Our nation's economic woes

Great Debates
21

That’s untrue. Currently no alternatives are economically feasible to impliment on a large enough scale to replace the current system. Oil isn’t going to suddenly run out however…it’s simply going to gradually become more costly. As it does new, currently uneconomically viable reserves will become available (like tar sands in Canada or shale oil in the US). These reserves are vast…many times more than ever existed in the Persian Gulf.

At the same time economic pressures on the market will encourage companies to expand their development of alternatives. There are several alternatives that are already near the point of viability at the current costs of oil…push the cost at the pump up another dollar or so and you will see a flood of them as people start making the shift over to something else.

Well, I’d say the first thing would be tapping oil reserves that are currently not being used because they are too expensive at the current value of oil. If we get into coal and LNG then we have quite a few years before it becomes a problem from a supply standpoint.

As for CO2 emissions…well, that certainly may be a driving issue. But it will just drive us to alternatives quicker. Putting in a very expensive rail infrastructure isn’t the answer.

Certainly…though it would be cheaper than putting in a rail system. The road infrastructure would remain unchanged. Distributors already have the logistics system in place to distribute gasoline…it would just be a matter of conversion to hydrogen. MAKING the hydrogen would probably be the bigger challenge…but there are no show stoppers there (we’d probably use oil for that in fact).

Hydrogen may or may not be the next big thing (one of the reasons I don’t want the government to put all it’s eggs in one basket is that we don’t KNOW what is ultimately going to be the replacement)…only time will tell. And we HAVE that time, at least from a supply standpoint…the oil will be with us long enough (and then some) for alternatives to be tried in the market place and eventually adopted.

Or maybe we are at electric vehicles not backed by an expensive and little used rail transit system? Why do you think that all electric (or hybrid electric) vehicles couldn’t potentially replace ICE vehicles?

True, for the better part of a century American’s used rail pretty exclusively. We used horses to. We haven’t however relied on rail transport (or horses) for quite a long time now. The reason we haven’t is our current infrastructure meets the majority of our needs. Going back to an earlier rail transit system would mean (at this point) either rebuilding or building from scratch. That would be VERY expensive and there is currently no need for it as there is no demand for it. In addition it would take a re-orientation of our society. We are used to getting in the car and driving where we want to go…or getting in a plane and flying there with few stops. In a train however there would be multiple stops and even using HSR it would take longer to get anywhere than either taking the car (for short trips) or the plane (for longer ones) would.

This isn’t insurmountable…but it’s not something American’s are going to do unless they have no choice. Unless you propose taking the cars away you won’t get most people to make the mental switch…even once things really start to hurt economically wrt the price of oil. However, once that pain DOES start you will see American’s looking for alternatives that are in line with our current technology and orientation toward personal transport…replacing their current cars with gas hybrids or more fuel efficient cars. They replacing those with all electric or hydrogen or Mr. Fusion…whatever. The market is going to be putting up alternatives in plenty in the next decade (nearly every manufacturer has a hybrid or two now in it’s stable, there are several companies with all electric prototypes, and there are several companies, especially in Japan, who will have production hydrogen vehicles out early in the next decade)…it remains to be seen which of them (if any…could be something else quietly in development somewhere) will win and become the next generation technology. Or it could be a combination (though I doubt it…I think eventually one technology will emerge as the commonly adopted standard).

None of that requires a huge, expensive and currently unnecessary new HSR transit system…such a system would simply drain resources we could use elsewhere, and to no real purpose.

-XT

22

The Japanese car makers are doing a lot better job advertising them. The Detroit hybrids that have impinged on my consciousness are the Explorer and the Impala. Admittedly, I’m not in the market so I don’t read car stuff. The criticism I’ve heard of a lot of these is that they use the hybrid engine to get slightly more gas mileage with more power, and don’t really offer the excellent MPG that the Prius does, for instance. The Explorer didn’t have good enough MPG to qualify for a California carpool sticker back when they were giving them out to hybrids. Plus, the hybrid technology for some of these was bought from the Japanese. I think they can do their own, (and will) but they should have started years ago in a big way.

I have seen a lot of ads - not just from Detroit - saying “green is important. We’ll have a green car real soon now” though.

23

Interesting…I have just the opposite experience. I’ve seen a LOT more ads in the last year from American car manufacturers concerning either high mileage cars or hybrids. The most recent one is a commercial for Saturn (I think it’s the Vue) where the vehicle drives around while people sing ‘woop’ and there are flowers and trees and such. Chevy has been pushing their gas efficient to gas free schtick for over a year now. Dodge has a series of commercials about their hybrid line, same with Chrysler. You really haven’t been paying attention if all you’ve heard of is the Explorer and Impala for hybrids by US manufacturers.

Nearly every car manufacturer (both US and abroad) is on this bandwagon now…which kind of says something, ehe?

