavily in alternative energy. Do they, perhaps, know something we don’t know?
One would also think that those who are most opposed to taxes, would be a little indignant about the billions we’ve sent overseas to create so much wealth that no one has to pay a dime in income tax. Essentially, every time you buy a gallon of gas, you’re paying taxes on behalf of every Saudi citizen.
Taxes, I should say, that are squandered on big government programs like free health care and free education (through PhD).
Sweet, eliminate the income tax here and maybe we’ll get our own super rich Carnegie-types funding renewable energy research on their own dime.
Also, Abu Dhabi is in the UAE. Not Saudi Arabia.
BA. Yes, Abu Dhabi is part of the UAE. The NY Times article also references Saudi Arabia, another investor in alt energy, which I was referring to above.
I’m sure you realize an investment by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi is a government funded project.
Not my government, not my jurisdiction. Still not feeling conflicted.
Curt wrote, “Do you think you’re hurling insults at “other people”? No, you’re hurling them right here at my feet and I don’t like it.”
Very sensitive. If I knew you, I might say that the trajectory of those insults was exactly what I intended. But you are right. I don’t know you, so I will just say that I did not mean to offend you. I just got all excited and heated and what not, and I am very sorry about that. I am not racist as far as I know, I just don’t like people much I guess. That includes myself, or at least the little gluttonous, wastrel in me. I once met a guy who likened internet forum/chat-type stuff to writing on the bathroom wall in public places. When I was a kid, I gave the janitors hell.
OEC wrote, “pat. What, exactly, is so hilarious about Masdar?”
Not that kind of funny.
and “One would also think that those who are most opposed to taxes, would be a little indignant about the billions we’ve sent overseas to create so much wealth that no one has to pay a dime in income tax.”
Yes, but diversification is cool whether it is a personal kind of thing or if it is some gov’t. I don’t think a nation can last forever with just one import, cash crop, industry, whatever. I am thinking of maybe the “banana” republics. If Abu Dhabi is on top of their situation, then I guess we can learn from their example.
and “One would hope that we would find it informative that those who control most of the world’s oil, and are most keenly aware of the supply, are investing the most heavily in alternative energy. Do they, perhaps, know something we don’t know?”
Weren’t we hearing from the news at the beginning of the recent gas price hike that middle eastern countries were not interested in increasing capital expenditures to refine their oil to a higer grade or whatever? Between turns blaming India and China for using all our oil, the talking heads were blaming middle eastern countries for not increasing their capacity.
Hillary wrote, “Filling the SPR not only decreases supply causing the price to go up, but oil is released from the SPR in emergencies when the price of gas is the very highest, moderating the spikes in price.”
But then when the president proposes looseing the reserve when prices are high, there is always a crowd in Congress that says it is too little to really help anything. Then, the president cuts loose the SPR and it helps the price, just like they said it wouldn’t. I’m sorry, but it seems to me to be a problem of speculation on commodities. Maybe I am wrong. So if the market knows what is happening, filling the SPR won’t spike the price anywhere near $5 a gallon again. And if consumers expect the price to come back down eventually anyawwa, it will seem like the market is just crying wolf. I don’t know what is the answer, but I would ask why gasoline is more expensive in other countries. Is there some kind of subsidizing other than the ethanol stuff I am not understanding? Even when gas is expensive in the US, it is cheap, you know?
Curt Waugh wrote “THIS is the perfect time to cash in and create all the inventions necessary to replace oil and here these people on the other side of the world, who haven’t invested hardly anything in higher ed, are just going to come along and spend the money we sent them to BUY the damn technology necessary. What a bite in the ass!”
Yes, but those countries pay to send people to our universities to study, too. MIT is full of Asians, and that is good for the Asians and the school. I remember I had a teacher once who had taught at MIT. He told us about how his classes at MIT were full of Japanese students who would just take pictures of the blackboard before he erased all his formulas and stuff. They would sleep in the back of class while he lecctured, wake up, take a quick picture of his stuff, then go back to sleep until he started to erase again. It is really quite ingenious.
