Captain Farago opened up a can of angry worms earlier today when he reported that the New York Times hates Bush and wants to increase the gas tax. After lots of healthy debate, Robert interjected, "Can someone remind me again why we want to reduce gas consumption?" Excellent question. Well, aside from the obvious (life-threatening global warming, billions and billions of dollars– or is that trillions?– being pumped into questionable Middle Eastern regimes) there is the fact that the IRS thinks I owe them $3k. And since I've been paying $3.89 a gallon for the last few weeks, I don't have so many extra pennies to ship off to Washington. But hey, it's not all about me. Why are you concerned about gas consumption, gas prices, alternative propulsion and oil? Patriotism, environmentalism, cheap bastardism? How and when did the realization occur that something must be done?
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1. global climate disruption
2. so many American dollars going to nasty countries that hate us, democracy, human rights, etc.
3. the specter of booming demand putting ever increasing pressure on supply
What to do?
choice #1: tax carbon
choice #2: tax oil
choice #n: tax gas. This is not a good option because it picks on cars when the problem is not car use, but oil use.
Cheap bastardism. And I don’t think anything should be done at all. There’s a fine line between government regulation and free-market interference.
9/11 was my wakeup call to reduce my driving. Since then, I’ve managed to cut it by about 50%. Environment and a desire to reduce wear and tear on my car were additional motivators, but it was that Tuesday morning that gave me a firm nudge.
If the environmentalists were smart, they’d run a series of commercials showing those planes hitting the World Trade Center, and illustrating the linkage between your driving habits and who benefits from your money.
The irony is that political conservatives, who supposedly care about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us, are so eager to spend money on oil purchases that ultimately help Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us. That’s a bit like trying to push drug pushers out of your neighborhood by buying more heroin.
I have a commute of less than 1 mile in a mazda3, so I spend way less than $100/month on gas. I couldn’t care less if gas rose to $6-7/gallon, and I love it.
But for the millions of Americans that fill up their V8 SUVs at least once per week, those $80-$100 fill-ups can add up. Add that to widespread debt problems, and it goes beyond cheap bastardism (which implies you have money, but won’t spend it); it’s just being plain broke.
Environmentalists, as always, have a greater voice than their numbers would suggest.
Other products are made for oil, like, notably, home heating oil. If we continue our consumption of a limited resource the price will go up for gas, and home heating oil. My neighbors are rather old, retired and on fixed incomes and increases in heating oil really hurts. They don’t drive much so gas prices increases don’t affect them all that much. Also China and India are starting to be major consumers of gas. If the increasingly scarce resource is now to be spread over more customers the price will go up even higher. If we want to avoid major problems in the future maybe decreasing the dependence on oil now would help. Other users of petroleum products will increase prices to compensate for the price they pay for fuel, like truckers, the aviation industry, electrical generators, etc. It makes sense to decrease consumption. Higher prices do that. No matter what happens things will not remain the same. I think it is better to try to control our actions than to be victims of them.
Cheap bastardism. And that’s really it. I just don’t like the feeling of shelling out $45 to put 14 gal. into the old Impreza.
Hey, I’m from Connecticut. We’re thrifty.
But honestly, if the car had a 16 gal. tank, I probably wouldn’t notice it as much. It’s a matter of perception. When I fill up on Monday and have to again Friday morning, I don’t like it when it costs me $45 each time.
-Matt
Being less reliant on others for our energy is certainly high on the list for me. I would like to see more emphasis on Coal gasification/liquification. I know the down side too. but we need to clean up the mess “reclaim” the land as best we can, etc. I know the military has flown planes on fuel from coal. I don’t know if this is going on quietly in the background or has died for not being PC enough. The solution is going to be a combination of many things. All having their down side. I hope we can start doing and stop talking (arguing) soon.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of our imported oil comes from non-Arab countries, especially Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Look it up.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of our imported oil comes from non-Arab countries, especially Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
Oil is a fungible and scarce commodity. Every barrel that you buy contributes to OPEC oil commanding a higher market price, and increases the likelihood that someone else in the world who also needs oil will go to OPEC to buy the barrel that he needs. Buying oil from Canada does not give you clean hands.
Actually, the conservatives want us to be energy independent. How many years have they been pushing to drill for oil in ANWAR. or for oil off the coast of Florida. Or for increased use of clean coal technology. Or for increased use of nuclear energy. Liberals have blocked all of these initiatives.
The liberals are so messed up, even wind power is now suspect because some birds fly into the turbine. Hey, birds fly into jet engines too, maybe we should stop air travel.
Here in CT, they want to stop a liquified natural gas plant because it would make natural gas cheaper and encourage more people to switch, thus making CT more dependent on 1 energy source. Makes no sense.
Canada is the world’s largest exporter of oil, therefore, Canada has to rely less on imported oil than other countries. So my money largely stays in my country, supporting people working in Alberta and Saskatchewan. So, since I think I’d like to move there someday (Ab., or Sask.), BUY HUMMERS! Dinosaurs died to make the oil… let’s not let their deaths be in vain.
the conservatives want us to be energy independent. How many years have they been pushing to drill for oil in ANWAR.
There is not nearly enough oil in ANWAR to make the US energy independent. At peak production, it would comprise about 1.2% of the world’s total oil consumption.
Economic opportunism. Currently (bad pun there), energy costs are variable which is both good and bad. It’s good when costs are low. But when costs spike, it’s bad. It makes it hard to plan, which disrupts investment decisions.
If we were to really commit to and execute a national goal of both reducing consumption and increasing GDP, we would position ourselves to be a reliable (on a cost basis) supplier of goods and services to the world.
In the short term, we could stimulate the economy by providing investment tax credits for the development and implementation of new technologies. On the taxation side, a variable-energy tax that smoothed out fluctuations in price would provide revenue for the tax credits in inverse proportion to the underlying cost of energy. We may not like taxes, but there are times when they are necessary.
Diesel too expensive? Insulate homes and workplaces. Subsidize it with tax credits (as was done in the 1970s).
It is time for some long-term thinking and planning. Instead of whining about the problems, let’s make up our minds to fix them.
All I know is that when I reach a little over a half of tank, a twenty dollar bill buys a tad less than 6 gallons of premium. Not too long ago the same amount cost me fiver.
I commute to work by bicycle or city bus, because parking a car is hassle. I drive a 71 VW Westfalia mostly on weekends, try to combine trips and will probably reduce the number of road trip by a half this year.
At this point, the price of gasoline is still manageable, everyone’s mileage on this topic will probably vary.
1) Money
2) Environment
3) foriegn affairs
Qusai-greenies like myself know the stuff coming out of my car or my home’s boiler is not good for the kids. But I like driving, and I like fast cars.
Uber-environmentalist and isolationists need to suck it up and agree that going nuclear in a combination with solar and whatever else may be the only way to get the job done.
Until then, buying a Tesla, a Volt or a plug-in Prius will not make sense. You’re just transfering the costs.
The long-term solutions involve conservation (drive less, drive vehicles that use less), increased government support for alternative energy source development. Meanwhile, higher fuel taxes to prod drivers into more efficient vehicles and demand that our profit-rich oil companies invest in new (US) refineries to increase available supply.
You’ll need a subscription, but the NY Times has the first chapter of Gusher of Lies:
… a large percentage of the American populace believes that energy independence is not only doable but desirable.
But here’s the problem, and the reason for this book: It’s not and it isn’t.
Energy independence is hogwash. From nearly any standpoint — economic, military, political, or environmental — energy independence makes no sense. Worse yet, the inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the U.S. from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/books/chapters/first-chapter-gusher-of-lies.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
PCH,
There you go again.
