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2006-05-03 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by DarthVader 2006-05-03 10:48|| || Front Page|| [11126 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This is an industrial policy recommendation. The record of such policies has not been good. As Boot himself points out, the net effect of high prices today will be low prices at some future point, as consumers drive less, in smaller cars. The oil producers had better salt the money from the boom years away - the hangover will be huge when the glut materializes.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-05-03 13:27|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-05-03 13:27|| Front Page Top

#2 What industrial policy?

Remove government restrictions on drilling,
Remove government restrictions on production and distribution of distillates,
Remove protective tarriffs on petroleum substitutes,
Fund research,
Impose a protective tarriff on petroleum.

The only thing I find remotely like an industrial policy is fund research. But that will probably be wasteful pork that will bge necessary to get everything else. This is the correct national security policy for the reasons laid out in the article.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-05-03 13:37|| 2006-05-03 13:37|| Front Page Top

#3 NS: Fund research. Impose a protective tarriff on petroleum.

Both of these are industrial policy.

NS: Remove government restrictions on production and distribution of distillates,
Remove protective tarriffs on petroleum substitutes,

Do restrictions and tariffs currently exist?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-05-03 14:14|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-05-03 14:14|| Front Page Top

#4 Increase federal funding for research and rollout of fossil-fuel substitutes such as hydrogen, cellulosic ethanol (produced from grasses and agricultural waste) and plug-in electric engines.

I debunked electric cars yesterday (they require four times as much oil as gasoline powered cars), hydrogen is at least as bad and if ethanol from waste organic material is such a great idea why is no one doing it already, plus it won't scale short of clear felling uncountable millions of acres of trees.

Otherwise, energy consumption is so integral to economic activity that the only way a glut will result is when there is a massive economic collapse or there is a massive increase in energy from another source (coal and nuclear are the only alternatives. Take your pick).

I'd also add, the continuing inability of otherwise intelligent people to grasp this truth makes me more and more convinced that the only way out is the massive economic collapse.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-05-03 15:27|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-05-03 15:27|| Front Page Top

#5 Restrictions on ethanol "There's a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff, plus a 2.5% ad valorem tax, on ethanol imported from Brazil, the world's other main producer, while there is a 51-cent-per-gallon government subsidy for ethanol mixed into fuel. It's a combination that critics say insulates domestic ethanol producers from competing against cheaper imports."

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-05-03 15:57|| 2006-05-03 15:57|| Front Page Top

#6 Previous problems with biomass conversion (aka waste organic materials "Molokai Hawaii had a biomass power plant. Hawaii imports oil for power so this was a direct application of plants to displace oil, and includes efficient use of cellulose, with serious unintended consequences. ... I toured this facility which purchased fuel from the locals. The island was rapidly becoming stripped of all vegetation. The elders were very grateful when this power plant failed. Now, vines grow in the control room, popping glass covers from meters. The jungle reclaimed the site and Molokai is green again...Caution is advised for free-market biomass. Local environments and economies could be severely impacted."
Of course, you could look on 9/11, the WOT, and the current unpleasantness in Iraq and Afghanistan as unintended side effects of massive oil importation from fascists.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-05-03 16:06|| 2006-05-03 16:06|| Front Page Top

#7 The whole topic of energy independence deserves far more discussion and exposition than is apparently available on the internet. One thing that is fairly clear to me is that no possible measures can improve the current situation (i.e. high oil prices) within the next five years, outside of widespread economic collapse. Every proposed widespread measure will take longer than five years to have an appreciable affect.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-05-03 16:19|| 2006-05-03 16:19|| Front Page Top

#8 five years isn't really very long.

Posted by 2b 2006-05-03 16:59|| 2006-05-03 16:59|| Front Page Top

#9 Donkeys just voted down measures to make new refineries possible.

Little bunnies with chemical toxins and all that BS.

Posted by 3dc 2006-05-03 18:41|| 2006-05-03 18:41|| Front Page Top

#10 AH: Of course, you could look on 9/11, the WOT, and the current unpleasantness in Iraq and Afghanistan as unintended side effects of massive oil importation from fascists.

9/11 cost a few hundred thousand dollars to stage. The Bali bombings cost perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. The terrorism problem isn't caused by oil money. It's caused by tens of thousands of terrorists supported by Islamic charities and tolerated by Muslim governments as long as they turn their attention outward. But the figures involved aren't huge. If every Muslim contributed $1 a year, these terrorists would have a billion-dollar annual budget. And Muslims don't need $70 oil to contribute $1 a year.

Note that terrorists also have their own ways of raising funds, such as protection rackets, bank robbery, bank and credit card fraud, and so on. Simply getting a job is also a possibility - many of the 9/11 terrorists were college-educated. A Jordanian suicide bomber whose hands were found handcuffed to a steering wheel in Iraq used to handle luggage at a California airport.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-05-03 22:19|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-05-03 22:19|| Front Page Top

#11 The biggest problem here is yet unsaid.
Just what is all this "Wealth" going to be stored as?
Cash money tends to evaporate in many different ways, from being devalued, burnt, stolen, or simply that those pieces of paper are no longer honored. (Zimbabwe comes immediately to mind)

So you need to convert it into another form, land is good, but the value depends highly on what you use the land for.(House prices are ridiculous these days, raw land in the boonies is cheap.)

One of the worst uses would be to build buildings and rent them out (No matter what the "Rent" is,) this solves nothing but to make land worth more pieces of paper. Not good.

Best would be to farm, (Includes any kind of livestock) producing some kind of foodstuffs for humans and their pets (Big Market here)

"Toys" including Houses, Cars, Boats, (Hell, Locomotives if you so desire) wear out, need maintenance, and eventualy have to be replaced.
Kind of makes the Amish/Mennonites/Kibbutz/Collectives/Communes etc look positively brilliant in retrospective.

So just what constitutes "Wealth"? it ain't pieces of paper unless you can swap them for real "Things" fairly quickly.(NOT gold,silver, jewels, etc, I remember reading stories of the russian nobility trying to trade gold bracelets, jewels etc for a bushel of potatos, with no takers.)

Food is wealth, the ability to make food is a lifetime of wealth, the ability to live off your own land is better than Bill Gates Billions, but only at certain times.
Problem here is that nobody does it but the extremely poor, and it has a stigma attached to it.

Solution, I don't have one, there needs to be both land ownership and usage, mixed with the current crop of "Intelligent Things" such as computers, Highline electricity. Superinsulated homes, safe drinking water, Medicines and Doctors that actualy work, and do not bankrupt you to use them, safe food preservation (Fammines DO happen) Rapid Cheap Transport, and standardized trade.

We have all these now, but seem disinclined to use them correctly where one reinforces another, instead using them haphazardly, it still works better than at any other time in history.

End rant, no I do not advocate going back to the "Good Old Days" which were neither "Good" nor really anything other than selective memories that glorify the good, and forget the bad, but for a more inteligent usage of what's available before the next round of famine, disease and death that roll around entirely too frequently.

Any ideas? Preferably ones that do not require Dictatorship to make them work, but appeal to human interest to get them rolling?

I favor some kind of "Intelligence Test" for all kinds of Government leaders, from Kings, Dictators, Presidents, Cabinet Leaders, or Tribal Chiefs. But then the problem again arises "Who bells the cat?"

I dunno, it's late and I'm tired, probably a bit incoherent too.

'Night all.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2006-05-03 23:30|| 2006-05-03 23:30|| Front Page Top

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