The thing that gets me about cars and the big three and all that is that I remember when Japanese cars really hit the market, and they were extremely weak. Fuel efficient, but weak. And in a few years, they discovered that the US market wanted speed and power, so they came out with little cars that were still relatively efficient, but they would leave black skid marks all over the road. They got strong as hell all of a sudden. So, they got the power from somewhere, and they kept a lot of the efficiency.
Now, you can special order a Camaro with 500 bhp. Now think about that. When the Volkswagen beetle came out, it had forty freaking hp. And it was a hit.
Well, who is to blame? Detroit? Well, yes, in a way. They could do one hell of a lot better. Instead of making an engine with 5-freaking-hundred hp, could they be doing other stuff? Yes.
Is the market to blame? Well, yes. I see dozens and dozens of Lincoln Navigators and Tahoes and Vans pass me on the highway with only one single person in the vehicle, and no cargo at all. Why do we need all that power and room?
Well, is the government to blame? Well, yes. We give lots of dough to dictatorships and totalitarian dynasties and they are old family friends of our president. They screw us, radicalize their own population as long as we can be the scapegoat, and we send the CIA to help them with pallets full of cash and call them “indispensible allies in the war on terror” or whatever is the present war. So, anybody who is expecting the gov’t to help us out of a problem that the gov’t invented or at least perpetuated through this outlandish, pluralistic, political action committee of a state we live in is kind of dreaming, I think.
Paw wrote, “I’ve heard the same thing said with regard to battery technology. It seems that much of the stuff required isn’t from here in the States.”
Another problem I have heard with this is that someday the batteries will go dead and then be filling up a landfill somewhere. Makes sense to me.
I think something cheap that the gov’t could do is to take over one of those IMSA or Nascar races and change the rules so that the cars could be as fast and as powerful as they wanted for 500 laps, but they could only use say, 2 gallons of gas. They could use any other type of fuel as long as it is not fossil fuel. The driver and team who makes it first to the finish wins. And make the prize whatever the people will pay to get in to see the race and the sponsorships and all the beer and peanuts they sell in the grandstand. Could you imagine the spinoff technology from a Nascar race with rules that favored efficient vehicles? And it would be practically free for the federal or state or municipal gov’t who organized it. In fact, they might make a little money. Plus, I would love to see an IROC with a windmill or a photovoltaic cell on top of it.
Sincerely,
Your Uncle
I find human group behavior fascinating.
Like, we all disagree about stuff, but we all at once slow down commenting on the blog at the same time.
What does that, and how does it affect us all at the same time?
Is it the cold? Argument fatigue? Are we all cycling together now due to proximity?
Sadly, I think it’s because I posted about Patrick McGoohan’s death. No one cares. If I’d written about something else, everyone would still be here talking… Only stupid pricks read this site… No offense.
“Stupid prick” is my wife’s pet name for me, although it’s usually punctuated with a flying glass ashtray.
It’s hard to hear the love through the text, but it’s there.
mepattycake,
Okay. Not that kind of funny. What kind of funny, then? Apparently, it was funny. What did you find whatever kind of funny?
OEC.
Patrick,
I am not you, on that we can agree. On diversification, I would first direct you to Krugman’s Spatial Economies and then Keynesian macro-economics. Both of which, in symbiotic dialectic, should provide you some pause for your alogirthianisms.
To understand international fuel variations, take a look at ISFP market evaluations and which have variables that go beyond your expectations for domestic market fluctuations. At one time, it was said, no man (sic) was an island. Now, as Ariel Cohen demonstrated, there is no expectation of influence beyond the SPR.
Although Frank Laird’s forecasts have been shown to be predictably exaggerated, the expectation that the universal GANSP will become the dominant security control measure in the next four decades is now universally recompense with UNAP prosperity projections.
Put simply, there are two things will dictate the impediment values that impending decades wealth generation and control/influence factors are predicated upon: energy and water. Water resources are stagnant (pun acknowledged). It is retrievable but ungenerated. Where energy is acquired, water is supplied. (Sorry Michigan. Energy trumps water.) The world has had monarchy, theocracy, democracy and the like. The world is on the brink of governance by navitacracy. Based on the past seven decades of global economics and current resource/need assessment, we are positioned to be the next Chile or Indonesia (both of which have a natural resource reserve that exceeds our own and will pass us on GCPR in 3 to seven years) on the coming international NRSMP trade scale.