“The irony is that political conservatives, who supposedly care about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us, are so eager to spend money on oil purchases that ultimately help Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us.”
Please give examples of people eager to buy oil (for consumption). Also, please tell us how you know they are “political conservatives”.
Please give examples of people eager to buy oil (for consumption). Also, please tell us how you know they are “political conservatives”.
I think that we all know that resource conservation is most closely associated with environmentalists, who have been routinely denounced by the right as tree huggers who hate America and love snail darters. If you want to turn a room full of right-wingers into a rabid pack, you need only pull up in your Prius and start talking about gas taxes.
As Mr. Fagan suggests above, Americans cannot produce their way into energy independence. They will need to use less, and then try to find some alternatives to which to divert some of their remaining consumption needs. But the notion of using less goes against the grain of a culture that has been encouraged to think that using more and bigger stuff is a sign of success, so it’s going to be tough to get people to change.
I would like to see a US Goverment funded “WW2 Manhattan Project size effort” for alternative fuels or propulsion.
I would like to see a US Goverment funded “WW2 Manhattan Project size effort” for alternative fuels or propulsion.
Well, there’s already govt-subsidized ethanol, govt-subsidized nukes, govt-subsidized wind energy, etc. I’d rather see someone do it without my tax dollars.
I would love to see the flow of money to the middle east grind to a halt. Even though we buy most of our oil from the Western Hemisphere, our demand creates a tight world supply which dictates the high price. If we didn’t need gas, a whole lot of oil would be freed up on the world market and the price would plummet. Then the middle east countries wouldn’t be so relevant in the world economic picture. But there are no easy answers. We already import 1/3 of our lithium, and that’s before there are any mass-market Li-battery powered cars on the road. Lithium will just become the new oil. It, too, is a limited commodity.
The liberals are so messed up, even wind power is now suspect because some birds fly into the turbine. Hey, birds fly into jet engines too, maybe we should stop air travel.
This actually can be a problem in some places. But it is easy to site wind turbines where it will be minimal–and the less global heating there is the fewer animals of all kinds will be killed off by that. Most liberals are not hypocritical like Ted Kennedy about this stuff.
And many conservatives do support reducing fuel consumption and renewables–many evangelicals because some of them are very interested in planetary stewardship (there’s a book, “Serve God, Save the Earth” and others such as James Woolsey are interested in improving America’s geopolitical position.
But this notion of ANWAR is nutty. There just isn’t much there. Improving fuel economy by 2-3 mpg would save as much oil as ANWAR could supply. And this notion of having to ram nuclear down the liberals’ throats–it smacks of being punitive. If nuclear is safe enough, let Congress repeal the Price-Anderson Act so that the taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill for any nuclear accidents. There is no movement to do that. And if nuclear is cost-effective, let it swim in the market. But roughly four times as much wind capacity has been built in the last several years as nuclear.
And the least expensive thing is efficiency.
Strategically I’m all for sucking every drop of oil out of the Middle East before we even think about drilling one single new well in Alaska. That’ll solve many problems.
Tactically I’ve done the only thing a single human can: Become as independent from petroleum as possible. I don’t think my course of action will scale to the larger population, but I prefer to DO THINGS about problems, not just sit and bitch about them.
So to my fellow Americans I say: Keep eating those FrenchFreedom Fries, just let me have the fryer oil when you are done.
–chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org
I say have faith. Relax. I have no control over others. I have control over me. I can certainly plant some seeds and sit back. Become a stronger individual.
There are a million options. Like less vehicles, smaller homes, more fuel economy. Either way, we need to be willing to change and let go. There are not so bright people in power sometimes. We need accept there may be nothing we can do, and not set ourselves to believe they will hear us. Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy the ride. Also patiently work in the direction you believe in. The solutions we come up with may not work and/or fall on death ears. We need to accept that and continue to grow as individuals, with or without oil. We need to be willing to be happy even if we lose our riches. Relax, lets have fun. Worry less. Life is to be enjoyed. A bunch of folks are already poor, many have been for a long time. I still enjoy my car as many go hungry. We cannot control others. We can only act for ourselves. Our efforts may be futile. Still we can learn and enjoy life as oil prices go through roof with our ideas not being heard. If it bothers me, perhaps I’d be happier lobbying or something. I’m good for now.
In the end, everyone is trying to feel good the best way they now how given the circumstances. No one can judge anyone for nothing. Everyone is following their bliss. My bliss tells me I need to relax and observe. Maybe give an opinion……See next post.
It’s really quite simple:
1. Increase the gas tax by $1/gallon to reduce domestic consumption and thereby lower the pre-tax cost of gas, both now, and especially in the near future.
2. Use the tax revenues to (a) give everyone with income below $80,000 a refundable tax credit equal to $1 times the average person’s annual gas consumption, and (b) improve the public transportation infrastructure.
Doing this:
(a) lowers the AVERAGE cost of gas for the average person earning less than $80,000 (this takes care of Farago’s equity argument as well as the recessionary impact of increasing taxation).
(b) substantially increases the MARGINAL cost of gas, thereby providing a major incentive to drive less, combine trips, seek out alternative transportation options, and so forth.
I realize this is not necessarily easy to implement, but it beats CAFE, peak oil, and pumping more money into the regimes of Chavez, Ahmedijinad, Putin, and similar characters.
Or we can just let it run out and when Chavez, Ahmedinijad, Putin, et al have no more left, they’ll be reduced to nothing.
I’ve learned that I probably do not know many of the details about how prices come to be what they are. Some of those details may be important and beyond my control. Which I will need to accept or deny for the time being.
Oil/energy supplies are limited it seems. The Gov, the consumer, other nations, the rich are all involved. Prices are dependent on lots of things. I will probably not be able to change that. So its not worth my time. Its more practical and easier for me get smarter and stronger and surrender luxuries if need be. I have faith things can work out in ways that are better for me and most others. Others may not like my ideas of better. The circumstances are complex. I cannot control life or others. Its time to relax and have fun. I’ve already expressed my opinion. Its good. I’ll deal with issues when the time comes.
Hansbos’ plan looks good. Any reasons why its not the best plan overall? Except it may overlook positive impact money spending gas guzzers have on the economy. Also may be difficult to low income families at first. Also gas prices may still climb and be a bigger burden overall, specially to those that fumble their money.
I would offer an olive branch to my conservative compatriots and say eliminate CAFE standards but increase the gas tax. Then, with just a little influence from the govt. the free market would dictate the the car and truck fleet efficiencies.
This way consumers would feel a bit of pain at first, but have the incentive to buy more efficient cars due to the higher cost of petroleum based fuels. The auto makers would have no choice but to respond and offer more efficient cars. This is something in which CAFE is completely ineffective.
This is a good compromise that could keep everyone happy. Get rid of useless legislation and regulations, and reduce gas use for the environment, and the economy. Win-win, and right-left would be happy.
…oh was that me dreaming? Sorry… anyway, it’s been fun!
One only need to look at the Big 2.8 to see the solution has already been found. The Big 2.8 is closing factories right and left and moving production to China. As a result Michigan is a world leader in the reduction of greenhouse gasses. The resulting devastation of the economy should be overlooked if it causes a miniscule reduction in world CO2 emissions and saves the world from warming a small percentage of one degree and makes the greenies happy.
By the way, there is a huge amount of oil in ANWAR and offshore the USA.
I am not concerned about oil at all. My concern is that the fear mongers will force me to adopt ridiculous solutions to nonproblems they have no hope of influencing.
