. They claim to be a "balanced" forum with three conservatives, two liberals and one fence-sitter writing for them. However, from my observations, either the liberals are doing 99% of the writing or the conservatives aren't terribly conservative. I haven't read far enough through their archives yet to find out which. However, one of their authors (hilzoy) is most definately far left. He seems to enjoy the favorite lefist passtime of blaming Bush for everything. In
post, he rails against the Bush energy policy as not doing anything right. Most of his wrath seems to be directed at changing CAFE regulations.
I'll be the first one to admit that I don't know much about CAFE, but I think this post and its subsequent comments point out two immediate and consistant leftie positions. First, if something seems to be going wrong, the government must regulate it. Secondly, the way to regulate it is to tax it. Of course as a matter of principle, I'd prefer to see the government stay out of the whole thing. If Detroit wants to make cars that get 3 MPG and people want to buy and drive them, why shouldn't they be allowed to? If they want to spend $50 per fillup because they've got a 35 gallon tank, who are you to say that they can't? The people who want to buy the hybrids are buying them.
But even putting away the esthetic argument of government intervention, I simply don't think that their idea of more tax on bigger cars is going to work. As I pointed out to them, my job requires me to drive a van. I deliver computers and there's no way that I could do that in a hybrid. The same goes for a plumber who has to carry around his parts, or an electrician, or the many types of service industries that depend on making deliveries to their customers. And that's not to even mention the trucking industry. How long would it take to tax them completly out of business? Or to make their tax burden so heavy that it breaks everyone else's back in increased cost for goods? I did propose this question to them, but so far the only answer is "we'll just have to change our whole transportation infrastructure." Somehow, I don't think that's going to be the answer. So, I propose a question to all the lefties. Can you seriously look at the economy and the nation as it stands and think that taxing the hell out of the transportation industry will do anything but drive us to ruin?
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Interesting post. Along the same lines, ABC local affiliate in NYC ran a story in the 6pm hour about how the gas prices have forced people to change their spending habits. Only problem with the story? The family whose habits are being changed - owns.... get this... an older Chevy Surburban! That thing gets like 10mpg on the highway. The family has 2 youngish kids, but is there really a need for that kind of vehicle? The story made it sound like they were sacrificing food off their kids plates. How about sacrificing the land yacht for a Corolla which gets 30mpg, has good safety, and won't kill your pocketbook when you go fill it up. Heck, my own 1998 Accord V-6 gets 25-30mpg in mixed driving. Sheesh.
These are people who made choices and now have to live with them. Meanwhile, the car companies like Toyota can't keep up with the demand for the Prius and other hybrids on the way. Sure, those vehicles make up a tiny fraction of the market as a whole, but the interest is surging along with the prices, which coincidentally makes the hybrids break even in terms of price differential.
Posted by: lawhawk at August 17, 2005 08:07 AM (AcoYr)
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"I'll be the first one to admit that I don't know much about CAFE"
Dont let that stop you. This is the blogosphere!
Posted by: actus at August 17, 2005 08:10 AM (nYnig)
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My neighbor has two little girls and she manages to survive with a Honda CRV. Gets something like 25 mpg. Anyway, the reason the Left insists that we tax gas and SUVs to death is because the Left has deemed them "wrong". That's it. They have decided, and you must obey. You will drive a cat-food-can car, or we will tax you to death. Here in the Bay Area, we already have large parking garages that have "No SUV or Pickup" signs. I guess my Nissan Frontier pickup is out o luck. It gets 23mpg and I fill it up once a month.
Posted by: Scott in CA at August 17, 2005 09:49 AM (2SDJ9)
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Simply more proof that a good liberal is one with a hemp necktie affixed to an oak limb.
Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 17, 2005 10:03 AM (0yYS2)
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Had actus been more inclined to answer your question, rather than just offer a drive by example of his 'wit', he would have reminded you of the old commie axiom that some will be sacrificed.
Won't hardly need transportation networks when you have nothing to move. See, problem solved. Now go wait in line for me for a turnip.
Posted by: Defense Guy at August 17, 2005 10:23 AM (jPCiN)
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I have an SUV, but I only drive about 2 miles to work each day and when I go flying it's the only vehicle that I can fit my machine in. I don't always use it anyway. I drive the Jeep too.
Posted by: Oyster at August 17, 2005 10:24 AM (fl6E1)
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"Won't hardly need transportation networks when you have nothing to move. See, problem solved. Now go wait in line for me for a turnip."
Hey, I don't even have a car! DC works quite fine without one.
Posted by: actus at August 17, 2005 10:31 AM (nYnig)
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The present system is good. The more you burn the more tax you pay.
Posted by: Howie at August 17, 2005 10:45 AM (D3+20)
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If Detroit wants to make cars that get 3 MPG and people want to buy and drive them, why shouldn't they be allowed to?
Well one obvious reason is that the more we spend on petroleum products the more terrorist-supporting and Wahabbi-madrasa-supporting countries earn. People would tend to not factor that in as a cost, which is a form of market failure. The other issue is anticipatory purchasing habits, and the economic model that says consumers and producers would raise the price on a diminishing resource by anticipating the decline of that resource tends to go against what we know about actual behavior, which often adjusts to such declines to late to avoid catastrophe.
