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#1
12-16-2011, 05:48 PM
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Best post you've had in some time HBB! Merry Christmas all!
__________________
"Careful what you put out there, it could come right back & hit you smack in the face." -- Peatree, 2013
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#2
12-17-2011, 02:36 AM
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How the fuck are we going to get a balanced budget while instituting universal health care, passing massive public works expenditures, improving education, decreasing our reliance on oil, and following through on the other half-dozen economically-draining initiatives supported by OWS? I'm not even making a qualitative judgment as to those goals. I'm all for a balanced budget. I'm all for decreasing our reliance on oil. I'm all for government-funded universal health care. I'm all for improving education. But I'm not all for all of them at once, because it doesn't make any fucking sense. Either we're cutting costs or we're going green or we're improving infrastructure or we're instituting national health care. It's not feasible to do it all at once. There's not nearly enough money to go around. | |||
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#7
12-17-2011, 02:46 AM
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Almost makes sense...
Except we don't need the federal government to throw money at education to improve education. Quite the opposite really. No child left behind proved that. Don't need federal subsidies for alternative energy either. Need to stop having oil/gas pushed on us because politicians are in bed with the oil companies. I'm on board with your health care argument though. I'm all for universal health care, but it would be stupid to do it before the budget is balanced. Which will never happen... | ||
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#8
12-17-2011, 03:22 AM
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If you want this country to run on something other than oil, it needs to become economically defensible. And that doesn't happen unless the federal government changes the landscape of energy pricing, whether it be through taxes, subsidies, or direct investments. Agree to disagree on education, by the way. No child left behind proved that no child left behind was a horrible fucking idea, not that more money is unnecessary. We spend a lower percentage of our GDP on education than fucking Jamaica. | |||
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#9
12-17-2011, 01:41 PM
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The department of education doesn't do shit. How does giving the department of education money improve education for anyone? It is by far the most useless federal department we have. | |||
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#10
12-17-2011, 03:28 PM
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Everything else you mention is called a free market. There isn't any legislation that shoves oil down our throats. It's no coincidence that oil companies are going to oppose a move to electric vehicles -- it's a replacement product. It's no different than cereal companies trying to prevent a national shift to oatmeal. There's nothing shady about it -- it's simply good business. The environmental issues are externalities. It's a market failure. If social will were to support it, it would be the government's job to cap, tax, or in some other way penalize pollution or promote environmentally-friendly dealings in order to make it rational for firms to move away from oil. And that would be extraordinarily expensive for the nation as a whole. In truth, it's not something the nation supports yet. And it won't be until a similarly-priced alternative is found, or until the price of oil rises beyond the means of the average citizen. As of now, everything in America is dependent on oil prices. Transportation, groceries, even paint. So if you artificially bump oil prices in order to incentivize other energy sources, you're going to drastically raise the cost of living and fundamentally alter many of the businesses in the country. One point of view is that this is inevitable, since oil is a finite resource that we'll deplete in the relatively near future, and we might as well take our lumps on our own terms, rather than simply letting its scarcity drive price beyond our means. Another point of view is that our economy should ride the oil train as long as it can while we pour federal R&D money into finding suitable alternatives. Some people think we should simply eliminate a lot of our wasteful energy practices, regardless of the energy source. But regardless of where you stand on the spectrum, facts are facts. And the fact is that it would take an extraordinary financial investment in order to overhaul the American energy sector. PS, I never said anything about the DoE. | |||
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