"The idea that high fuel duty is a "bad thing" is a naive notion at best. The UK and the EU in general is in much better shape to deal with a 100USD a barrel oil than the USA. If the US wants to be the dirty man of the world then expect to pay the price"
Yes, they will not face any immediate catastrophes. But overall, they are poorer than they would have been had the gasoline taxes not been implemented.
Capital invested into saving oil consumption could have been plowed into education, health care, or building new businesses. With this extra money that the investments created, they would have been in a even better position when the price of oil went up.
"The market is good at regulating a permanent supply (e.g.: gold) but bad at regulating a diminishing one (e.g.: water bottles during a storm/catastrophe)."
That is nonsense. As long as it is not decreasing fast enough to cause a breakdown in infrastructure(like in storms), Markets work much better for diminishing resources than any other mechanism I can think of.
"Higher gas prices don't have to harm the poor. It means the poor drive to work in cars with smaller engines."
If driving a smaller car would have decreased costs by so much, and wouldn't have affected performance because of traffic, why haven't they done so already? Why have they not taken the resulting surplus and plowed it into other things?
"Regulating emissions from cars might help climate change, but it doesn't help people get to work quicker or find a parking space when they go shopping. The only solutions to that I can see are:"
How about road pricing? With GPS, we could automaticly raise prices in traffic heavy areas and lower them in empty areas. With the proper Algorithm, that would be much more efficient than any of the measures you mentioned.
"Not all of us can afford a £55 bill every time we fill up"
You complain about prices, yet want them pushed higher?
I don't support Gasoline taxes precisely because they harm the poor. Gasoline is highly price inelastic, and so prices have to be hiked enormously in order to decrease demand. This takes away money that consumers could have spent on other things.
If we want to control Global Warming, that is another issue entirely, that can be dealt with by controlling tail-pipe emissions. But with a Gasoline tax, companies don't have any financial incentive to research Carbon reducing technologies, only MPG increasing ones.
Yes, but that is rather simplistic. Different engines have drastically different amounts of CO2/Gallon emissions. Instead of researching how to decrease gas burnt, which the market is already frantic to do because of oil prices, it would be best to focus attention to CO2 emission reduction technology.
They are weakly correlated to be sure, but regulating global warming by dealing with Gasoline policy is a bit like decreasing drug usage by changing TV schedules.
How exactly is it a *gain* to the consumer to mandate higher prices in cars? Sometimes, higher fixed costs, and resulting better mileage, are outweighed by lower operating(gasoline) costs. In fact, higher oil prices make this situation much more common.
Car makers, wishing to capitalize on this demand to increase sales, then proceed to produce fuel efficient models for this subgroup of consumers, while continuing sales of less efficient but cheaper cars to other consumers.
Why does the government need to mandate standards? Just buy some of the multiple Japanese Hybrids. There is no need for you to force your preferences on other people.
And to preempt a flood of angry responses, I believe in Global Warming and Emissions control. But MPG and carbon tailpipe emissions are only weakly correlated. Instead of wasting large amounts of money on improving MPG, we could focus these resources on CO2 control.
Why exactly is Corn Ethanol a good thing? Haven't we caused enough food riots and inflation worldwide with this policy?
And I'm not really thrilled with the other provisions of the bill, namely requiring 15% of every utility's power from every state to come from non-renewable sources. This is going to draw a lot of capital away from Nuclear energy, and in the states without wind or clear skies, will likely prompt a lot of wasteful programs(Apparently, burning Forests for energy counts as renewable energy).
And the CAFE standards? I don't care enough to fight about it(mainly since it seems the market is heading that way anyway), but I would prefer more specific mandates that don't smack of populism. CO2 emissions are pretty poorly tied to gasoline consumption, and regulation on tail-pipe CO2 emission would make a lot more environmental sense(And cost a lot less money), at least until a carbon credit scheme is implemented.
The funny thing, is that nobody is even considering implementing CAFE standards for the military and other government agencies. The Government's massive purchase of fuel inefficient cars, since agencies have very little incentive to save on gas costs, has a surprisingly discretionary effect on the production decisions of American Car Makers. We've all seen police drive around in SUVs.
Instead of saddling American consumers with extra costs, why don't we mandate that all agencies that receive money from Congress must not use cars with a MPG below 35? This includes charities, police departments, the Military, and even foreign governments.