> … How and when did the realization occur that something must be done?
For me it was the realization that I can either feed my family, or feed my truck.
there is a huge amount of oil in ANWAR
No, there isn’t. As noted above, at peak production, it would amount to about 1.2% of total world demand. The US uses about 20-25% of the world’s oil, so do the math, and you see that it’s next to nothing. The sheiks won’t mind it a bit.
I guess I should answer the question…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797247/
i was just reading in popular science about some interesting ideas.
one was a windmill kind of idea suspended over highways (think like the blades on a push mower). the turbulent air moving under the blades would turn them and generate electricity. enough of these could likely power a small town.
another was a turbine in the pipes of water treatment plants. the rushing water created electricity the same way a hydroelectric damn does. even taking that down to the level of with in your house. what if you could use the running water within your pipes to heat your home!?
also, new houses should be built with solar panels on the roof. it might now power the whole house, but what if it could do 10% of the energy consumed? wide spread usage would bring down the prices.
say, between the highway windmill, the water-pipe turbine and a few solar panels the average home could use 20% less energy. that would put a serious dent in national consumption.
i feel like people are looking for the next big thing (GM?) rather then utilizing the technology we have now which might not solve everything but its better then what we are doing now.
Just to put things in perspective, when I left the US in ’95 I was filling up my Suzuki Swift GT for less than $14 dollars a fill-up. Here in France my last fill-up in my slightly larger Alfa Romeo 147 was more than €80 (that’s about $125).
Yeah, life isn’t what it was, but I am still pretty happy.
Once upon a time in the early 1980s we doing the thing that were necessary to seriously reduce the amount of petroleum that we in the USA are consuming. We had moved on to smaller more efficent cars and were learning that we in the USA were not the sole cats meow in the world.
But alas we got lazy again. We were oh so very happy to be rid of that guy Jimmy Carter, a man who had the ardacity to tell us to conserve less as country.
Out with the old and in with the new! Now we had a new Republican administration that simply stated we could barrow and spend or way into the future. “We are America and Americans deserve everything they want!”
Now add to this an auto industry that never managed to catch on with making smaller cars or even newer modern cars so by the time we hit the 1990s the US automakers had went right back to making (and getting folks hooked on) giant BOF, live-axled, gas guzzlers again. Only this time they re-packaged the product into a “Big Jim” fantasy mobile and gave over-weight fat-a$$ Americans a chance to dream and believe that this is a country of “active” people.
One day I woke up in the mid to late 1990s and about 75% of the people around me had turned into zombies desiring a new “TRUCK” for god know what purpose (remember I live in the “Big City”, as my son calls it).
“Hey gas is cheap so why NOT just waste it?”
Since we were so willing to just waste gas every automaker in the world heard our song and Bang all of a suddern we had all types of cars and trucks with big powerful engines burning generous amounts of petroleum. Yet our road were more crowded than ever and we are actually driving slower than even with big-fat SUVs clogging our highways with white knocked drivers holding on for dear life at 60mph on a gentle curve!
Today we have reached the point of sheer stupidty with 600 and 700 hp street cars. But the folks with all the money today have so much of it that they no longer care about reason or common sense. They are incapable of realizing just how silly a 1001hp car actually is. But they will buy it anyway.
While we still have some very efficent cars on the market the problem is that most of the mainstream products are extremely inefficent for what they are. Folks are getting only about 20 miles to the gallon today simply becasue they are driving around with a extra 1000lbs of car that they will never need or use.
Jonny Lieberman :
I guess I should answer the question…
I will counter that with actual scientific data.
The Arctic ice area has returned to normal levels in just one year of below normal temps and the Polar Bears are saved. Does anybody know how the Polar Bears managed to survive the last Ice Age when there was miles of ice on top of the Arctic? And what about the ANWAR Caribou, if they could survive an Ice Age could they survive a pipeline?
The science shows the oceans are cooling.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=394939
There is a lot of oil in ANWAR and much more offshore.
“Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls “a few drops of oil.” Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil — such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields — could supply all the oil needs of Kerry’s Massachusetts for 75 years.
Flowing at 1 million barrels a day — equal to 20 percent of today’s domestic oil production — ANWR oil would almost equal America’s daily imports from Saudi Arabia.”
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will121505.asp
876k barrels of oil per day produced, with current world consumption of about 85 million barrels per day, amounts to squat.
The EIA (read: your own federal government) describes ANWR as a “drop in the bucket”, and they’re right. The arithmetic is clear on this one: 876,000 produced, divided by 85,000,000 needed = nothing to get excited about.
bluecon:
Um…. As a Jew I guess I can speak to this, so… Jewish World Review… not exactly an authority… on anything.
We want to reduce gas consumption because of Peak Oil. Conventional oil production has peaked and will begin a slow decline. With ever increasing demand in high growth countries like China, Russia and in the Middle East there will be ongoing pressures for more price increases. Exporting countries because of all the oil money flowing in are booming, exporting less and keeping more oil for their own use. Peak Oil is happening and that is why we must reduce gas consumption.
Pch101: They ran those ads in 2002.
http://www.detroitproject.com/ads/default.htm
“This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV….”
“I helped hijack an airplane. I helped blow up a nightclub. So what if it gets 11 miles to the gallon….”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that we really don’t have any idea how much oil may be under ANWR tundra because exploratory drilling has been banned. I think everyone (including oil companies and government agencies) are estimating the size of the field. It might be nothing. It might be something.
Jonny Lieberman :
March 25th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
bluecon:
Um…. As a Jew I guess I can speak to this, so… Jewish World Review… not exactly an authority… on anything.
Huh? What has that to do with George Wills column? Will is one of the most famous columnist in the USA and is carried in thousands of papers and he has been a regular commentator on ABC’s Sunday morning program for many years. This is a George Will column not a JWR column. What does your being Jewish have to do with George Will’s opinion? Could I say, I am a Christian and George Will is a Christian so that means I speak for all Christians in knowing George is right?
“America has about 22 billion barrels of “proven” oil reserves, defined as “reasonably certain to be recoverable in future years under existing economic and operating conditions.” In addition, there are an estimated 112 billion barrels that could be recovered with existing drilling and production technology. Make that, with existing drilling and production technology and fewer Democrats like Pelosi who, while promising energy independence, are opposed to any drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and much drilling offshore, where 87 billion of the 112 billion barrels are located, as is much of the estimated 656 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.”
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will051707.php3
Exploratory drilling was done at ANWAR and they have other methods to determine the size of the reserves, plus new techniques for recovering the oil are adding greatly to world stocks. If Canada wouldn’t have developed the oilsands the USA would be in a world of hurt right now, just like the 70’s.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that we really don’t have any idea how much oil may be under ANWR tundra because exploratory drilling has been banned.
It’s true that there is uncertainty, but it’s overstating things to believe that they have no idea.
The best case scenario is production of about 1.5 million barrels per day. The USGS puts odds on that reaching that high estimate at less than 5%.
In even the best case scenario, the US would still need to import over half of its oil, and ANWR’s contribution to world supply would be about 2%.
The primary rational justification for ANWR that I can find is that it helps to support the cost of operating the Alaska pipeline, the expense of which will become increasingly expensive to amortize as the existing sources in Alaska begin to produce less oil.
I can’t say where the breakeven point is, but there conceivably comes a point when the US would effectively lose access to the existing Alaskan oil supply because it isn’t cost effective to transport it. But where that point is, I don’t honestly know.
We can learn from the French. They produce roughly half of their energy needs from nuclear.
