Please…take my car
Ron Coleman at Likelihood of Success joins other Republicans (for a change) in attacking liberals demand to raise CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. His reasons include that raising CAFÉ standards won’t “even really help reduce fuel consumption,� and that “increased CAFE standards as a cure-all is almost certainly simplistic, because it makes the cardinal mistake in microeconomics of not allowing for the large multiplicity of moving parts in economic policy-making.�
Ron is right. In the end, we have to radically decrease automobile driving, and ownership. And no, I am not kidding, and yes, there are ways to achieve that.
But let’s not go there. Not yet. Clearly, Ron and others at BEST think it would be a nice thing to decrease our oil consumption. At best.
So let me talk in a language even right-wing Jews understand.
Forget about the environment for a minute. Let’s talk geopolitical risks.
The world’s addiction to Muslim oil is going to destroy the State of Israel, American cities, Western cities, and probably the world. It is only a matter of time before fundamentalists get their hands on nuclear devices and successfully detonate them.
Oil is fueling both terrorism and fundamentalism. Let me ask you this:
How exactly is Iran financially supporting both Hamas and Hizbollah? How is Saudi Arabia supporting Wahhabism? How did the Bin Ladin family make so much money in construction? Do they got their cash for this from their ever-expanding, Milton Friedman style free market economies, Ron?
Oil allows backwards and tyrannical thinking to expand. Unlike drugs, the trade of which is much harder to control, the demand for oil can be changed through government regulations and public works projects.
But before we do that, we need people like Ron to understand the problem. Because it isn’t going to do anyone a lick of good to figure out afterwards that those of us concerned about our addiction to oil are not, in fact, in search of “demagoguery,� but rather, see an impending doom that we would like to delay, even if we can’t avert.
Let us be clear. The oil addiction is identifiably destructive, and it will quite possibly lead to the destruction of the Zionist Entity. Because the pushers do not want our money.
They want us dead.
6 comments
You’re right, they do. But why do you suppose gas prices fell in the last two weeks, David? Because they wanted us a little less dead than last month?
No. The reason is that “they” don’t really control the market. If they did, it would have been over in 1973… in 1978… and there wouldn’t be petrol riots in Iran this week.
You are ignoring two basic points: (1) For every commodity there is, at a given price point, some substitute, and (2) cartels always fail.
I recognize the national security externality, DK. But you have to show how your policy would enhance national security — and account for all the moving parts. And you have to do so before you throw the economy into a recession and give an already uncontrollable government more of my and your money to play with via a new tax.
Ron,
What part of less oil = less Middle Eastern scary guys with lots of money are you unconvinced about?
“And you have to do so before you throw the economy into a recession and give an already uncontrollable government more of my and your money to play with via a new tax.”
We can do that. But what about just changing zoning laws to include density and a path for mass transit?
Additionally, how about little things — like say, banning auto ads ON EVERY NEWS SHOW! Cause they are there for a reason, my friend — and it ain’t just to show off the new model.
Auto ads should face greater restriction than cigarette ads.
I can’t give you a study for every possible program, but others can. There is no good reason why that freight rail link from NJ to Brookyln was scuttled by Bloomberg. There is no good reason for the subway in Boston to close before the bars do (except for the taxi lobby). There are so many examples of this sort of thing before we even get to federal taxes. Yes, we need to make some hard choices, but we aren’t even making the easy ones.
You wrote,
“The reason is that “theyâ€? don’t really control the market.”
So what? They don’t have to. They just have to make a crap load of money in it.
I don’t think you will have to worry much about people not volunteering to reduce their oil consumption. Think about it. Bush and co. isn’t going to let their military machine go without diesel and gasoline, nor their limos or airplanes, and hopefully not police, firemen, or ambulances. So what to do when the price of oil is beyond the govt’s ability to pay for it? Why, ration or ban the use of private automobiles, of course. That, as you mentioned, is the only real way the govt has to make sure their own tanks stay full at a reasonable price - demand destruction of private users. If you were the govt wouldn’t you do it - at least to save the police, fire, ambulance trucks? Of course you would. And so will they. The question is just “when” - at what price per barrel does the govt move? That’s the only variable here.
Ahavah, very passionate, but you missed one point: It’s DK who is urging the rationing of automobiles.
Whereas your prediction of what “they” are going to do is true tinfoil-hat fantasy.
Ron Coleman is tragically right. “They” aren’t going to do diddly.
Oh please, just peg a new number and give them three years and I promise you they’ll get there. And Kelsey is right, we are funding our own enemies with this stupidity.
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