Obama wants to raise gas pricesFollow

First off, I'm not sure why you chose to respond to that post with this one, since not only does it not refute what I said, but it actually seems to be an argument for the very policy which I'm saying that Obama supports and which many insist he isn't. Is it fair to go with the assumption that you're not debating that aspect of the issue, but just want to discuss the value of the proposal itself? In any case:



Yes and no. If the only economic effects we're worried about are sudden shifts and wild fluxuations, then obviously you're right. But I think you're focusing on short term stability versus long term prosperity. If the cost of a good isn't consistent in terms of the costs of other goods, it will cause negative economic effects over time. You're correct that when it occurs gradually, it wont cause a panic and massive adjustments and chaos. But that's just because people don't notice it as much, not that it isn't affecting them negatively anyway.



Again, I think you're limiting the scope of "problems" to just immediate short term market effects. That extra cost for gas absolutely will have negative effects. People will simply adjust to them over time. I'll point out that that's exactly the reason one might support a policy to gradually increase the cost of gas. They know that it will have an effect (it'll push people to drive less and/or switch to alternatives), but without a sudden large shift, the people wont make a ruckus about it.

It's also true that if you drop a frog in boiling water, he'll freak out and attempt to jump out, but if you put him in water and gradually raise the temperature, he'll sit there and boil to death without complaint. Clearly, the latter approach is a better way to boil the frog, but I doubt that the frog would agree that you have resolved a "problem" by doing that.

Larry the Liquidator, Other People's Money. Danny DeVito, Penelope Ann Miller, and...Gregory Peck? It's been a few years, I forget who the old dude is.

I can tell you specifically that the DC metro will allow people in cardboard robot suits to just waltz onto he train without a security check.

Costs me about $75-80 CDN. But given that I'm buying my gas in Canada and you're buying yours in (assumed) UK, which currency is irrelevant.

You are spinning circles around yourself boy. Start over at the top. Slowly this time.

The problem resolves itself like this: One flavor of energy (fossil fuel) steadily rises in cost. This predictable rise signals investors to devote more capital resources into developing other flavors of energy products (nuclear, solar, bio-synthetic, etc). Those products become more able to meet or beat the fossil fuel's price point, and gain a competitive advantage, and infrastructure shifts to accommodate the other fuel sources, should that advantage reach a certain level. An equilibrium is reached as demand drops for the fossil fuels, causing their price to drop to more acceptable levels to remain competitive in the market.(Or they don't. Which also isn't a problem.) No energy crisis is created, no frogs boil to death, and little interference is required other than some regulatory issues.

Contrast this to a sudden spike that causes severe strain on the economy, since many other markets must flex and adapt to these conditions, as well as deal with having improper infrastructure for alternative energy products, so that purchase of an overvalued commodity is forced, at least until it dips back down, or rapid change takes place. This is always messy, because no one had time to plan. There are ways of fixing this but if not solved quickly, the public will inevitably call for Gov't interference, which I assumed you wished to minimize.

You could have just said "Yes. You're right. I'm only ascribing the label of 'problem' to short term market effects".

If you believe that rising costs of fuel are a problem, then anything which may artificially raise those prices is part of that problem, not the solution. The fact that you can raise them slowly and not create a panic is irrelevant. You're still making everything cost more.

You're also ignoring another key aspect of this. You assume that those alternatives will ever be able to compete with oil as a fuel source without the combination of taxes on oil production and subsidies for the alternatives. Well. You acknowledge this, but then also dismiss it as not being a problem. I don't agree. Anything we do which increases the net cost of generating power becomes a net drain on our entire economic system. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for research and development on alternative sources of energy, but those alternatives need to be able to compete naturally with existing ones once they get to market. Gaming the system in order to get people to buy the products you want them to buy is a bad idea in this case.



I'm not saying that sudden price shifts aren't bad. That's not the issue. My point is that embarking on a plan to deliberately raise prices on something so as to encourage purchase of an alternative is a bad idea. Deliberately planning to do so in a slow gradual way so as to avoid the strain you describe certainly avoids that aspect of the issue, but still leaves intact the broader problem of making energy cost more.

Doing something that is ultimately harmful is still ultimately harmful. Just because you do it in a way so as to avoid the victims noticing doesn't remove that harm. What you seem to want to define as the problem is a normal natural market reaction to change. It's good to do that. It's very much like a pain response. You feel heat and you jerk away. That's a sudden movement, and may cause you to knock something over, but the instinct is good. Taking away that pain doesn't prevent the harm being done. You just don't notice it.


I just don't see how that is better.

Edited, Mar 4th 2011 6:17pm by gbaji

And, praytell, what exactly is it that frightens you so much in your reality that you feel the need to be protected from it by the ever expanding security apparatus that you hold so dear....?

...The difference between me and you, Bucko, is that I havnt allowed my reality to be warped by made-up scary stories so that I walk around in fear of this years state-sponsored boogy-man, to the point where I'm busy building self-imposed barriers around myself because *they* might want to kill me to death.

You really need to stop watching television. Like completely. Throw the PoS out of the nearestt window. It will take a few weeks to get over the withdrawl, but once thats over, you'll realise that perhaps the reality that you perceive now, is in fact, the one you really need to leave behind.

Tell me this was a joke.


Because you don't hijack trains and crash them into skyscrapers. And because, since a plane was used for that purpose and "9/11 changed everything!" we've become pathological about airline security when, rather than blowing up your underwear in a plane with 150 people, you could run into a Christmastime shopping mall with a backpack full of dynamite and blow up the same number with far greater ease. The shoe bomber and underwear bomber weren't explicitly about killing people -- there's much easier ways to make people dead -- it was about blowing up airplanes. To humiliate the government and make people convinced that the government couldn't protect them. Because some people turned airplanes into weapons and caused horrific damage with them, we've made it into a contest about blowing up airplanes and not just protecting people in batches of 40-140. Otherwise we'd have lengthy security lines for your "nightclubs, markets & cafes", all of which are far softer targets than an airplane. And yet people still keep trying for the planes. Funny, huh?

Wow, I really didn't think you were going to go there. I'm embarrassed to admit that, in spite of just having totally blown you off for being a stupid(?) asshole(?) in two other threads immediately preceding this post, I honestly had enough faith in you that you wouldn't offer such a stupid fucking retort. I genuinely thought you were at least smarter than that. Oh, I fathomed it, in that brief moment between posts, where my eye jumped from the end of one to the start of the next, but I laughed it off. How humorously absurd, I thought.

Please, at this point, just lie to me. Say it was a joke. I don't care how you do it, just don't actually argue with Joph's response. Play it off like it's some kind of attempt to rile him up over a joke like he does to you so often. I'll swallow it like a sport.

Convince me that you were not seriously suggesting that a train hijacking has even remotely the potential to be used as a weapon on the same scale as an airplane. If not for me, do it for the children.

Edited, Mar 4th 2011 8:51pm by Kachi

Well I think I found Gbaji's source. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukc9_CfMZu8