“In even the best case scenario, the US would still need to import over half of its oil, and ANWR’s contribution to world supply would be about 2%.”
Your having fun with facts.
It would also be 20% of present US domestic supply which is quite a large amount. And that is a conservative estimate.
What has that to do with George Wills column? Will is one of the most famous columnist in the USA and is carried in thousands of papers and he has been a regular commentator on ABC’s Sunday morning program for many years. This is a George Will column not a JWR column.
Mr. Lieberman can defend himself, but my suggestion to you would be to use neutral sources to get your data, lest it be provided to you out of context as is the case in your articles.
There is no objective oil and gas data source that claims that ANWR is going to make much difference in the overall quantity of available supply. Not a single one.
Likewise, there is no credible source that indicates there would be any chance of achieving US independence by relying upon ANWR. 10 billion barrels may sound like a lot, until you realize that the world burns through that much in about four months.
It is possible to defend support of ANWR, but the energy independence argument clearly fails just on the arithmetic. You’ll need another angle to defend it.
jkross22: Actually, France is up to 80% from Nuclear
Environmentalists are in bed with the liberals – both who deep down inside dislike both capitalism, and the fact the “unwashed masses”, who clearly are not as smart or caring as them, make choices they do not like.
It is all just socialism with a green “veneer”. Those who consider themselves smarter than everyone else want the power to control every else’s life.
As a country, we’ll continue to lose pace economically, and our standard of living will decline, as long as a large number of people continue to take what the wackos think seriously.
taxman100: As a liberal environmentalist… I will take smarter people telling me what to do over stupid people telling me what to do every single time.
Wait — the Simpsons already covered this, didn’t they?
“Mr. Lieberman can defend himself, but my suggestion to you would be to use neutral sources to get your data, lest it be provided to you out of context as is the case in your articles.”
“Wait — the Simpsons already covered this, didn’t they?”
George Will bad Simpsons good?
What exactly is a neutral source. George Will is one of, if not the most respected columnist in the USA.
bluecon:
My good friend tries to tell me the same thing about Pat J. Buchanan…
Why attack the JWR who had nothing to do with this except printing the column instead of attacking the facts?
There is a great deal of oil in the USA that could be recovered if not stopped by the environmentalist. Right now Cuba is drilling for oil offshore of Florida and the US companies are not allowed to drill in the area. Canada drills for oil under the Great Lakes and the US does not allow this. The oilsands would have never been developed if they were in the USA.
Here’s a balanced, albeit boring, source. I’ll bet that they know more about oil and gas than George Will does: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/aong/anwr.html
Very simple don’t drive a bigger vehicle than what you need.Drive for economy,keep it tuned,check your tire preasure.Cut back your driving.
whatiknow1: I don’t often agree with you,but with your 6:38 post you nailed it.
Leave gasoline alone. If you want to ease the price of gasoline in America, strong-arm construction of more refinery capacity in the US. If you want to make gasoline more expensive in a country with growing appetite for it, then keep refinery capacity fixed or shrink it. Taxing gasoline is poor policy since it is both inflationary and impertinent to the problem at hand.
Environmentally, other scalable liquid fuels suitable for transportation use are worse. As for “peak oil,” that juncture is conjecture at best. Production of current wells is unrelated to knowing the point of peak oil being reached. As for anthropogenic global warming, this too is a postulate and in any case if it ever proves to be true, halving gasoline consumption in the US will have negligible to no effect on AGW. The IPCC calls for halving annual 2005 global anthropogenic carbon release by 2050 — just to arrest climate change. We all know this is not going to be achieved. Moreover, Prius-like national average vehicle fuel economy would contribute only about 2.4% of the allegedly-needed carbon savings. Automobiles are getting steadily more efficient in every category. Private transportation is on a one-way street to unit declining environmental consequence. Let it proceed.
As for supporting Islamic and other Middle East-located terror organizations, I suggest you consider how friendly these folks will be if oil trading stopped and incomes of Middle Eastern countries plunged. Terror organizations thrive on chaos and misery. They are fighting an asymmetric war, with the on-the-cheap tactics being on their side. Oil wealth is not their strategic enabler. Make life worse for Middle Eastern countries, and watch terror tactics proliferate.
Trade deficit? Now we have something there. But why would a crowd that rejects trade imbalance as a sound reason to buy an American car be at all concerned about a little cash leaving the country for oil?
Energy independence is within the US’ grasp, at the right price. At $200/barrel, our vast shale oil reserves become an economic proposition for extraction and consumption. That unit price would still leave gasoline in the US priced cheaper than it is in Europe today. We have up to 12X as much recoverable shale oil in the continental US as Saudi Arabia has oil. Liquification of coal is another option for which we are amply stocked. And along the way to $200 oil, not only can ANWAR come online, but also large coastal and deep water reserves within our legal domain. The Gulf of Mexico has a rich deep drill repository.
Viewed holistically, we just have choices to make. Liquid fuels make sense for prosperity-supporting mobility. So curb oil use in homes and industry, and power generation. Invest in fixed-location carbon sequestering if you care about carbon emissions. Amp up subsidized deployment of solar, both micro-residential and business solar, as well as large scale solar farming.
Gasoline taxation is a political reflex, not a thought-through strategy nor even a pertinent tactic. So far, NIMBYism is driving up the price of gasoline as much or more than are either demand pressure or the “insecurity tax” assigned by the futures traders to a resource derived from a volatile coterie of suppliers.
Phil
Here’s a balanced, albeit boring, source. I’ll bet that they know more about oil and gas than George Will does:
I notice that George Will and your site have the exact same number for the ANWAR reserves.
Why would you think the government is an unbiased source? The government is full of the most biased people imaginable.
Just look at how they support corn ethanol.
The government is full of the most biased people imaginable.
Unless you believe that the US Geological Survey and the Energy Information Agency are conspiring to hide the oil (perhaps they have big pants pockets and secret lockers where they can conceal it), I’d suggest you rethink that position.
The EIA devotes most of its efforts to the sinister job of crunching numbers. (I can only hope that they have a damn good coffee machine in the break room.) If you can critique some aspect of the methodology of their report, go ahead, but this is the kind of research that industry folks rely upon. No one in the oil business is running to George Will to gain his insights about their projects.
Considering what the fuel turns into when burned; how can that be good?
The price of fuel is already five something at that one Cali station(full service). It will some day be six, then seven, then eight. It’s already those prices in Europe. Burn a lot, buy a lot. I guess it is of no concern when one has lots of money in the bank account.
High performance electric. “New(ish)”, different, clean, quiet, high performance potential. No fuel expense. Twelve cents a recharge? You can have supercar peformance without getting poor fuel mileage to go with it(or high octane requirements).
Coal isn’t the only way to make electricity. It would be easier to put some sort of highly efficient emissions control on a stationary object with no limitations to size or weight vs’s a mobile application.
Hoover Dam doesn’t even run at full capacity. It’s mostly idle and only routes power to a few select locations.
Go ride an electric go cart sometime and see how much fun it is gliding around silently(indoors) without the noxious exhaust and annoying lawnmower sounds.
http://www.polepositionraceway.com/
Jonny Lieberman:
As a liberal environmentalist…
I certainly don’t mean to question your conviction, but it is hard to combine this statement with other things you have written about.
Your car is a WRX, and you drive it hard enough to wear out the tires in 9000 miles. Your next car is going to probably be the new Sti, and you waxed poetically about the greatness of the GL550 and RS4.
How do you reconcile the liberal environmentalist idea of life-threatening global warming with your current and future automotive lifestyle and viewpoints?