"How about the Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, and Hammas all getting access to nukes? It doesn't have to be the "official" government to achieve the goals of vaporizing Israel, or Washington D.C."
First, the Revolutionary Guard is not a terrorist organization, it is a military organ. It has been involved in terror attacks, but so have the militaries of America, France, Britain, and Russia.
Iran supports terror organizations around the world to further their own interests, just like many other countries in the world. For example, we fund several terror groups operating in Iran (As ABC leaked earlier this year), just as we have supported terrorist groups in the past (Contra and Mujahadeen immediately come to mind, but there are no shortage of them). It is just as absurd to suggest that Iran would give their nukes to Hezbollah as it is to suggest that we would have given nukes to the Mujahadeen.
Iran only supports Hamas and Hezbollah as a way to counter US and Saudi influence in the region, so as to further its own regional interests. Notice how Hezbollah was not founded in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but in 1986 as a response to US naval attacks on Iran? Notice how Iranian aid to Hamas has been only in response to US sanctioned Israeli offensives?
Remember the deal they offered us in 2003? Where they offered to cut off funding to Hezbollah and Hamas completely, recognize Israel's right to exist, and throw their weight behind any American backed peace plan? That was in exchange for a promise not to invade, and a crackdown on anti-Iranian terror groups stationed in Iraq. That does not jibe very well with your image of a regime desperate to destroy the "Great Satan".
"That they've slowed production efforts is of little comfort as the Iranians continue to enrich uranium. They have plenty of time to finish the work on the warhead design before enough material can be successfully enriched and hidden as "waste" in the process and then used for a warhead."
I'm not sure what your point is. Once a country has a functioning nuclear energy program, they can build nuclear weapons within a year. We face the same risk from Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. But the nuclear non-proliferation treaty gives nations the right to nuclear power, and that is unavoidable.
"There is no time-line or specific goal for vaporizing Israel or defeating the Great Satan, so if it takes another decade or so, they'll wait for our patience to wear thin and our guard to drop once more..."
I see no reason to believe that this is a goal of Iran. The US and Israel serve as valuable propaganda tools against their people. Not only that, but Iran is dependant on the outside world for nearly everything except for oil, and a nuclear attack would devastate the world economy. In the end, I see just as much risk from Iran as I do from Pakistan.
"As for "allowing" Pakistan or India to get nukes, do you really think we can just walk in and order other countries to stop?"
Did anyone even consider sanctions after they announced their nuclear capacity? Did the US do anything at all to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons? No. And because of this, it would be hypocritical to hold Iran to a different standard.
"As for sanctions not working, duh, last I knew North Korea has now abandoned their nuclear program in response to years of sanctions and determined pressure from the U.S. and surrounding nations, so sanctions can, and do work."
North Korea is much poorer than Iran is. The North Korean government reached the point where they did not have enough food to feed their soldiers. They had absolutely no exports to speak of (except counterfeit bills).
Iran on the other hand, has lots of exports, most importantly, oil. No sanctions toward Iran would be effective, simply because they will be able to sell their oil on the black market in exchange for food an
Honestly, what is so horrible about Iran getting Nukes? The president might be flamboyant, but in Iran's system of government, he has about as much power as a high school student council president. He gets some money to play around with, but they keep him away from anything important.
There are proliferation concerns, but those were mooted when we allowed Pakistan and India to get nukes. Nothing short of a worldwide agreement to limit nukes, which the US and Russia seem unwilling to do, will stop nuclear proliferation.
There is nothing particularly scary about Iran, and if I had to pick, they would have been a much better choice then India or Pakistan. They have not invaded any nations in modern times, and yet, they have been invaded by every single one of their neighbors (and some who were not) in the last century. They are a very inward looking and defensive country, with rather legitimate existential concerns.
And even if we decide that Iran should not be trusted with nukes, we have to evaluate the costs of disarming them. Over 80% of Iranians support the nuclear program, and no Iranian leader will be able to go against such widespread popular support.
There are only two ways then, that we can destroy their program. Either crushing sanctions, which as North Korea showed, would not work or War.
In such a war, the number of American Casualties and Iranian casualties would be very high. If it leads to an occupation or civil war, as is likely, the numbers will grow much higher. At this point, we begin to approach the level of deaths that would be realized if Iran actually used a crude nuclear bomb.
Faced with such a large cost of disbarment, I think it is in our best interests to allow them to have nuclear weapons, and use this as leverage to get other things that we want from them in the region.
