Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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Yet another example of the pernicious side effects of government intervention, motivated by the reforming impulses of authoritarian zealots who assume they are endowed with the wisdom to perfect mankind.

Hahah, everything is an example of this, to you.

On oil subsidies, they exist mostly in the form of tax breaks.

http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2005/08/03/umbra-oil/

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/fuel_economy/subsidizing-big-oil.html

Cycloptichorn

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I think you need to get more specific to prove your point, for example lower sales tax on gasoline is not necessarily a favor to oil companies any more than no sales tax on food benefits farmers. And there is plenty of other tax tacked on at the gas pump that other items are not subjected to.

People like to cite depletion allowances for oil fields, but if I understand it correctly, that is nothing more than allowing the legitimate allowance for inventory, as any merchant would be allowed to deduct on his income tax.

Again, more specifics are needed to prove the point, than what your links show.

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Perhaps you are right. I do look at much of public policy as merely yet another layer of added intervention to correct yet another unanticipated side effect of previous intervention. However -- I am RIGHT!

Similar, indeed far more generous, tax breaks also exist for producers of wind and solar power. The term "tax break" is itself of uncertain meaning. One man's tax break is another's necessary removal of an unintended disincentive contrary to the public interest.

Finally, the arguments offered in the piece you cited are weak in the extreme. Petroleum is indeed taxed far more than other commodities, contrary to what is asserted. Police, highway, and fire protection services benefit virtually all economic activity. Very weak, even duplicitous arguments all - not worthy of serious consideration.

Another interesting fact you may wish to consider - the total production of power from renewable sources (excluding for the moment nuclear) has actually not increased at all in the last two decades, despite all the hype. The only innovation during the last five decades that has displaced a significant fraction of our consumption of fossil fuels is nuclear (we had developed nearly all of our hydroelectrical potential by 1950).

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okie wrote:

I think you need to get more specific to prove your point, for example lower sales tax on gasoline is not necessarily a favor to oil companies any more than no sales tax on food benefits farmers.

People like to cite depletion allowances for oil fields, but if I understand it correctly, that is nothing more than allowing the legitimate allowance for inventory, as any merchant would be allowed to deduct on his income tax.

Again, more specifics are needed to prove the point, than what your links show.

Bad analogy. Humans can live without oil and gasoline, they cannot without food. One is infinitely more important to survival then others.

Also, we aren't talking about tax breaks at the pump only, but corporate tax breaks.

Cycloptichorn

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Given today's culture and economy, I seriously doubt we could live without oil and gas, without catastrophic economic collapse, leading to massive starvation, rampant disease outbreaks, wars, etc. I personally think oil is just as essential as food, because without it, many people would have no access to food and other essentials.

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Has anybody seen this? (Emphasis mine)

Canada Free Press
Thursday, December 13, 2007

"Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."

BALI, Indonesia - The UN climate conference met strong opposition Thursday from a team of over 100 prominent international scientists, who warned the UN, that attempting to control the Earth's climate was "ultimately futile."

The scientists, many of whom are current and former UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists, released an open letter to the UN Secretary-General questioning the scientific basis for climate fears and the UN's so-called "solutions."

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I'd feel the need to point out that the Iraq war is a GIANT subsidy for the oil industry.

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okie wrote:

Given today's culture and economy, I seriously doubt we could live without oil and gas, without catastrophic economic collapse, leading to massive starvation, rampant disease outbreaks, wars, etc. I personally think oil is just as essential as food, because without it, many people would have no access to food and other essentials.

What we COULD live without is foreign oil. We should be exporting oil and not importing it and the only possible way to get from here to there is the same thing you do to give up smoking, i.e. just stop. The very first thing I'd do if I were sworn in as president tommorrow, would be ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess up almost all of the chief villains in the world permanently.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Has anybody seen this? (Emphasis mine)...

I posted that on a separate thread a day or so ago. Kinda gets to you, doesn't it?

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maporsche wrote:

I'd feel the need to point out that the Iraq war is a GIANT subsidy for the oil industry.

Stop taking the ignorance pills for a week or two and the feeling will go away.

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gungasnake wrote:

maporsche wrote:
I'd feel the need to point out that the Iraq war is a GIANT subsidy for the oil industry.

Stop taking the ignorance pills for a week or two and the feeling will go away.

Isn't the US taxpayer paying BILLION of dollars to secure the oil fields in Iraq....so that in a few years Exxon can sell it to us at the pump?

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I think you have to consider the vast amount of money and time that the federal government spends to secure oil fields around the world. If that isn't a subsidy then I don't know what is.