As far as the question goes, I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been said.
I think what we should do about gas is take a cue from Argentina – just legislate low prices. Problem solved! Of course you won’t actually be able to buy any, but it will be cheap!
By being dependent on oil you’ve sold a naked call option to an oil producer making you liable to an unknown and unbound oil cost in the future.
That’s why I’ve never liked cars with V8 engines.
jkross22: You’re on to something there. But consider this – the US already produces twice as much electricity from nuclear power as France does (and almost 1/3 of all nuclear power in the world). Unfortunately, it only amounts to about 15% of our annual electricity demands. To get up to 50% (let alone 80%) we would have to more than triple the nuclear fleet. And we all know how much people love nuclear power plants in their neighborhood. I assume you will be first in line for one, right?
I don’t think most Americans understand just how massive our domestic energy consumption is. Oil, nat. gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar – you name it, we probably consume the most of it, both in aggregate and per capita. The problem isn’t that we’re not trying alternatives, the problem is we’re already using all alternatives and we are still incredibly reliant on foreign sources of energy. You can argue whether or not that’s a problem – maybe it just isn’t. But I think it’s a fragile position to be in from a national security perspective, and for national security alone it is worth reducing our dependence on foreign energy supplies (and our exposure to disruptions or price shocks) by reducing all energy consumption, including gasoline consumption.
“Can someone remind me again why we want to reduce gas consumption?”
We need to reduce gas consumption so that the gravy train will continue for the oil emirates. Yea I know oil sheiks advocating conservation, sounds crazy but look at gas prices for the last 20 years. As we conserved and used less oil the price went up. Less consumption = more profit.
Ordinary gas and heating oil consumers, like you and me, are also the favorite whipping boys of both the eviromentalists and the government because they aren’t organized. Unlike the multinational corporations we poor gas and oil users don’t have a powerful lobby with which to buy a senator or congressman so we get the blame even if we are not the major users/abusers.
Potemkin: Dude, where do you buy your weed, and can you hook me up? Oil consumption has been dropping for the past 20 years! I want to take whatever it is that you are taking that makes that seem like a reasonable statement.
I have a question for those who are against energy taxation: Clearly, the free market in energy has seen ups and downs. And the automotive market has followed those movements, albeit three to five years behind the trend. This is to be expected given the lead time needed for automakers to design new models and change the product mix. My question is this: Is this a good thing? Has it helped our country or hurt it? And no, this isn’t flame bait. I’m really interested in whatever cogent responses you might have.
As a liberal environmentalist…
I certainly don’t mean to question your conviction, but it is hard to combine this statement with other things you have written about.
Your car is a WRX, and you drive it hard enough to wear out the tires in 9000 miles. Your next car is going to probably be the new Sti, and you waxed poetically about the greatness of the GL550 and RS4.
How do you reconcile the liberal environmentalist idea of life-threatening global warming with your current and future automotive lifestyle and viewpoints?
ajla,
As another liberal environmentalist, who LOVES cars, I live with some cognitive dissonance, something that most H. sapiens have to live with somewhere in their lives. I try to do my part for the planet–I recycle and compost just about everything, I’m getting R-40 insulation in the roof in a few weeks, and I haven’t done the worst thing that one can do in terms of promoting global heating: I haven’t had any children. Of course, I do drive my Accord 5-speed with a fairly heavy foot, and I do drive a lot, and I do feel just a little bit guilty about it. Meanwhile, though, I write about renewable energy for a good part of my living, and I try to spread the word in other ways, like on TTAC, and I also work to stabilize the US population, which has the greatest per capita effect on world greenhouse gas production and resource consumption, by being a member of numbersusa.com.
That idea Israel has of not having to buy or depend on oil anymore from their unfriendly neighbors: http://www.projectbetterplace.com/
brownie
jkross22: You’re on to something there. But consider this – the US already produces twice as much electricity from nuclear power as France does (and almost 1/3 of all nuclear power in the world). Unfortunately, it only amounts to about 15% of our annual electricity demands.
Yes, WE NEED MACHO NUCULAR POWER AND THESE KNOW-NOTHING LIBERALS ARE GETTING IN OUR WAY. No. The market is choosing wind over nuclear. For lots of good reasons, including that you don’t have to tie capital up for the decade-plus it takes to build the damn things. Yes, soon, Texas will have 23,000 megawatts of wind, equivalent to almost one quarter of the 100,000 MW of nuclear the US currently has. Substantial solar is being built as well. As I said in an earlier post, if Congress should repeal the price anderson act, which absolves utilities of liability in the event of a nuclear accident, and utilities want to build nuclear plants, because they find them economically attractive even without the Price-Anderson Act, fine, let them build them. But I’m not holding my breath.
I think the quality of the discourse would improve if people woudl quit stereotyping others. Yeah, there are people who think they know what’s best for everyone else, and they come from both sides of the aisle. But casting all liberals or all conservatives as believing one particular thing is a bunch of hooey, and shows more ignorance or intellectual laziness than anything else.
bluecon: About the artic ice you mentioned –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7313264.stm
Four things we can do about gas:
1) Attack a middle eastern oil producing nation and spend $5000 per second on a neverending war.
2) Provide huge tax cuts and incentives to oil companies, and a $3 trillion tax cut to the upper one percent of the U.S. population.
3) Increase the federal deficit by 50 percent causing an international lack of faith in the U.S. economy and currency.
4) Convert our personal savings to Euros (do that as step one) and watch with glee as the dollar and the U.S. economy goes into free fall.
I might piss off some greenies but this is whats needed:
step 1 – nuclear power plants, do not build any more oil burning power plants – nuclear is clean & oil free, new technology can make it even safer
step 2 – reopen wells in texas and pennsylvania and alaska, drill offshore or get it wherever we can get it on our own turf – put some people to work. we know how to keep things clean now & have backup systems for everything.
step 3 – only import oil from canada and mexico – screw the commies, arabs. and south americans.
step 4 – allow the building of new refineries, no new refineries in years, they are working to capacity and if one goes down gas prices go up
step 5 – instead of the government funding for studies of the viscosity of ketchup, spend that money to reduce oil consumption. Research alternative fuels, more efficient use of coal and cheap solar energy.
I might piss off some greenies but this is whats needed:
step 3 – only import oil from canada and mexico – screw the commies, arabs. and south americans.
The US, Mexico and Canada consume more than 25 million barrels per day. They supply about 15 million barrels per day. So it’s a great idea, except you’re about 10 million barrels per day short.
The sheiks won’t mind, because the rest of the world that needs another 60 million barrels per day will buy what they need from the usual suspects. They really don’t care who buys it, just so long as the checks clear.
I’ll tell you why. And it has nothing to do with global warming or Middle East. It has to do with technological edge. This country has always been most technologically advanced. Gasoline cars are the past, as were steam engines and wooden ships. If US does not encourage aggressive development of hybrid, electrical or fuel cell cars, it will lose technological advantage and then someone else will be making those advanced cars, then trains, then airplanes [including military ones], will own all the patents and will be happily selling them to America.
PCH,
Yes, I think we all realize the association of environmentalism and oil conservation. What we don’t agree on is that conservatives are against conservation, or that they are the bunch of boobs that you would like to characterize them as.
Plenty of conservatives are conservationists. Bigger and better is not a conservative ideal by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps we should compare the homes and lifestyles of conservative leaders vs. those of the liberal leadership?
ajla: I’m quite flawed
Carlos,
I call Bullshit.
Please tell us about a huge tax cut, incentive, or subsidy for oil companies. Please? Just one.
