Among our nation’s economic woes I include, our rising national debt, constant deficit spending, our trade deficit and and rising transportation fuel costs. To those of you who know what they are talking about, how would you triage them and what would you do about them if you were Benevolent Dictator for Life? What would you promote if you were running for President? I asked this in GQ because I really didn’t want to turn this into a debate.
Thanks for your help,
Rob
Sorry, but this is classic Great Debates material. Moved from General Questions to Great Debates.
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Gfactor**
General Questions Moderator
If there were a known answer to this question, our life would be much easier. I’ll report the post for you and a let a Mod decide where it should go.
Now to answer. On Marketplace yesterday they mentioned that if the dollar tracked the Euro, oil would be at $80 a gallon. One reason for the current situation is that countries in Asia subsidize gas prices, thus their consumers are not feeling the pain as much as we are. That can only last so long, since the countries will soon go broke. Number one thing would be pressure to reduce subsidization, and thus reduce use, while starting a crash program on fuel efficiency in the US, including tax incentives for hybrids, even higher MPG standards, and tax incentives for things like solar cells where the market needs to be jump started. Tom Friedman proposed keeping gas at $4 a gallon, having a tax to make up the slack when it goes below $4, using some of the money to support low income people hurt by the high prices and the rest for energy research.
As for the deficit, first, stop the war as soon as possible. Increase taxes on the rich and cut them for people who will use them to consume more, which will increase employment. Start up a UHC program to put all US companies on a level playing field, both with each other and with foreign competitors. Start an infrastructure program - we need it, and it will increase employment. One good thing about ending the war is that the Army doesn’t need to shrink, (just rest,) so there won’t be an influx of people looking for work.
ETA: Hey, those mods are fast!
I agree with a lot of your points, but tax incentives for hybrids aren’t necessary. The current/previous hybrid tax incentive was mainly a protectionist measure aimed at funneling money to US automakers. Efficient hybrids are already supply-constrained. Adding a tax incentive would just put more money into dealers’ pockets. Surely, production for hybrids will be ramping up regardless of any tax incentive.
In order of urgency I would:
Mandate that all cars sold in the US by 2020 by fully electric.
Authorize the building of scores of new nuclear power plants.
Build a quick, efficient, and affordable (to the consumer) nationwide rail network combining high-speed rail transit between major cities, and local trains between minor ones (and between major cities and minor ones).
Why stop there? Why not mandate production of cars that run on happy thoughts?
Forgive the snark, but you can’t “madate” technological advances. And right now, electric cars can’t fill all the niches occupied by gas guzzlers.
Not only an absolutely horrible idea but completely impractical.
I’m all for this one. Really all you’d need to do is clear the red tape out of the way and allow companies to actually BUILD nuclear power plants in the US. Well, that and you’d probably need to include some form of subsidy or tax break to lure companies into taking the risk. I would love to see a program to gradually phase out the more inefficient or dirty coal fired plants with clean nuclear plants of a more modern design.
Another horrible idea. This would cost a ton of money and be a complete waste. I thought the idea was to fix our nations woes…not cost hundreds of billions on yet another transport infrastructure that would have to be built from scratch and of dubious worth.
It’s funny…this phrase has been repeated so often over the past 30 odd years (and probably before that) that it’s nearly a cliche. It’s deja vu from the early 30’s, mid-70’s, late 80’s and probably several other time periods in our history.
For the national debt I’d say…make a freaking budget and actually stick to it! Cut some of the government fat out, take a hard look at the various government programs and either cut them or make them work efficiently, figure out a way to fix Social Security (or get rid of it completely and try something else), scrap our current health care system and come up with something more efficient (one way or the other).
Smaller, more efficient government, social programs that run efficiently and actually work (probably at the local or state level instead of from a national level), smaller, more efficient and effective military (and less over seas commitments, less foreign adventures like Iraq and Afghanistan), more use of flexible government incentives toward business instead of out and out grants and subsidies to promote the development and deployment of new technologies, less government interference and regulation across the board. What I’d like to see is instead of a long list of government regulations for everything under the sun is a list of actions and consequences. If you (individual or company) do A, then B is what is going to happen to you. Want to make power companies more efficient and less polluting? Simply set a level of emissions and make it cost prohibitive for companies to continue to operate those old inefficient plants after X number of years…while giving incentives for them to replace them with alternative or more efficient designs.
At any rate, I don’t really think the government has to DO anything to ‘fix’ the problems defined in the OP. IMHO the market will eventually take care of the transport issue on it’s own…and much faster than if the government sticks it’s thumbs in and decides by fiat that electrical powered vehicles are what’s best for everyone…so everyone will use them or else. If you want to spur this on, simply have the government raise taxes even more on gas and push the market to develop alternatives. Oh, in the short term people will howl…but they will be howling for alternatives even more, and companies, hearing those howls will see dollar signs and compete against each other to make those alternatives a reality. This may be fuel cells, hydrogen power, electrical or something else (it might even be some kind of hydrocarbon powered source…at a certain price shale oil and Canadian tar sands becomes viable, but maybe too expensive to burn, so new more efficient ways would need to be developed).