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We also secure grocery stores, Walmarts, and everything else here in this country. Is that a subsidy? We are securing almost everything in Iraq and Afghanistan, so are those subsidies? I think you are misusing the term, subsidy.

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Quote:

We also secure grocery stores, Walmarts, and everything else here in this country. Is that a subsidy? We are securing almost everything in Iraq and Afghanistan, so are those subsidies? I think you are misusing the term, subsidy.

hadn't noticed that the military was securing the walmart store in watertown the last time we were visiting there in october .
camp drum is close by , so i wonder why they didn't send a few battlegroups over .
we did see quite a few soldiers and their families at the cracker barrel - i thought they were just having lunch there .
hbg

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gungasnake wrote:

okie wrote:
Given today's culture and economy, I seriously doubt we could live without oil and gas, without catastrophic economic collapse, leading to massive starvation, rampant disease outbreaks, wars, etc. I personally think oil is just as essential as food, because without it, many people would have no access to food and other essentials.

What we COULD live without is foreign oil. We should be exporting oil and not importing it and the only possible way to get from here to there is the same thing you do to give up smoking, i.e. just stop. The very first thing I'd do if I were sworn in as president tommorrow, would be ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess up almost all of the chief villains in the world permanently.

I doubt that very seriously, gunga. You would seriously cripple and maim the economy of this country in a very profound and sudden way, and the effects would be devastating. We might recover eventually after all of the serious effects had taken their toll, but we would not be the power in the world that we have been, no way. You are talking about two thirds of the oil that we consume. It would be an interesting experiment, but I would certainly not be dumb enough to try it to see how bad it might be.

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hamburger wrote:

hadn't noticed that the military was securing the walmart store in watertown the last time we were visiting there in october . hbg

Its called the Police Department, hamburger. Look it up in the phone book.

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i think gunga has a valid argument .

Quote:

What we COULD live without is foreign oil. We should be exporting oil and not importing it and the only possible way to get from here to there is the same thing you do to give up smoking, i.e. just stop. The very first thing I'd do if I were sworn in as president tommorrow, would be ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess up almost all of the chief villains in the world permanently.

sometimes you have to go "cold turkey" to effect change .
we certainly wouldn't be driving/flying about as much as we all do now , but that should be no more than an inconvenience and not crippling to the whole economy .
hbg

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okie wrote:

We also secure grocery stores, Walmarts, and everything else here in this country. Is that a subsidy? We are securing almost everything in Iraq and Afghanistan, so are those subsidies? I think you are misusing the term, subsidy.

Yeah, I might be a little liberal with the term subsidy, but I think the concept of a subsidy applies to securing oil fields in ANOTHER country.

I don't think it's too much of a leap.

And techinically, you could probably say that we are subsidizing grocery stores and Walmarts.

The cost of doing that in our country PALES in comparison to the 'subsidy' given to the oil industry in Iraq and around the globe.

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hamburger wrote:

i think gunga has a valid argument .

Quote:
What we COULD live without is foreign oil. We should be exporting oil and not importing it and the only possible way to get from here to there is the same thing you do to give up smoking, i.e. just stop. The very first thing I'd do if I were sworn in as president tommorrow, would be ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess up almost all of the chief villains in the world permanently.

sometimes you have to go "cold turkey" to effect change .
we certainly wouldn't be driving/flying about as much as we all do now , but that should be no more than an inconvenience and not crippling to the whole economy .
hbg

Well, Walmart would be f**ked....and I think that's what pisses Okie off more than anything.

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hamburger wrote:

i think gunga has a valid argument .

Quote:
What we COULD live without is foreign oil. We should be exporting oil and not importing it and the only possible way to get from here to there is the same thing you do to give up smoking, i.e. just stop. The very first thing I'd do if I were sworn in as president tommorrow, would be ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess up almost all of the chief villains in the world permanently.

sometimes you have to go "cold turkey" to effect change .
we certainly wouldn't be driving/flying about as much as we all do now , but that should be no more than an inconvenience and not crippling to the whole economy .
hbg

Watch a few airlines cancel alot of flights or go bankrupt, or lay off large numbers of people. Watch auto sales drop and manufacturers go belly up and lay off workers. Watch refineries fold and plastics and other connected industries shrink or fold, and employees laid off. Watch truckers unable to have enough fuel to deliver food and other products. Watch truckdrivers laid off, watch stores sales drop, watch store employees layoffs, watch prices rise out of sight for many products, watch buying power shrink, watch government entitlements soar and tax revenues shrink, watch as the chain reaction continued.

The only hope is that those industries to suffer would be replaced by other industries to replace the vacuum of energy required, however the one caveat is that those replacements are not nearly as efficient, and they will be much more costly, thus burdening an already devastated economy.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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