We should do nothing about gas, specifically. However, we should levy a carbon tax on the oil from which it’s refined.
Basic bio – something has to process your poop out of your environment just as fast as you poop into your environment or you run into trouble. CO2 is just one of our many flavors of poop.
Whether or not I believed in the AGW hypothesis, I’d be opposed to drilling in the ANWR, because it’s a “run out of oil first” plan which would be a huge strategic mistake.
—
Bluecon mentioned the Arctic ice shelf came back… Of course it did. The pond across the street froze over, too, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be gone in June. Or, at the rate things are going, tomorrow. The refreeze of the Arctic ice shelf will happen right away but it won’t achieve the thickness it had when it was sustained through thousands of summers. It will go again, pretty quickly, every year.
This is important because without the ice sustained over Arctic Summer to reflect the sun’s rays back into space, the Arctic ocean will be absorb them and likely do quite a bit of heating over the summer.
It’s also a staple of “skeptic” AGW “science” that Antarctic ice is getting thicker. I don’t know where they get that idea, that is not the case. It’s melting, too.
GRACE Mission – Antarctic Ice Melting
Just tax gas. I’m french, and always laugh when I hear American greenies telling me how nice and green Europeans are. Well, they may be green, but not because they’re nice. When heating oil, car fuel, and therefore the cots of transportation are much higher, that’s a much bigger incentive to save by reducing consumption.
As to why reducing consumption, well, oil does have a finite supply. Global warming may or may not be a “crock of shit” but why take the risk of damaging our environment further? Let’s try to think about our descendants. After all, genetically speaking, that’s the only reason we’re here.
“Busbodger :
bluecon: About the artic ice you mentioned –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7313264.stm”
There is a difference between the Artic which is right now suffering under very cold below normal weather and the Antarctic which has just finished the summer season.
Do you guys learn everything from the Simpsons?
David Holzman: Yes, WE NEED MACHO NUCULAR POWER AND THESE KNOW-NOTHING LIBERALS ARE GETTING IN OUR WAY.
First, I’m generally considered in my daily life to be one of those know-nothing liberals, so I don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Second, you completely missed my point – I’m saying there is NO WAY we can build enough nuclear generation (or any one form of power generation) to meaningfully reduce our fossil fuel consumption. We are already BY FAR the largest nuclear power producer in the world; most people don’t realize that. Which brings me to:
Third, on what planet has wind supplanted nuclear? There is less than 100GW of installed wind generation worldwide; there is roughly 700GW of installed nuclear generation in the US alone. Alternative energy is great – I’m all for it. Just don’t kid yourself that it will make a serious dent in our domestic energy needs.
And that is my main point, which you missed entirely: the only way to make an immediate impact on US energy needs is to address the demand side of the equation, by encouraging conservation. With things like gas taxes.
This is 4 years old but I don’t know of any major changes in the situation:
Nuclear Costs and Prospects – DOE
Sumary: For new, previously uncommercialized but promising designs, it’s about a buck per watt in capital for a nuke. If all goes according to plan. The designs of a couple decades ago were projected to be about a buck-fifty per watt but turned out to cost as much as four bucks per watt.
From the article: “According to a number of workshop participants, the financial community clearly has not completely discounted the cost overruns that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, all the participants agreed that the nuclear industry must demonstrate that a nuclear power plant can be built on time and on budget. Further, the new licensing process has yet to be tested, and there is considerable uncertainty about how it will work. In fact, all the participants agreed that some type of support from a third party (the Federal Government) would be needed before the first few plants could be built.”
Other problems are noted.
We may be rapidly approaching the point where solar photovoltaics reach $1/peak watt installed. If we go solar, we are left with a cyclic generation/peaky demand problem to solve, but there are approaches to resolving this.
I believe wind power is available for less than a buck per watt in capital cost (it’s something like $.05/kwh on the market – one of the cheapest sources of electricity – ummm… when it’s windy).
Also, nuclear still has that 10 year lead time. Buy a solar panel and you’ve got it on line in a month or two. Ditto a windmill. Ditto a conservation effort. In the ’80’s, it was recognized that conservation efforts actually had the best payoff of any option and utilities began to promote them with rebates and other incentives (which paid off for the utilities in avoided capital cost of new generation capacity).
The electric power industry and the financial markets don’t like large, long-term risky investments. This is why lots of nukes aren’t racing through the process.
As it happens, I like nuclear power. But it has considerable problems… We must resolve the waste storage issues before we build more plants. There are safety concerns. There’s huge NIMBY issues. Nukes need water.
I think we can go a very long way on solar and wind.
—
Bluecon, it’s a global issue. Busbodger was pointing out another aspect of the global pattern.
FYI, “The Simpsons” have been forbidden in my house since Episode Two.
As for the current winter being, in your words, “very cold below normal weather,” the current winter has, so far, been 16th warmest on record. Yes, we had quite a bit of snow. Hey, snow happens.
Ice melts in the summer, and the Antarctic summer is just ending. The Arctic has had a very cold winter and all the ice which was going to disappear and kill all the Polar Bears is back. And barely a peep in the MSM.
Phil Ressler
“Trade deficit? Now we have something there. But why would a crowd that *rejects trade imbalance as a sound reason to buy an American car* be at all concerned about a little cash leaving the country for oil?”
Too many comments for me to read all the way thru while at work, but this is the best comment I’ve seen on TTAC in a long time. Kudos.
There is less than 100GW of installed wind generation worldwide; there is roughly 700GW of installed nuclear generation in the US alone.
Brownie,
We are in synch on the need to address the demand side with conservation/efficiency. But I do’nt know where you get this 700GW figure for nuclear in the US. There are only 100GW of nuclear in the US. And wind is far outstripping nuclear in terms of what’s been built in the last few years. I’m pretty sure I covered that in here:
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2007/115-7/innovations-abs.html
Trade deficit? Now we have something there. But why would a crowd that *rejects trade imbalance as a sound reason to buy an American car* be at all concerned about a little cash leaving the country for oil?
I think that we’ve covered in other discussions that Mr. Ressler’s definition of an American car doesn’t correlate with what produces trade deficits.
Most of the Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys that Mr. Ressler would discourage you from buying do not increase the trade deficit, as the parts and labor that are used to build them are largely sourced from the US. Meanwhile, the Ford Fusion and Pontiac G8 that he would prefer would increase the trade deficit, as they are built abroad. Trade deficits are not affected in any way by the badge affixed to the trunk lid.
I have a question for those who are against energy taxation: Clearly, the free market in energy has seen ups and downs. And the automotive market has followed those movements, albeit three to five years behind the trend. This is to be expected given the lead time needed for automakers to design new models and change the product mix. My question is this: Is this a good thing? Has it helped our country or hurt it? And no, this isn’t flame bait. I’m really interested in whatever cogent responses you might have.
The blunt answer is that taxes on energy do not make energy markets less volatile. Americans tend to be psychologically sensitive to these occasional price shocks because energy is more affordable here relative to other industrial countries, so the price run-ups tend to be a larger percentage gain than in Europe or Japan, where taxes represent a higher percentage of fuel net costs. The nuanced answer is, it depends on the purpose of the tax proceeds. I am opposed to further taxing gasoline (or carbon emissions) as a general policy reflex, but might back a more developed and specific proposal.