"Trade opportunities are critical, that's true. But they have to be fair trade opportunities.
"Quite the contrary, trade negotiations are usually excuses for developed countries to create new export markets at the expense of local industry."
Please define the term "fair trade"
Right, the Africans get certain export goods more efficiently than it could have been done at home, freeing up resources for better things.
"In fact, import duties on a number of critical products (e.g. coffee, copra and sugar) would rise rather than fall."
It is a very basic result of Econ 101 that faced with tariffs from another country, your country will be better off without any tariffs on the offending country.
"I agree with your statement, but not with the implications. There is a definite need for large-scale donor support in order to build basic infrastructure. And these days, the single most critical element of infrastructure is communications."
You know what a better option is? Why can't we just let these people move. There is no reason to keep them behind the border at gunpoint while waiting for a complex economy to form.
Many of these areas will never be developed, for the same reason that vast stretches of New Mexico and Iceland are left bare, because there is no logical reason humans should live there.
The First World has a tremendous amount of room to accept immigrants, and in the long term, it will be the most effective foreign aid.
"He said it undermined and ignored all the progress they've made in the past few decades."
I agree with you, but I want to point out, there has been very little progress since the 1960's. There are a couple success stories, but most of Africa stagnated decades ago.
"Which is exactly the problem; the XO project ignores the people most in need, and for those it doesn't ignore, it hands them a pound of cake instead of a hundred pounds of rice."
What is someone in Libya going to do with rice?
"It needs agricultural and job skills training, also achievable with basic, inexpensive materials."
Which skills? And who does the training? It is not in Africa's best interests for the West to centrally plan their economy. This laptop program will allow workers to access any knowledge on the Internet, and pick what they think is best. That seems like the best kind of job training to me.
No, the countries that the OLPC are aimed at are surrounded by the poorer starving countries you have mentioned. It is in the better long term interest of these starving countries to have prosperous neighbors.
"There's certainly nothing wrong with trying to help people with laptops. It's good. It probably helps in real, tangible ways. But something like providing medicine and medical care is clearly better."
I think your overestimating the beneficial effects of Health Care. While there are certain diseases that stunt brain development and disfigure children for their entire lives, they are relatively rare for the countries that OLPC is aimed at. These countries already have a rudimentary level of health care, one that keeps Malnutrition and Malaria to relative minimums.
Care for adults is a bit of a tricky issue, as a Parent's death is going to be very harmful for the child. But Parents in these countries are pretty young, and their main cause of death is either AIDs or occupational injury. Most of these countries already have AID's programs in place, and there is nothing we can do about occupational illness.
So I'd have to say that faced with a choice, I think that countries like Libya would benefit more from Laptops then they would Medicine.
Thats all well and good, but Dictators just won't buy these things.
I'm not sure why people look at this like an aid program, Governments are buying these things, and the OLPC foundation even has a small profit margin. Granted, they've subsidized R&D and put a lot of work in off the clock to create an amazing product, and that is commendable. But regardless, making a product available for sale is a different beast than sending over boxes of rice.
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Yes, they will not face any immediate catastrophes. But overall, they are poorer than they would have been had the gasoline taxes not been implemented.
Capital invested into saving oil consumption could have been plowed into education, health care, or building new businesses. With this extra money that the investments created, they would have been in a even better position when the price of oil went up.
Carbon tax would be better, avoid the biofuel loophole, and also cover power plants.
Soot does not concern me, it is very easy to dispose of.
Please explain how CAFE standards are relevant, or efficient here.
That is nonsense. As long as it is not decreasing fast enough to cause a breakdown in infrastructure(like in storms), Markets work much better for diminishing resources than any other mechanism I can think of.
No, the same amount of Carbon, not the same amount of Carbon Dioxide.
If driving a smaller car would have decreased costs by so much, and wouldn't have affected performance because of traffic, why haven't they done so already? Why have they not taken the resulting surplus and plowed it into other things?
"Regulating emissions from cars might help climate change, but it doesn't help people get to work quicker or find a parking space when they go shopping. The only solutions to that I can see are:"
How about road pricing? With GPS, we could automaticly raise prices in traffic heavy areas and lower them in empty areas. With the proper Algorithm, that would be much more efficient than any of the measures you mentioned.
I've always been curious about that. How precisely does that work? Is Sovereign immunity the reason why the CIA was able to get away with it?
You complain about prices, yet want them pushed higher?