Anyway, I don't
always have a problem with government does, by definition. Part of that is that we form governments to look after those conditions of cooperation that we'd otherwise neglect. The Public Choice argument (i.e. James Buchanan, et al) isn't that government has no role, or that such cooperation doesn't need looking after. It's that the monopoly rents sought by government perfert its capacity to perform such functions at a rational cost. They also acknowledge that there are two, not one, means of managing resources: markets and political voice.
Anyway, is a general observation the process of deregulation has, on balance, benefitted consumers almost across the board. The one area where that might not be the case is in trucking, and there are also probably some structural problems in the airlines industry that make it impossible to sustain if it were entirely market-driven. Consumers have definitely benefitted from deregulation of that industry, but it has also put the industry itself in a nearly untenable position. It's possible that the entire industry could go bankrupt, in which case the only option would be something like nationalization. Ken Button, essentially a libertarian economist, has written a good deal about this possibility.
But, again as a general rule, we still probably over-regulate, even after a two-decade strategy of deregulation.
Posted by: Demosophist at August 17, 2005 10:45 AM (zzime)
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Well one obvious reason is that the more we spend on petroleum products the more terrorist-supporting and Wahabbi-madrasa-supporting countries earn.
Well, yours is certainly the most thoughtful answer I've seen. And I could accept most of it, but the quote above. Although I realize that there was corruption going on and other influences involved, it still stands that years of embargos did nothing to change Iraq. With that in mind, I don't think that enforcing policy decisions with trade is a good idea on any level. Certainly 30 years of embargos on Cuba haven't done anything to alleviate the situation there.
Posted by: Drew at August 17, 2005 11:06 AM (Ml8z/)
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OT- but very interesting. Yes it is an odd site- and you may want to ignore some of the posts- but a very interesting story on the 9/11 funding and its ties in the US. Interested in your opinions
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/16/233950/633
Posted by: Jimbo at August 17, 2005 11:15 AM (HFKAk)
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"Certainly 30 years of embargos on Cuba haven't done anything to alleviate the situation there."
they haven't changed the situation, but they have impoverished cuba and made it so that it can't export its revolution. the same is the goal with islam and oil money: keep them from getting more money.
Posted by: actus at August 17, 2005 11:43 AM (nYnig)
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"they have impoverished cuba"
I think Castro had more to do with that. Ya see, there's nothing stopping
the rest of the world from trading with Cuba. Yet they don't, or have little interest in it.
Perhaps that's because the only real result of investing or trading with Cuba is your money lines the pockets of Castro and his cronies?
Posted by: Robert Crawford at August 17, 2005 11:53 AM (1j9aH)
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Drew: as I just wrote you at ObWi: you do realize that CAFE standards do not involve taxes, right?
Improbulus M: thanks for raising the tone.
Posted by: hilzoy at August 17, 2005 12:23 PM (F4dRv)
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I've got to go with Drew on the Cuba thing. As soon as Casto dies we'll be in there with every tourist dollar we can get. Sure some of the problem is communism but the lack of trade makes the economic problems there worse. China is all fine and dandy but Cuba is evil. Horsehocky.
Posted by: Howie at August 17, 2005 12:28 PM (D3+20)
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I am starting to see stories that the Democrats see the high gas prices as something that will benefit them in the upcoming elections, like they can lower the prices of gas. The only way that I can figure they would be able to do that would be to first tax the hell out of it, create a recession lowering demand, then dropping the price somewhat then to about what we pay now.
From a capitalist stand, I have been buying Exxon and BP stock for the last 2+ years. I used to get pissed at all the SUVs and empty pickup trucks blocking my view. Now I can care less, because each one of them is security against my investment losing money.
Both stocks offer monthly investment plans with no fees. I am not telling anyone to buy, as with my luck, you might jinx us all with your purchase and cause the stock to drop.....
Posted by: Fred Fry at August 17, 2005 01:20 PM (JXdhy)
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Hilzoy, you do realize that I was referring to the commenter on your site who said that we should be taxed according to the curb weight of the vehicle?
Posted by: Drew at August 17, 2005 01:54 PM (ZM8DE)
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NBC did a survey on the savings a Toyota Prius would get you in the time it took it to pay it off at current gas prices. . $81 in five years . .makes driving a "Roller Skate" really worth it, huh?
Posted by: large at August 17, 2005 03:08 PM (C7tBG)
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Yeah I looked at the Honda Insight too. 25 g's and not they did not have the one with the stick that really gets you the milage. Plus 2000 buckbattery change every 50,000. It's for those who can afford to play help the environment not to actually save any money on fuel. so I went with the old cheap car that gets 32 mpg. One payment. No way to buy one of those nad save you'll spend more on service and stuff than you'll save on fuel.
Posted by: Howie at August 17, 2005 03:23 PM (D3+20)
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Fred Fry: Bingo. I smile and cry at the same time. Exxon profits up 47% based on 2002 returns.
Now the truth is out. The huge profits being sucked in are going to the refineries and the oil companies.
Posted by: greyrooster at August 17, 2005 05:27 PM (CBNGy)
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