That you find retrospect to banana republics comparable, or NASCAR salutatory or salvific, isn’t hilarious; it’s a joke.
I apologize, there was one point you made that I meant to address: disposability. While it is true that batteries will dramatically increase the need for disposal, there are relatively few nations where this is an economic concern. For example, the US could designate Wyoming as a central location for disposal and, at even triple consumption rates, not confront limitations for more than 10,000 years. There are a few nations, e.g., Japan, where this is a more immediate security concern, which is why geographically limited Japan has the most advanced disposal/recycling system on the planet. For the US, and most other nations, disposal is a “moral” not sustainability issue (which is why it is economically laughable that Canada pays to export its disposables to the US). Environmental aesthetic issues aside, the lack of disposal space poses no real risk to economies. As I referred to, the issues are and will be water and energy. We presently, and in the predicable future, have ample water supply for current and projected population consumption models. We also have more than an ample supply of unused geography for disposal. We lag in energy production. This may be crass, but, while our true national security depends on water (see Burkom), we will lose water if we lack the energy to defend it. Without recourse or resolve, water will be our final comodity, and we will exchange it, willingly, for energy, whether it is sent fresh from the tap in tankers or disguised in water retaining crops. If you find this far-fetched, take a look at the IWRE and how much of the world’s water we’re currently evaporating into the global marketplace.
KB wrote,
“Krugman’s Spatial Economies”
Okay, working on that one.
“Keynesian macro-economics”
Kind of slow, but working on it too.
“Burkom”
That is the reference I am not understanding. A little help on who Burkom is please?
“We presently, and in the predicable future, have ample water supply for current and projected population consumption models.”
“Without recourse or resolve, water will be our final comodity, and we will exchange it, willingly, for energy,”
Then are you saying that this is bad?
OEC. No, no, not the Masdar itself. That is not funny or hilarious. Try ironic. That is the word. It is in UAE, after all. Location..ironic…
KB, I realize that the question at the end of my last post makes it sound like I am trying to be an ass. I am really not. I am just wondering what you mean by “final” commodity. Does that mean we just die after we willingly exchange all our water for energy?
I also did not realize that I was implying that auto racing is salvific. In fact, I did not know I was in need of salvation. Really, if reading all those books you recommend is going to make me depressed and thinking about the end of the world, I might just go find myself some gluttonous reality TV to watch instead. Are the books going to make me sad?
You wrote, “There are a few nations, e.g., Japan, where this is a more immediate security concern, which is why geographically limited Japan has the most advanced disposal/recycling system on the planet.”
Honestly, that is a little ironic, too. Should we stop all our moral recycling efforts and put all our effort into energy production?
mepatrick: Once you’re done with Keynes, do yourself a favor and cleanse your palet with some Mises.
Well, I gave the Keynes and Spatial Economies a shot. Really pretty boring. I think I am not cut out to be a novitiate in the eco-church. I could not even get through the intro to Spatial Economies. I am glad there are people like the people on this blog to revere and adore all this eco-stuff, but I am tired. I never really liked it anyway. I just like to drive big fast cars and shoot things in the woods.
Since this whole thing started out being about blog fatigue, I will just say that whoever says so, you are not all morons. You are certainly bright people by anybody’s standard. I just don’t see how you can take life so damned serious and not end up blowing your heads off. Don’t you eco-types ever get laid?
Blowing our heads off is the special privilage of gun owners only, I’m afraid.
As far as getting laid, it’s all about supply and demand, and there’s more than one definition of inflation.
I know what you mean, Brackache. I am down to only the compound bow.
mepatrickyounot,
Ironic. Okay. I wasn’t sure what you were getting at. Ironic works.
KB. It’s obvious from your name you like acronyms, but can you help by spelling out some of the acronyms you tossed out above?