I don't support Gasoline taxes precisely because they harm the poor. Gasoline is highly price inelastic, and so prices have to be hiked enormously in order to decrease demand. This takes away money that consumers could have spent on other things.
If we want to control Global Warming, that is another issue entirely, that can be dealt with by controlling tail-pipe emissions. But with a Gasoline tax, companies don't have any financial incentive to research Carbon reducing technologies, only MPG increasing ones.
Sorry, it was indeed a type. I'm glad to hear that provision was dropped from the bill after all, thanks for brightening my day a bit.
And indeed, I guess you could justify military vehicles as commercial vehicles.
They are weakly correlated to be sure, but regulating global warming by dealing with Gasoline policy is a bit like decreasing drug usage by changing TV schedules.
Car makers, wishing to capitalize on this demand to increase sales, then proceed to produce fuel efficient models for this subgroup of consumers, while continuing sales of less efficient but cheaper cars to other consumers.
Where does the government come into this?
And to preempt a flood of angry responses, I believe in Global Warming and Emissions control. But MPG and carbon tailpipe emissions are only weakly correlated. Instead of wasting large amounts of money on improving MPG, we could focus these resources on CO2 control.
And I'm not really thrilled with the other provisions of the bill, namely requiring 15% of every utility's power from every state to come from non-renewable sources. This is going to draw a lot of capital away from Nuclear energy, and in the states without wind or clear skies, will likely prompt a lot of wasteful programs(Apparently, burning Forests for energy counts as renewable energy).
And the CAFE standards? I don't care enough to fight about it(mainly since it seems the market is heading that way anyway), but I would prefer more specific mandates that don't smack of populism. CO2 emissions are pretty poorly tied to gasoline consumption, and regulation on tail-pipe CO2 emission would make a lot more environmental sense(And cost a lot less money), at least until a carbon credit scheme is implemented.
The funny thing, is that nobody is even considering implementing CAFE standards for the military and other government agencies. The Government's massive purchase of fuel inefficient cars, since agencies have very little incentive to save on gas costs, has a surprisingly discretionary effect on the production decisions of American Car Makers. We've all seen police drive around in SUVs.
Instead of saddling American consumers with extra costs, why don't we mandate that all agencies that receive money from Congress must not use cars with a MPG below 35? This includes charities, police departments, the Military, and even foreign governments.
Any reason they can't just destroy the evidence?
First, the Revolutionary Guard is not a terrorist organization, it is a military organ. It has been involved in terror attacks, but so have the militaries of America, France, Britain, and Russia.
Iran supports terror organizations around the world to further their own interests, just like many other countries in the world. For example, we fund several terror groups operating in Iran (As ABC leaked earlier this year), just as we have supported terrorist groups in the past (Contra and Mujahadeen immediately come to mind, but there are no shortage of them). It is just as absurd to suggest that Iran would give their nukes to Hezbollah as it is to suggest that we would have given nukes to the Mujahadeen.
Iran only supports Hamas and Hezbollah as a way to counter US and Saudi influence in the region, so as to further its own regional interests. Notice how Hezbollah was not founded in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but in 1986 as a response to US naval attacks on Iran? Notice how Iranian aid to Hamas has been only in response to US sanctioned Israeli offensives?
Remember the deal they offered us in 2003? Where they offered to cut off funding to Hezbollah and Hamas completely, recognize Israel's right to exist, and throw their weight behind any American backed peace plan? That was in exchange for a promise not to invade, and a crackdown on anti-Iranian terror groups stationed in Iraq. That does not jibe very well with your image of a regime desperate to destroy the "Great Satan".
"That they've slowed production efforts is of little comfort as the Iranians continue to enrich uranium. They have plenty of time to finish the work on the warhead design before enough material can be successfully enriched and hidden as "waste" in the process and then used for a warhead."
I'm not sure what your point is. Once a country has a functioning nuclear energy program, they can build nuclear weapons within a year. We face the same risk from Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. But the nuclear non-proliferation treaty gives nations the right to nuclear power, and that is unavoidable.
"There is no time-line or specific goal for vaporizing Israel or defeating the Great Satan, so if it takes another decade or so, they'll wait for our patience to wear thin and our guard to drop once more..."
I see no reason to believe that this is a goal of Iran. The US and Israel serve as valuable propaganda tools against their people. Not only that, but Iran is dependant on the outside world for nearly everything except for oil, and a nuclear attack would devastate the world economy. In the end, I see just as much risk from Iran as I do from Pakistan.