As for the deficit, I think a booming economy will fix that problem. Trade imbalances will, IMHO, also be corrected now that the dollar isn’t being artificially propped up at a high level, making US goods and services competitive on the world market again (not to mention of we take the lead in some new technological frontier like bio-medicine or some new eco-power tech). The problem is we allowed that situation to go on so long before it was corrected…so in the short term we are feeling the pain.
The only other thing I’d do if I were Dictator for Life would be to hire the best and brightest people to advise me and make my ideas reality (and free me up for the important stuff…like large breasted, blue dressed interns with fine fat arses, boxes of fine Cuban cigars and 30 year old single malt). And work on my evil cackle of course…
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!
-XT
You got my vote. Can I have one of your cigars?
Regards,
Shodan
waves hand magnanimously But of course. 
-XT
Reconsidering, you’re right… In California anyhow we already had tax incentives, and, more importantly, carpool incentives. They worked very well, even at a time of $3 gas. Change that one to applying a clue stick to Detroit so that they will finally get on the hybrid wagon, and not just for SUVs.
Better ask where that thing has been before you smoke it. :eek:
Keep in mind that the carpool incentives are done with. No new ones are being issued, at least not now.
But yes, tax incentives aren’t needed for hybrids since it’s the supply that is constrained, not the demand. Besides, I expect that tax breaks for buying a hybrid simply raises the price and puts more money in the pockets of the auto maker. A hybrid is worth “X” to a consumer, and if you give the consumer “Y” to buy it, then it is worth “X+Y” to that same consumer. (Oversimplification, to some extent, but I think you see my point.)
BTW, why do you think that ‘Detroit’ ISN’T already on the hybrid bandwagon Voyager? AFAIK every US manufacturer has at least one hybrid in it’s stable these days…some have a few. I’ve seen advertisements for lots of green vehicles…Chevy does their whole line of gas efficient to gas free schtick in fact.
Dude…even I, Dictator for Life wouldn’t be so reckless! I would never, NEVER, under any circumstances misuse a fine Cuban cigar that way! That is what the Dominican’s are for after all…
-XT
Narcotics trafficking is leaching billions to criminal empires, & the damage the drugs do is wrecking productive lives.
Treat addiction as a disease, not as a crime.
BTW, has anyone else here read “Where the Money Goes”? If not, I think it’s worth a look.
Thanks for your replies,
Rob
Of course not, nor will they ever be. But the most promising ones on the drawing board right now are capable of highway speeds and of ranges up to 120-ish miles. With increased production and the technological advances that are sure to come, their prices will come down and their ranges, speeds, etc. will undoubtedly improve. Though they’ll still not going to be practical for long-distance travel. Which brings me to…
Yes, it will cost a ton of money. Hundreds of billions, doubtless. But Americans collectively need to own up to the fact that the days of driving when and where we pleased in gasoline-powered cars is coming to an end. We’re going to have to get used to the idea that cars are going to have to a) be used for daily commutes, noodling around town on day-to-day errands, etc.; and b) used as a supplement to a rail system that will be our primary means of going city-to-city.
That’s how they do it in Europe. That’s how they do it in Japan. China is gearing up to do it that way. There’s no reason the US can’t do it.
We WILL run out of oil. It may take another 50 years, maybe another 100 years, but either way we’re going to run out. It’s better, IMHO, to be ahead of the curve and have a backup system in place before we absolutely need it.
A replacement infrastructure would probably cost a lot more than that if you are talking about putting not only the local infrastructure (subways and such) but connecting the cities together as well. You’d have to build the system over decades…and where is the demand for it? Where are the teaming millions yearning for HSR? They don’t exist…so, you’d be creating a huge new costly system on the chance that you guessed right and people would (eventually) use it. Until they did you’d have a huge an costly white elephant that also costs a lot to maintain and subsidize.
Do they? Why? Even if you have a magic crystal ball and can look into the future it’s going to be rather had convincing American’s that their entire way of life wrt personal transport is going away. That no alternatives exist that will enable them to continue to use personal transport as they have used it for decades. I am unconvinced for that matter that your prediction of the future here is accurate.
A) That’s pretty much what people use and will continue to use them for in the future. Unless you meant that cars won’t be used for these things in your predicted future I’m confused.
