Letters to the Editor
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What if America WANTS long terms goals rather than salted peanuts?
The author writes "Edwards responded with a four-point plan to ease the short-term pain". Then he describes a four step plan to take away the oil industry's ability to price gouge in the future (hardly an immediate fix), environmental protection solutions and measures aimed at reducing our dependence upon the ghastly crude.
Maybe this why the pundits and mainstream media types are having a difficult time getting their limited minds around the John Edwards campaign. He has a vision for an improved America. They are looking for snappy slogans and more salted peanuts.
Are the members of the mainstream media absolutely sure that Americans want more salted peanuts? Maybe they are sick of W. and Kissinger and Rove. Maybe they are on the look out for substance this time around.
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How can you reduce US dependence on foreign oil without raising prices?
One word: Rationing.
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too be fair
His first and second points really could help cut down on gas prices. A big part of why oil prices are dropping while gas prices are rising are mysterious, Enron-esqe, refinery shutdowns and pipeline delays. Vertical integration puts both the delivery systems and the retail outlets in that hands of the same corporations.
As for the Clear Air Act enforcement issue, gas companies claim that a large part of the problem their having in effectively supplying the country is reformulating their gas stocks to fit the numerous "boutique" fuel compositions that various state laws require. What do you want to bet that Energy Department officials as loosened their testing of said compositions over the past, say, 6 years and 4 months?
If you were a running a gas company, under an administration that had the hots for you, wouldn't you jack up your prices, not change your fuel to comply with regional laws, and then claim that changing your fuel to comply with regional laws was causing the price increase? If you wouldn't then your tenure at the company might not last that long.
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Salutary reading for all concerned
John Edwards needs a slap upside the head.
This site is just the thing, if only he, and every other Presidential candidate, would read it:
http://www.warsocialism.com/
I know you don't like this kind of thing Andrew, although you have slowly been moving toward Mr. Hanson, almost despite yourself.
I find the site above suitably salutary. As the motto of Jay's old site (www.dieoff.org) had it:
"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."
-- Thomas Hardy
www.warsocialism.com is a full look at the worst. We should all have a look. Then start talking reality, instead of fantasy.
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high gas prices: good; volitile gas prices: bad
I agree that Edward's gasoline policy is confused, but it's not like anyone else's policy is much less confused. The problem is not that gasoline prices are high. If we want to encourage efficiency, gas prices ought to be relatively high. The problem is that they're not predictably high. In Europe, gas prices have been high due to taxes for decades, people expect it, and change their lives accordingly. Here, gas prices are high, but (a) nobody knows why, so they blame the gas companies, and (b) they hope the prices will go down again sometime, so they don't change their behavior. It's the worst of all possible scenarios.
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The logic of a trial lawyer
Let's see... we buy the largest, most gas-guzzling vehicles of any country on the planet, then whine about gas prices. As long as we remain like junkies in dire need of our next fix, the oil companies have us exactly where they want us. But it's all the fault of the energy companies!
This is a great example of why so much rhetoric on the environment, sustainable energy policy, etc. is a joke - even among so-called progressives. Americans will do anything but conserve. I cannot abide cry-babies who drive SUVs (alone) to their jobs every day. I hope gas prices go to $5 a gallon just to hear them wail.
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High prices are regressive though
High priced gasoline is, in today's USA as regressive as high priced food and water. SUV owners don't particularly care about the price of gas relative to the 3 minimum wage job old beater driver. Very high prices won't moderate usage among that rather large segment of working poor who are already forced to drive but only do it as sparingly as possible. Neither will it moderate usage among the archetypal weekend boater who lashes the 20 ft bass boat up the the back of the F-250. And in the end, who do all those excess dollars go to? To some transportation fund to offset the costs to those poor people? Or to oil companies.
This hand waving 'let them eat cake' approach to people who have no other options, is frankly, shameful. The sad fact is that if nothing else, the transportation 'picture' of America is going to have to start to look a LOT more third world, with more buses, scooters, rickshaws and other high mileage lightweight vehicles in the road just to compensate for the price of gas. And those are not the safest cleanest vehicles you want for an entire nation. Moreover since we ARE Americans, not only 'addicted' to oil but spread out among some of the least densely populated places on earth, we're going to have to think hard about effectively abandoning large areas of the US from convenient accessible travel altogether if prices get high enough.
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Redistributing wealth upward = BAD
First, Edwards is absolutely right about the monopolistic practices of oil companies. Even independent refiners are part of the problem - Valero has extremely short customer and supplier lists and is basically at the mercy of oil producers and gasoline retailers with regards to how much they can actually refine.
Second, and I'll say it again, high prices that result in higher profits for the producers are gouging. Europe has high prices because of taxes, taxes that go to build roads and pay for universal health care. Our high prices fund obscene performance bonuses and private jets. Allowing producers and retailers to set prices for a utility is stupid, because it leads to this exact situation.
As a previous poster said one obvious solution is rationing, but with a twist. Everybody gets a set amount of gas, say 30 gallons a week. Government sets the prices, pads them with a lot of taxes. So lets say the base price of a gallon of gas comes to $2.50 a gallon. We then have to buy our ration cards, with the price per gallon determined by income and vehicle - a janitor with a Prius might pay the base $2.50 a gallon, while a doctor with a Hummer might pay $7 or even $10 a gallon, with all of the additional money being a tax used to fund research and development of alternative fuels.
Yes, this is somewhat Socialist and that bothers me, but this is a desperate situation. But the advantages are that it is for the most part a progressive usage tax - the doctor could knock a huge chunk off his gas bill by trading in his Humvee for an Escape hybrid. And it puts the oil companies in a position where if they want a chunk of all that money they have to start working on alternatives. And we need that as much as we need the alternatives themselves.
You may have noticed that every lot that can profitably support a fueling center already has a gas station on it. The pipelines, rail cars, depots, and fuel trucks are mostly owned by oil companies. If we came up with the perfect fuel tomorrow it would require the biggest imminent domain case in the history of the world to be able to distribute it effectively, unless we create a situation where the oil companies have to get on board.
And finally, getting rid of current tax breaks wouln't impact the price of a gallon of gas for long if the monopolistic practices were stopped. In a truly competitive market, sooner or later somebody is going to trade margin for revenue and the rest will follow.