Re: AMD's well may be running dry

On Mar 17, 6:17 pm, dav...@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Mar 17, 8:24 am, "AEF" <spamsink2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Cigarette smoking is an unusual case as it is addicitve. I personally
know of someone who claimed he quit because it was too expensive.

Yeah, but just taxing something is not going to make everything
better. Cigarettes are an example of that. Addictive? Okay, I want
you to kick the fossil fuel addiction you got for a few days. No
transportation (even public, since they use fossil fuels!), no
electricity (coal-fired plants, etc). And likely no food or water
(farms use diesel, and water purification plants use electricity as
listed above).

OK, then we're all addicted to air, food, and water.


I know, you can quit anytime you want.

Not all poor people smoke. I doubt any cries from the poor being
poorer due to smoking result in additional gov't benefits that come
close to the cost of smoking.

Actually yes, since they demand more public health care which comes
from what again?

You've hardly demonstrated the point. You talk qualitatively here, but
the issue is quantitative.


Hey, two of the space shuttles blew up! I guess that means rockets
don't work.

Reductio ad absurdum? You've done that before with the "Well, why not
just get rid of gov't altogether?" comment. What you seem to fail to
understand, and Ted seems to, is that taxes are not a good method to
change behavior that the government thinks is "moral". Cigarette
taxes are an example of that. It's quite different than taxes which
are used to provide some public benefit, like schools, roads,
libraries. Taxes like you are proposing are more likely to cause
black market effects (much like France and Germanys underhanded deals
with the "Oil for Food" sanctions against Iraq).

Yes, there is the danger of black market effects. I'm still waiting
for you to propose a better solution. And the tax can be used to
reduce other taxes, and replace those being used to build schools and
such.


Your tax will likely hit those that can't afford it the most, benefits
those are the ones presumably to be "punished" via an artificial
transfer of wealth, result in an increased government to manage all
this mess, and at the end of the day will probably have little impact
on CO2 emissions.

When the price of gasoline doubled in 1973, and again in 1979, people
cut back on their use of gasoline. Economy cars started selling a lot.
People worked on improving efficiency. When the price came down (the
inflation-adjusted price), SUV's became the big sellers. Price works.

And as I said in an earlier post, a tax break can be given "to those
who are hurt by it the most", but not in proportion to their fuel
usage, or it would defeat the purpose.


Again, I have no trouble with the idea of getting off fossil fuels,
but if you look at the actions today, there is already movement in
that direction since the economy of oil/gas/coal is shifting,
technologies are improving, and alternatives are becoming more
economically competitive. This will have more of an positive impact
that any tax.

I don't think that this by itself will do anything to reduce use of
fossil fuels. It's pretty hard to compete with the price of untaxed
fossil fuels.


Personally, I'd like the US to be free of foreign energy needs. It
would make the US more economically secure. It would reduce
dependence on a non-renewable resource (who in the world manufactures
crude oil or coal, again?).

I think the CO2 argument is a red herring, since other "green house"
gases are in abundance as well, yet aren't somehow "taxed" or of
concern, like water vapor, and methane from cow waste. Well, let me
take that back, California is thinking of taxing cow waste...

I was under the impression that CO2 is the main problem due to
quantity, but I don't know for sure. I welcome anyone knowledgable on
this to chime in.

AEF

.

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