If gasoline were $6 or $7 per gallon at the pump....which is closer to its true cost anyway when you factor in the enviornmental costs of drilling,subsidizing tax breaks for the oil companies, and the cost of maintaining a military presence in the Middle East....it would not be cheaper than buying a more fuel efficient vehicle. And if petroleum-based gasoline were taxed to make it $6 or $7 at the pump while a locally produced renewable biofuel that wasnt subject to that tax were only $3 or $4....the free market would very quickly begin meeting the demand for vehicles that could use such fuels.
I believe in capitalism and the free market, but the free market concept doesnt work when you are talking about a finite, irreplaceable resource such as oil. There is only so much recoverable oil on earth, and once it has been consumed it is gone forever. All the money in the world wont be enough to buy something that no longer exists. We are currently transitioning to an oil-free energy economy, whether we like it or not. How painful that transition winds up being is pretty much up to us.
Sober,
You say the free market wouldn't work and in the current framework of what is called free market, you have a point. However, a real free market wouldn't have a 3rd party in the mix who holds certain monopoly status granting such privilege as tax breaks and other govt privileges that act as price supports, profit supports and market entry barriers for others. Also the 3rd party holds a stake in the current business model becuase it's a major tax revenue stream so for starters what are the odds an alternative energy source will actually get a fair shake, be allowed to enter the makeplace but also allowed to enter at the same regulatory level as the current market players enjoyed when they started? This is where regulation becomes regulatory capture and is used as market protectionism to protect the current status to the damage of not only new market innovations but also to consumers. Copyright, trademark and IP play into this but that's another story for another time.
This regime also acts as a price support in that as new innovations would lessen the value of the older models eg think the value now of a 486 PC verses when they were the newest thing because new innovations and new players entered the market and thus discounting those older models down in price. By protecting the status quo, technological stagnation has set in and thus misallocation of resources is encouraged and ramifications throughout society are seen. And then we calmour to the very people to fix the mess that they created in the first place. It's like asking the fox to fix the dying chicken problem.
Just for the sake of discussion, if for example someone entered the market with some form of biodiesel, would this supply added to the marketplace put pressure on petro diesel to increase or decrease in price? Who benefits and who doesn't and in the current regime in the case of price, who benefits and who doesn't? The fact that certain industries, oil being one, holds a special privilege status of not only regulatory benefits but also subsidy benefits damages any actions of a free market. Oil also enjoys passing the costs of transport lane protections and international business environment protections off onto the taxpayer or consumer and even if the one wanted to make the oil companies pay this privilege cost in the form of some tax, this cost itself is passed right off to the consumer/taxpayer and thus no real effect to the oil company profit stream to begin with. If one wanted to see oil as part of the commons and eliminate a 3rd party rent seeker in the middle, the true costs are still there to begin with and I still believe that domestic and even local alternatives would/should win the day if true freedom in the marketplace really did exist.
As for oil being finite? I use to believe that as well until I learned that oil is not fossil in origin but is rather
Abiotic in origin and actually replenishes itself over and over again. But like a water aquifer, if you pull more oil than nature is able to produce, it would seem finite and in order to maintain an ever upward price, if you could have a customer base who believes a consumer product is at ever smaller and smaller supply, upward constant pricing seems justified among other things. Truth is, better management of consumption to equalize to what is being produced and problem would stablize but then what happens to your pricing model and what happens to the trendline on profits for the sake of Wall Street? The link to abiotic oil above is just a extremely small tip on the research and data and I've posted more in other posts here so I won't rehash but search Abiotic for yourself and see what you learn about it.
Buses and other modes of mass transit. At one time, many towns across America had trolley systems and may of those were even privately owned but the good folks at GM who were in bed with the govt convinced enough folks to eliminate trollies and convert to buses. Now it goes without saying that the oil companies were in on this gig as well but the rest as they say is history. Mass transit presents both positive and negatives to all and just infrastructure costs alone are pretty big to say the least. Several month ago after some ongoing debate about the issue, American Conservative Magazine formed the
Center for Public Transportation and before you see the words conservative and public transportation and assume, be careful and I'll quote the opening page from the center's website:
Not every conservative — not even every libertarian – believes America’s unofficial motto should be “drive or die.” There is a long conservative tradition of not wanting to see America reduced to nothing but strip malls, gas stations and pavement. Russell Kirk was a voice for that tradition, as was my friend and colleague for thirty-five years, Paul Weyrich.
All for the most part at some level agree that in an earlier America, the individual at some level was more free than today and yet at the same time, towns and cities across America had forms or some form of mass transit and yet the threat of being overrun by state socialism from it was not in the mix. It's with that point that the discussion on public transportation has taken off in the paleo-con/libertarian world and I find it most interesting. Not direct to the conversation here but I've been reading Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society" (yes it is about ending schooling as we know it but much more) at
The Preservation Institute but while there I also ran across
this concerning the tearing down of the interstate/freeway system as we know it. From the standpoint of a UPSer, this is like holding court with the grim reaper but on a larger level, it is very thought provoking POV to say the least. And for those who think this utter nonsense and foolishness, then from a longterm UPS planning mode, consider this factoid regarding Nashville Tenn.
- Nashville, TN, Downtown Loop: Nashville's fifty-year plan, adopted in 2004, calls for gradually removing the eight-mile downtown loop made up of three interstates - Interstate 65, Interstate 40 and Interstate 24 -- and replacing it with parks, boulevards and mixed-use communities to reconnect downtown with adjacent neighborhoods.
What does that do to future plans in regards to not only local distribution but major transit lanes and time-n-transit picture? And do you think Nashville is alone in this? Not hardly. It's way past time we got out of the box and started thinking and talking about vastly different ideas. And don't let anyone say it has to be a one size fits all because that thinking has gotten us where we are now. Remember that!
What's a "pee shooter" vehicle?