For instance, if we’re really serious about reducing gasoline consumption, then raising taxes to accelerate road repairs, new road construction, expand smart and coordinated digital control of traffic signals in cities, rebuild (and perhaps reduce) freeway on and off ramps, can make sense. We’re a growing country, so the number of people driving and the number of cars in use is not going to decline anytime soon. So relieving bottlenecks, reducing traffic congestion and slashing engine idling or creep at single-digit speeds will in the aggregate achieve real fuel savings, while the general trend toward greater vehicle efficiency in all classes continues.
Similarly, I might support a further gasoline tax that directly subsidizes residential and business rooftop solar installations, or funds accelerated fixed-location carbon sequestering and clean coal initiatives.
Just as when I evaluate a new company for funding and need to understand proposed use of funds, tell me *exactly* what the added tax is going to be used for, commit to legally binding use of funds generated, and establish pertinence to the problems at hand. Just don’t try to solve everything at once. And don’t direct the tax flow into the general fund with no accountability for use. And how about an expiration date for the tax?
Anyone who visited Europe in the past ten years could see quite clearly that taxing energy had no effect on the desirability of SUVs, heavy large sedans and high-performance sports cars among people who could afford them and their running costs. What’s the difference between a Range Rover or Mercedes GL in Europe and an Escalade in the US? From a carbon footprint, none worth mentioning; the current Escalade might even win. Expensive fuel has made mass market small cars mainstream vehicles in Europe, but as soon as people can afford to “graduate” out of them, they move to inefficient vehicle types, including premium automobiles. If you dislike SUVs, then you also have to advocate killing the entire German, Italian and British idea of a luxury or sports car.
EVERY premium automobile is a pig relative to what it could be. Weight is the enemy. Between escalating safety requirements and pampering features, sheer dumb bulk is bloating modern cars, which in turn boosts power requirements to maintain perceived necessary performance, which truncates progress on fuel efficiency.
Not to mention that too few people take a holistic view of the energy consequences of their purchasing. If you’re in the US or Canada, that BMW 5 or 7 Series or Lexus LS takes more energy to ship to you than does the Cadillac STS you could have bought. Your Prius was shipped to the US on a dirty diesel cargo vessel, already in the environmental “red” for its bigger footprint of “brought-to-market” consequences, and its NiMH batteries set off a whirlwind of global raw materials procurement, shipping, processing, shipping and manufacturing that also seriously compromises the environmental purity you imagined in your purchase, compared to if you had just bought a high mileage gasoline compact made in your home market.
The point is, most of the environmental, economic and political agenda that favors further taxation of gasoline in the US is undermined by the insincerity of proponents as evidenced by the choices they could be making to more easily mitigate their variously favored crises, but don’t. Meanwhile, making personal mobility more expensive only inflicts economic harm on individuals least able to absorb the cost, and reduces the US’ aggregate economic adaptability. Again, globally and throughout time, personal mobility is and has been a generator of wealth, betterment and, by extension, a progressively cleaner environment. Taxing gasoline without explicit and guaranteed transfer of the funds to initiatives that directly solve agreed-upon problems will only retard progress against the various crises that alarm you.
Phil
Most of the Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys that Mr. Ressler would discourage you from buying do not increase the trade deficit, as the parts and labor that are used to build them are largely sourced from the US. Meanwhile, the Ford Fusion and Pontiac G8 that he would prefer would increase the trade deficit, as they are built abroad. Trade deficits are not affected in any way by the badge affixed to the trunk lid.
While your very last sentence is often (not always) true, the rest of it is not.
First, of all the domestic brand alternatives to Honda and Toyota transplants, you cited the ones with the least leverage, and only two at that. A more inclusive survey changes the picture. Toyota and Honda’s American production involves significant imported parts from outside a free trade zone. Compared to alternatives that are domestically produced, they add to the trade deficit. The Fusion is a nuanced case where the strict financial accounting lands it in a grey area of domestic economic desirability, but when all the social factors are counted, its purchase by an American outleverages the purchase of a transplant.
The Pontiac G8 won’t sell in enough volume to be a factor, but if it happened to succeed wildly and displace most BMW 5-series, Mercedes E class and other similar size rear-drive true imports, then despite its Aussie lineage would be a net economic gain for Americans.
Phil
First, of all the domestic brand alternatives to Honda and Toyota transplants, you cited the ones with the least leverage, and only two at that. A more inclusive survey changes the picture. Toyota and Honda’s American production involves significant imported parts from outside a free trade zone. Compared to alternatives that are domestically produced, they add to the trade deficit. The Fusion is a nuanced case where the strict financial accounting lands it in a grey area of domestic economic desirability, but when all the social factors are counted, its purchase by an American outleverages the purchase of a transplant.
I’m sorry, but this is wrong, and you are trying to change the subject.
The definition of a trade deficit is very clear. Goods manufactured outside of the United States that are then imported to the United States increase the trade deficit. Period. Who imports them does not change their contribution to the trade deficit.
Goods manufactured inside the United States do not increase the trade deficit, but to the extent that they use imported components. Period. Who makes them does not change their contribution to the trade deficit.
If your focus was genuinely on the trade deficit, then your emphasis would be on parts content and point of assembly, because those items are what comprise the trade deficit. The fact that it is not makes it clear that your agenda is to advance the fate of three specific companies, and not on the trade deficit. That’s within your right, but don’t claim that you are prioritizing the trade deficit with your preferences when your positions state otherwise.
The definition of a trade deficit is very clear. Goods manufactured outside of the United States that are then imported to the United States increase the trade deficit. Period. Who imports them does not change their contribution to the trade deficit.
Ow, my ears. What’s that distortion? I didn’t in any part of my post claim that who imports a foreign-produced item changes contribution to the trade deficit.
Goods manufactured inside the United States do not increase the trade deficit, but to the extent that they use imported components. Period. Who makes them does not change their contribution to the trade deficit.
Nor did I say anything counter to this. Transplants use significant imported parts, and the imported parts tend to be high-value components. Moreover, what’s not included is the imported engineering value that resides elsewhere.
My priority is domestic economic health and its role as an engine for global economic and political stability. The three domestic auto companies are just beneficiaries of that agenda, not the focus.
The Pontiac G8 uses American drivetrain components which are high value. And the return of profits to domestic HQ companies gives its purchase added economic leverage over pure imports, outside the limited trade deficit discussion. This is even more applicable in the Fusion case, with its 50% domestic content and NAFTA production, relative to the Aussie.
Phil
Mr. Ressler, I know that you desperately want to turn this into a promotional piece for domestic cars. Sorry, I won’t indulge that.
You mentioned the trade deficit. I’m sticking to the subject of the trade deficit.
Imported goods increase the trade deficit. Who the importer is doesn’t matter, the trade deficit goes up by the same amount.
In respect to cars, the less domestic parts content, the more that the car contributes to the trade deficit. If assembled outside the US, that contributes to the trade deficit.
That’s it. The company that sells the car does not change the mathematical formula used to calculate the trade deficit generated by the importation. Period.
End result: If the goal is to reduce the trade deficit, then the solution is to buy a car assembled in the US with US parts. The company that makes the vehicle does not change the amount that is contributed to the trade deficit.
Likewise, buying a car from a “domestic” does not ensure that it won’t contribute to the trade deficit. If it is a Big 2.8 car built outside the US is sold here, then it increases the trade deficit.
You might believe that there are other reasons to buy domestic cars. But those reasons are not the topic of this thread.
Mr. Ressler, I know that you desperately want to turn this into a promotional piece for domestic cars. Sorry, I won’t indulge that.
Sorry, you’re reaching. None of my posts here have been either promotional nor has anything in this thread been domestic-car exclusive.
Nothing I wrote contradicts the middle of your immediately-prior post.
