Comments on: Perversity of Government-Selected Winners

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:27:33 +0000

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sharon

http://www.autoloans101.info

By: Mesa Econoguy

Mesa Econoguy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:58:40 +0000

And both will fail.

Forgot to add that. Sorry.

By: Mesa Econoguy

Mesa Econoguy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:56:06 +0000

And Barracks Obamalamshamalamadingdong might as well get this right: the tax is the preferable course of action to the bogus cap & trade scheme.

Both suck, but cap & trade is economically, and market-based nonsensical.

By: eddie

eddie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:46:29 +0000

It's Barack Obama, not Barrack. One R, not two.

You're going to be typing his name a lot in the next four years, might as well practice spelling it correctly.

By: Hopefully Anonymous

Hopefully Anonymous — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:14:44 +0000

There’s a major fallacy in framing your argument against “technocrats”. Basically you’re saying that a more expert decision would be to let markets select winnners. You’re just substituting one technocrat’s decision making authority for another: instead of central planning technocrats, you’d prefer market design and optimization technocrats. And the technocrats at the top of the food chain, administration and regulation decision optimization technocrats would be the ones that pick the market approach over the central planning approach in your example. Do you disagree?

By: xpatUSA

xpatUSA — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:57:10 +0000

I get E85 from a Kroger’s gas station just down the street. It costs a little less than regular gas. I’m using about 50-50 E85/gas in my 1994 Chevy 1500 pickup truck.

As you all probably know, ethanol has about 2/3 the energy per gallon than gasoline. That is quite noticeable on a 50/50 mix. I’m also keen aware that ethanol causes a weak mixture in a non-FFV type fuel system. The oxygen sensor compensates at low throttle settings but not while accelerating hard. That causes high temperatures inside – enough to damage the engine if you’re not careful. In spite of that, I’m all for it. Smells nice, too

You folks who poo-poo alternative fuels, give me call around 2025-2030 and I’ll stop by in my bio-diesel powered Jeep.

T.C.

By: gadfly

gadfly — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:54:47 +0000

Carbon tax, Cap and Trade ...all nonsensical solutions to a nonexistent problem that will be a boondoggle for the environmentalists and their political allies. Energy costs will rise unnecessarily, and our economy and our lifestyle will be beaten back toward the stone-age.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant ...it is a necessity for life on earth. How much CO2 is too much? No one has an answer, but we do know that the computer models being used by scientists to evaluiate this and to keep the government grants coming have been wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Keeping my worldview simple, I believe that man is incapable of destroying the earth and I believe that man cannot stop ongoing climate change even if we wanted to do so. We cannot stop hurricanes, dust storms, drought, rain, hurricanes, blizzards, volcano eruptions and tsunamis ...nor are we attempting to do so. Lets let that hot round ball called Sol continue to warm us as long as it can.

Environmentalists need to get out of my life and leave me alone. I do not want ego-driven fools making decisions based upon junk science that is costing us all trillions of dollars every year.

One final note: Even if there was a problem to fix, government is not the entity to install a solution.

Exit soap box!

By: Geoffrey

Geoffrey — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:41:19 +0000

I agree that there are much better ways to reduce CO2 emissions if “we have to”. I disagree that a carbon tax is the answer. First and most likely, taxes for government programs typically only are high enough to cover the cost of administrating the program. Why is this a problem? Well my guess is that the tax will still exceed to lowest abatement cost. Meaning that even the cheapest pollution control technologies can end up being more expensive in the long run than paying a tax. On the upside taxes are more effective than traditional approaches and especially much better than marketable permits. Traditionally companies incur the pollution control costs to get just down the the emission standard, adding a tax on that now provides a bit more incentive to find better control technologies since they are paying controls costs plus a tax. I know this a a simple analysis but I think that is what the post was getting at.

By: Vercingetorix

Vercingetorix — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:28:23 +0000

If I were in charge, there's one thing I could make work: I would repeal the CAFE rules, abolish all non-safety mandates* except some air pollution rules,** and let car builders thereafter supply whatever their customers prefer. On the fuel side I would abolish all the States' boutique gasoline rules which drive up fuel prices by segmenting the market into lots of little regional monopolies, I would abolish all "oxygenate" and ethanol mandates,*** and I would force fuel sellers to disclose the actual octane ratings, RVP, and BTU content of their motor fuels. I guarantee everyone would be better off under my regime.

*Although I would leave many equipment (e.g., headlights) and crashworthiness rules in place, I would abolish child-safety-seat mandates for children over one year old.

**I would forbid states to set up any other goofy mandates (especially CO2 emission limits) on the pretense of restricting pollution. I would set some Federal emissions limits for NOx, O3, sulfur compounds, etc. in proportion to fuel consumption, but leaving engine size, gas-mileage, etc. to the market.

***It is settled now that (thanks largely to modern fuel-injection systems) oxygenated gasoline does not reduce CO or any other unwanted emissions, actually increases VOC emissions, and wastes money and time by decreasing gas mileage, corroding cars (oxygenates are hygroscopic), and polluting groundwater.