"As for "allowing" Pakistan or India to get nukes, do you really think we can just walk in and order other countries to stop?"
Did anyone even consider sanctions after they announced their nuclear capacity? Did the US do anything at all to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons? No. And because of this, it would be hypocritical to hold Iran to a different standard.
"As for sanctions not working, duh, last I knew North Korea has now abandoned their nuclear program in response to years of sanctions and determined pressure from the U.S. and surrounding nations, so sanctions can, and do work."
North Korea is much poorer than Iran is. The North Korean government reached the point where they did not have enough food to feed their soldiers. They had absolutely no exports to speak of (except counterfeit bills).
Iran on the other hand, has lots of exports, most importantly, oil. No sanctions toward Iran would be effective, simply because they will be able to sell their oil on the black market in exchange for food an
There are proliferation concerns, but those were mooted when we allowed Pakistan and India to get nukes. Nothing short of a worldwide agreement to limit nukes, which the US and Russia seem unwilling to do, will stop nuclear proliferation.
There is nothing particularly scary about Iran, and if I had to pick, they would have been a much better choice then India or Pakistan. They have not invaded any nations in modern times, and yet, they have been invaded by every single one of their neighbors (and some who were not) in the last century. They are a very inward looking and defensive country, with rather legitimate existential concerns.
And even if we decide that Iran should not be trusted with nukes, we have to evaluate the costs of disarming them. Over 80% of Iranians support the nuclear program, and no Iranian leader will be able to go against such widespread popular support.
There are only two ways then, that we can destroy their program. Either crushing sanctions, which as North Korea showed, would not work or War.
In such a war, the number of American Casualties and Iranian casualties would be very high. If it leads to an occupation or civil war, as is likely, the numbers will grow much higher. At this point, we begin to approach the level of deaths that would be realized if Iran actually used a crude nuclear bomb.
Faced with such a large cost of disbarment, I think it is in our best interests to allow them to have nuclear weapons, and use this as leverage to get other things that we want from them in the region.
Please define the term "fair trade"
Right, the Africans get certain export goods more efficiently than it could have been done at home, freeing up resources for better things.
"In fact, import duties on a number of critical products (e.g. coffee, copra and sugar) would rise rather than fall."
It is a very basic result of Econ 101 that faced with tariffs from another country, your country will be better off without any tariffs on the offending country.
"I agree with your statement, but not with the implications. There is a definite need for large-scale donor support in order to build basic infrastructure. And these days, the single most critical element of infrastructure is communications."
I agree completely here.
Many of these areas will never be developed, for the same reason that vast stretches of New Mexico and Iceland are left bare, because there is no logical reason humans should live there.
The First World has a tremendous amount of room to accept immigrants, and in the long term, it will be the most effective foreign aid.
I agree with you, but I want to point out, there has been very little progress since the 1960's. There are a couple success stories, but most of Africa stagnated decades ago.
The OLPC contracts require Internet access be provided to the students.
What is someone in Libya going to do with rice?
"It needs agricultural and job skills training, also achievable with basic, inexpensive materials."
Which skills? And who does the training? It is not in Africa's best interests for the West to centrally plan their economy. This laptop program will allow workers to access any knowledge on the Internet, and pick what they think is best. That seems like the best kind of job training to me.
No, the countries that the OLPC are aimed at are surrounded by the poorer starving countries you have mentioned. It is in the better long term interest of these starving countries to have prosperous neighbors.
I think your overestimating the beneficial effects of Health Care. While there are certain diseases that stunt brain development and disfigure children for their entire lives, they are relatively rare for the countries that OLPC is aimed at. These countries already have a rudimentary level of health care, one that keeps Malnutrition and Malaria to relative minimums.
Care for adults is a bit of a tricky issue, as a Parent's death is going to be very harmful for the child. But Parents in these countries are pretty young, and their main cause of death is either AIDs or occupational injury. Most of these countries already have AID's programs in place, and there is nothing we can do about occupational illness.
So I'd have to say that faced with a choice, I think that countries like Libya would benefit more from Laptops then they would Medicine.
I'm not sure why people look at this like an aid program, Governments are buying these things, and the OLPC foundation even has a small profit margin. Granted, they've subsidized R&D and put a lot of work in off the clock to create an amazing product, and that is commendable. But regardless, making a product available for sale is a different beast than sending over boxes of rice.