End result: If the goal is to reduce the trade deficit, then the solution is to buy a car assembled in the US with US parts. The company that makes the vehicle does not change the amount that is contributed to the trade deficit.
Nor did I contend it does. I also made it clear that reducing the trade deficit isn’t the *exclusive* goal. But if it were, that means you ought to buy a Cobalt or Focus over a Corolla or Civic, a Malibu/Aura/G6/Impala/Buick over a Camry, Mazda, Korean sedan, Passat, “Toyus” or Accord, a Cadillac or Lincoln over any luxury competitor, a D3 pickup or SUV over any competitor, a Corvette over a Porsche, and the Fusion is left in a grey zone since you’re unwilling to recognize that trade with NAFTA partners is differentiated from trade with the EU, Japan, Korea, etc., in economic and social consequences beyond arithmetic trade accounting.
The larger point is that regardless of whether the issue is trade deficit, environment, domestic manufacturing jobs, the dollar’s value, etc., the purchasing decisions every individual makes are their highest point of daily leverage for influencing the world they live in, and in those choices you find clarity about whether advocates for taxation and regulation are hypocrites or truly committed.
Put other ways, if your advocacy for taxing gasoline is rooted in concern for carbon emissions and you bought a Prius, you probably haven’t thought about your favorite crisis holistically. If you prematurely traded an otherwise lightly used car, you only made an statement, not a contribution. If your advocacy is rooted in concern for American economic vulnerability posed by dependency on oil imports and you don’t own domestic vehicles, support offshore drilling, nuclear power, clean coal, etc., your concern rings hollow. If your advocacy is based on what others here referred to as “cheap-bastardism” but you drive anything more than utilitarian transportation, that’s hard to take seriously. If you don’t have a plan for how tax proceeds would be used, that’s an incomplete idea. If you want to see gasoline be made more expensive through taxation out of environmental concern but live in more than, say, a 2500 s.f. house, fly in private or chartered jets, burn wood in your fireplaces, etc. then again your commitment isn’t really pegged to the problem.
We don’t need taxation or regulation to make headway if we exercise the power handed us every day at the figurative cash register. Each of us makes choices every day that move us collectively closer to or further away from tackling real problems — even imagined ones.
Really, economics and carbon make automotive choices very simple today, in the US. An Accord/Camry has no macro-environmental or macroeconomic advantage over a Malibu for an American buyer today. It’s quite the opposite: on environment and economics, a Malibu or anything like it has every advantage over any competing import or transplant, to an American buyer. If you’re buying on macro concerns, there is no rationale for buying a Toyota or Nissan pickup truck or SUV, nor any European luxury car.
Now, there may be some micro-economic arguments for the “away” team, and certainly some emotional ones. There’s no macroeconomic or environmental argument for buying a Maserati over a Cadillac, or a Ferrari over a Corvette, but some things just have to be had. However, advocates of regulation, taxation and other generalized instruments to bend the market to the will of a few would have more credibility if they were already making the macroeconomic and environmentally consistent choices elsewhere in their lives too. If you really think global warming is dangerous and human-induced, or that trade deficits are killing our economy, then micro concerns like how often you might risk taking a car for service over the next five years, depreciation, or piddling differences in plastics, would not be actionable.
But to some people the little things are actionable. Not directed to you specifically Pch, let’s have some consistency or back off the reflex for taxation.
Phil
Mr. Ressler, you just used your brief allusion to the trade deficit as an excuse to provide lengthy advocacy for the purchase of Big 2.8 cars.
Sorry, but the topic was gas consumption. No need to change the subject.
Mr. Ressler, you just used your brief allusion to the trade deficit as an excuse to provide lengthy advocacy for the purchase of Big 2.8 cars.
Sorry, but the topic was gas consumption. No need to change the subject.
Well, again no.
The question posed by Lieberman regards what to do about gas? His comments focused the discussion on consumption and price. Early responses recommended taxation and various types of regulation, for both economic and environmental reasons. If you followed my posts in this thread, I began with a simple advocacy to leave gasoline policy alone, and explained why. I then responded to some other contributors and have followed a general line of discouraging regulation and taxation, encouraged behavioral consistency on the part of advocates for both, gave illustrations that included some examples of car-buying decisions, and concluded with a summary of inconsistencies that are undermining the credibility of advocates for regulation.
I’ve been entirely on-topic.
Phil
David Holzman: Oh boy, am I embarassed… I, the big fan of statistics and stickler for checking sources, really made a big boo-boo on that front. 100GW of US nuclear generation capacity is absolutely correct. The number I was thinking of (and thinking of wrongly) is ~700 GWh of actual annual generation in the US. So not only was I citing the wrong number, I was off by two orders of magnitude to boot.
Landcrusher :
March 26th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Carlos,
I call Bullshit.
Please tell us about a huge tax cut, incentive, or subsidy for oil companies. Please? Just one.
January 19, 2007
House Votes to Rescind Oil Drillers’ Tax Breaks
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 — House Democrats easily passed legislation on Thursday that would rescind $14 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for oil drillers and reserve the money to develop alternative energy projects and conservation technologies.
The measure passed 264 to 163, with many Republicans joining a bloc of Democrats. Passage came despite opposition from the oil industry and the Bush administration, which said the bill singled out the companies for higher taxes and could increase the country’s dependence on foreign oil.
The bill will rescind $7.6 billion in tax breaks for oil drillers that Congress passed in 2004 and 2005 and will add $6.3 billion in royalties from companies that pump oil and gas in publicly owned waters of the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
One provision is intended to correct errors in drilling leases signed by the Interior Department in the late 1990s that allowed oil companies to escape billions of dollars in royalties over the next decade.
The provision, opposed by the White House and the industry, would require companies that refuse to change their leases to pay a “conservation fee” on each barrel they produce. Otherwise, under the bill, the companies would be barred from acquiring additional leases.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/business/19royalty.html
Carlos,
Let me tell you the real story my press/government believing friend. Those were not errors, it is really a break on royalties, and the leases would never have been sold at the normal rates.
The Clinton Administration (Yes, that is correct, the lefties) noted that no one was drilling deep wells. They wanted the revenues from the lease sales, so they changed the standard terms on the leases. Had they not done so, there would have been no way for anyone to make a profit because the price of oil was too cheap at the time, and these leases were all gong to be expensive to explore and produce. Basically, this is analagous to a mall owner giving tenants a cheaper price on less desirable locations in the mall.
Fast forward to the Bush administration (Yes, that is correct, the right wing in the pocket of big oil guys) and the price of oil is now through the roof. The realize that the lease holders are making a huge profit, and in the spirit of communist governments everywhere, claimed the leases were a mistake and demanded back payment. Using the mall analogy, the mall owner now comes back after the retail shop located in the closet under the stairwell and demanding years of extra back rent because he finds out that the guy was making a lot of money back there by using expensive advertising.
As I said, some companies came to a settlement, others are still fighting. However, in no way is this a subsidy or a tax break for the oil companies under any objective opinion. Sure, royalties may be technically taxes, but a reduced royalty on an undesirable lease is supposed to be a subsidy?
What is really disgusting is the Clinton campaign blaming Bush for giving away the so called subsidies when it is actually the exact opposite. What is also disgusting is the NYT slanting this story when they know better. As written, it is more editorial than news, but that should surprise no one who has read that rag in the last decade.
There are actually a few tax breaks and subsidies for the oil industry, but they are really insubstantial compared to the taxes paid by them. All major industries in this country get something, and I would be glad to see almost all of them cut off. Especially the airlines and big ag.