B) I disagree. Even if you could somehow get enough political support to pay the outrageous costs of putting in a HSR infrastructure to connect some cities together, I doubt this will ever make up the majority of intra-city commuting. It will simply be one more piece of the transport system which includes the road infrastructure and air infrastructure.
Here is the thing…we ALREADY have the first two of those things. I could see (if I squint hard) a limited HSR system being built between a few key hub cities (say New York, Boston, DC/Baltimore, Chicago, Raleigh, Atlanta, Kansas City, Phoenix, LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle) a little bit at a time over a couple of decades. But realistically you will probably never even get the political support/will for even this kind of limited system (which would cost hundreds of billions or even trillions to build since you’d have to pretty much build the rail infrastructure from scratch as the current system wouldn’t support high speeds…at least I don’t think it would by and large)…let alone a comprehensive system you’d need to take even a large percentage of cars off the road. And frankly, having built the thing, I doubt most or even many people would use it unless you heavily subsidized the price structure.
To paraphrase a quote for the book Voyager: “Look around man…dis look like Africa to you??” Sure, they use this system in Europe extensively (they still have a lot of cars though)…but Europe ain’t the US. Europeans didn’t grow their infrastructure around the car for the last century. Their population density and city orientation is different than ours. They aren’t spread out as much as we are. And frankly they STILL have things like the Autobahn that are extensively used even with all that rail infrastructure. The places I’ve been to in Europe seem to be very similar to the US as far as traffic goes…and mass transit is kind of bred in the bone there.
“Look around man…dis look like Africa to you??”
Have you BEEN to Japan? It’s a small island that more readily lends itself to mass transit like you are talking about. In addition, again, the Japanese didn’t spend the last century building and refining a road infrastructure like we did…they used rail much more extensively all along. Also, having been to Tokyo I can tell you…a hell of a lot of cars are still on the road in Japan and a lot of people drive rather than take the trains (though they DO use their train system extensively).
Again…no long term history of road infrastructure of personal transport, more oriented toward rail transport both culturally and historically. That said, I recall reading that China is putting more cars on the road each year than even the US these days…so it doesn’t actually look like anyone in your examples is going toward mass transit and phasing out personal…instead it looks to me as if they are either going in the opposite direction or simply balancing more between the two options.
Can’t…or won’t? Off the top of my head I can think of myriad reasons why we haven’t done it and probably won’t either. Costs, both initial (as well as logistics trying to get rights of way and things like that) and periodic for maintenance. Lack of demonstrated market or need for such an extensive system. System would be more inconvenient to American’s than the current two transport systems available.
I have no problem if people have a need for HSR (personally I would love to travel on it at least once) and are willing to pay for it. But to try and create such a system by fiat when there is no demonstrated market for it simply on the off chance that personal transport is somehow doomed in the country? No, I don’t buy that.
No…we won’t. Oil will simply become to expensive to burn for personal transport…and possibly to politically or socially unacceptable because of it’s CO2 emissions. But we will never run out of oil. Long before oil becomes to expensive alternatives will emerge.
Well, as I said, we are never going to run out. But IMHO viable alternatives will emerge long before your 50 year prediction (we’ll still have plenty of oil at that point btw…but I think it will become politically and socially unacceptable long before that)…you seriously don’t think that there will be alternatives to the CO2 spewing ICE by that time??
Well, YMMV…myself I think it’s better if we don’t pour such huge sums into something there is no need for and may never be a need for. Those hundreds of billions of dollars may be better spent elsewhere…or better yet, given back to the folks it was taken from. 
-XT
Well, xtisme, when oil becomes too expensive and/or socially unacceptable to burn (as you put it), we need to have a backup system in place before it becomes critical to do so (I would argue that it’s getting to the point where it’s already critical to do so). Presently, no real backup system exists.
What are our current options?
Converting to other means that burn fossil fuels (coal, LNG, for example). Doesn’t address the CO2 emissions problem, or the finite supply problem.
Hydrogen fuel cells. Great in theory, and I’d love to see practical fuel cell vehicles on the roads. But this, too, would require massive amounts of infrastructure. AFAI can tell by some googling, it looks there are all of a handful of stations where hydrogen refueling is a possibility, all of them in California.
We’re back to electric vehicles backed up by a rail transit system. For the better part of a century Americans got to where they were going by rail. I don’t see why we can’t do it again.
Hey, let’s throw in a new wrinkle. If you want to spend money, explain where you intend to get it.
Thanks,
Rob
The car pool incentives are done, but the hybrids are still selling. So, the jump start worked. Supply was constrained back when the car pool incentives were put in also. I know someone who was told he was going to have to wait six months for a Prius. Without the increased demand from incentives Toyota might not have ramped up supply. I assume Toyota will ramp it up some more, and solve the shortage problem once more. The shortage today, I think, is for the same reason I can’t get a parking space at the damn BART station.