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ShnickyShnack wrote:

matt wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Right around there, yeah.

I thought it was closer to $60?

Nope.

When the market opened Thursday, a few hours before I wrote that, the price was $56.50. It just fell in the afternoon.

But for the last few days, it has been closer to $60.

Report on Switching from Oil

And it was sponsored by the Pentagon, so if you disagree you HATE AMERICA!!!11!1!!!one!

The New Guy wrote:

This guy will save us!

whadda nutbag.

prolly voted Bush.

Or he could just use remote sensing like all the other companies do.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Seriously, though, at what point does it not become desirable to replace the oil economy with alternative energy sources?

I don't think that's the right question to ask, as we aren't capable of answering it.  Individual oil-users will decide when to make the switch, depending on their unique circumstances.  Eventually, I suppose, no one will use oil any longer.  People have been slowly moving to other energies for several decades now and I imagine that'll continue and speed up.

The New Guy wrote:

This guy will save us!

That just made my day.

Apparently Congress is trying to extend Daylight Savings Time. THAT would be cool!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/07/ … saving.ap/

Laura wrote:

Apparently Congress is trying to extend Daylight Savings Time. THAT would be cool!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/07/ … saving.ap/

I saw that too and was quite taken aback. 
It is not often that I see Congress propose a small, feasible, good idea.

charon wrote:

Kirk's already mentioned a very apparent market alternative.  Moreover, markets allow entrepreneurs to come up with alternatives that don't already exist, or invest in the ones that do, as the price of oil rises.  I don't understand why you seem to think that only public policy planners can come up with new ideas when it's capitalism that's gotten us this far already.

Certainly markets can solve many problems, but they are definately plauged by the problem of strongly tending towards local optima and not getting over large initial barriers to entry very well (different ways of stating the same problem).
For instance, we find ourselves faced with a huge infrastructure of roads not because a capitalist market made it that way, but because the gov't decided it would be good to have a really nice system of roads.  Another place where markets have ultimately failed is retirement pensions, how many corporate pensions has the gov't had to bail out lately (for those rare places that even have them anymore)?

as with all things based in reality, no one approach will provide the best solution to all problems.

Last edited by menglish (2005-04-10 10:51 am)

ShnickyShnack wrote:

To those who are smart enough to to believe such an absurd notion, can you think of any reason not to agree that, since the status quo was established and is being supported through state intervention, that the state shouldn't be used to turn the economy into a more sensible direction?

Two wrongs don't make a right?

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Does anyone here labor under the belief that the price of oil is completely determined by market forces?

To those who are smart enough to to believe such an absurd notion, can you think of any reason not to agree that, since the status quo was established and is being supported through state intervention, that the state shouldn't be used to turn the economy into a more sensible direction?

The sensible thing would be for the state to stop supporting the status quo, not to guess what people would've done if the state hadn't intervened and then make them do it.

Last edited by charon (2005-04-10 3:07 pm)

menglish wrote:

Certainly markets can solve many problems, but they are definately plauged by the problem of strongly tending towards local optima and not getting over large initial barriers to entry very well (different ways of stating the same problem).
For instance, we find ourselves faced with a huge infrastructure of roads not because a capitalist market made it that way, but because the gov't decided it would be good to have a really nice system of roads.

Not entirely sure what your point is.  OK, for better or for worse, we have roads, and that was a government decision.  That provides more economic reason to use gasoline than if no roads existed at all.  What's done is done.  It's not a market failure to take advantage of the amenities that already exist; quite the opposite.  (Of course, nothing says that we have to use gasoline-powered cars.)

My argument is that switching off of oil is not an imperative that we need to impose on anyone; we should just 1)stop doing dumb things to keep the price of oil low, 2)try to make the price reflect any externalities (e.g., pollution), and then 3)let people make their own choices about energy.

Last edited by charon (2005-04-10 3:10 pm)

The New Guy wrote:

I don't want a hybrid. I want a diesel. And I want to power it with vegetable oil from one of the potato chip factories nearby.

But I can't afford a new car. And as gas prices go up, my ability to afford a new car (let alone a new house closer to work) diminishes. Eventually, it will become too expensive for me to go to work, and I won't have the money for a new car because I spent it all going to and from work. Then I'll lose my job.

You asked for an alternative energy, you got one.  If you can't afford an alternative car, then you have an unmet need that someone else can profit off of, whether it's a car-maker who makes a cheaper car or someone who provides an entirely new form of transportation or what have you.  These people have the knowledge and incentive (selfishness) to help you out while keeping the social cost of doing so below the social benefit.  A public policy planner has neither the knowledge nor incentive to accomplish this.

The New Guy wrote:

Capitalism is what's gotten us into this mess, with it short-term problem solving. It's obvious to everyone that oil won't last indefinitely. But we went on building highways and cutting passenger rail service. We went on building suburbs with no public transportation. We went on building subdivisions and letting capitalists determine our land use instead of community planners. And now we're dependent on automobiles, and we're worried about the price of oil.

But, of course, if we'd only had omniscient, virtuous public policy planners in power for the last hundred years, this never would have happened.  Too bad they don't exist.  In fact, who do you think built the highways?  Who controls public transportation?  You're not comparing capitalism to a realistic alternative.  You're judging it against utopia, with the advantage of hindsight. 

Decision-making is generally better when it's decentralized, made by people who are only responsible for their own situation and familiar with their own circumstances.  No one's qualified to dictate to the entire country how energy should be used. 

BTW, I don't see why it's automatically irrational to make use of a finite resource.  For that matter, exploiting any energy source requires that we use finite materials.

Last edited by charon (2005-04-10 6:56 pm)