:dubious: The incentives aren’t what got hybrids selling…market conditions are what got hybrids on everyones radar. The incentives were a waste…there were and are waiting lists for some hybrid vehicles as they are hugely in demand and car manufacturers haven’t fully scaled/ramped up yet to meet the demand. It’s like giving folks an incentive to buy internet porn or beer.

-XT

24

Because of their limited range (for all electric, that is). If you were driving more than their range (say, 120 miles), you’d have to stop and “fuel up,” as it were, for about 4 to 6 hours every 120 miles. Not practical. Of course, there may be a way to deliver all of the power an electric car needs in a short amount of time via an ultra-high-voltage gizmo (forgive me, my knowledge of electricity is sorely lacking), but we’d require a lot of infrastructure retooling to outfit gas stations with power suppliers.

25

Saturn is pushing their hybrid vehicles very extensively. I love my SL2 and when it rides off into that highway in the sky I could easily see myself upgrading to a hybrid Ion.

26

To be sure…today (though even there I believe there are all electric vehicles with ranges greater than 120 miles and who have relatively quick recharge times). Next year? Who can say. And sure, IF they produce a battery that will hold more energy and allow for quicker recharging we will need to build a charging infrastructure (as well as perhaps add more power plants to the grid). But, again, we already have the road infrastructure in place, there is already a logistic infrastructure for fueling cars (true, there would be some conversion necessary which would be a capital costs…but probably a capital costs that comes mainly out of the coffers of the current fuel distributors or companies wishing to get into the refueling game, as opposed to out of general public funds), and there is already a lot of research and development going on to improve and extend electric vehicles.

(You probably mean some kind of capacitor for your gizmo thingy. :))

Will it be enough? Gods know…electric vehicles may be a viable alternative, then again, they may not be in the long run. Only time and the market will tell. But SOMETHING will replace our current technology…like I said, from a supply perspective there is plenty of time. There are vast amounts of oil reserves in the world that haven’t even begun to be tapped…plenty to get us through this transitional period (which has only just started) to whatever new technology emerges as the winner.

Whether it be hydrogen, hybrid (with who knows what as the ‘gas’ engine part) or fully electric (or a combination of all of them…or something entirely different that isn’t even on the radar yet, perhaps methane fuel cell or something like that) something will emerge. And in the mean time it still doesn’t make any sense to build an expensive HSR system in the US where there is no market and no demand for it on the off chance that there MIGHT be need for it sometime in the future.

-XT

27

What a wonderful idea!

Oh, wait. There’s no such thing as a clean nuclear plant, because nuclear plants produce dangerous radioactive waste that needs to be carefully stored for thousands of years.

So, to recap, what an absolutely horrible idea.

28

Ah…been drinking the kool-aide I see. You mean the dangerous radioactive waste that causes thousands of deaths a year? Oh wait…it doesn’t. Perhaps you mean the dangerous radioactive waste that causes increased CO2 emissions and the green house effect? Nope, not that either.

Life is full of trade offs. There is no silver bullet technology. Solar and wind, geothermal and hydroelectric…they all play a part. But that part is, to date, minor and will remain so for the foreseeable future…simply put they don’t scale up to meet our needs. What does? Well…coal obviously. Should we just keep on keeping on? What else scales up to meet our needs? Nuclear.

So, the trade offs would be a possible local disaster from nuclear (the absolute worst being Chernobyl which initially killed off less people than die a year mining coal each year) and the nuance of having to store the waste (or reprocess it) vs a technology that impacts the entire world. I’ll pick door number 1 Alex…after all, the French seem to be doing ok with having somewhere around 70% of their power generated by nuclear plants.

:stuck_out_tongue: So, what do you propose as an alternative then? Go back to living in caves? Magic ponies? Keep on keeping on with coal? Do you have an alternative suggestion?

Seriously, the eco-fascist types have done their job well. This knee jerk reaction away from nuclear is pretty common place…and it stems from ignorance and an inundation of propaganda from hand wringing eco types for literally decades. Going to be next to impossible to overcome, at least here in the US.

-XT

29

High MPG ads, sure. There has been a set of those for us economy minded types since 1973. I’m talking specifically of hybrid ads. Ford had a set of ads for ethanol cars , I believe, that I did see.

I don’t know. At lunch today someone said he bought his Prius specifically for the carpool sticker. Remember back a few years ago when people showed calculations that the Prius would never make back in gas savings its price premium? I don’t know if that is still true, but it was irrelevant for someone sitting in traffic and looking enviously at the carpoolers speeding by. Between the time the carpool program endied and $4 gas, I believe there were plenty of them. Not now. Today because of gas prices I totally agree that incentives would be foolish.

30

I must be watching the wrong programs. I have an SL2 also (just hit 125K miles) and I usually pay attention to Saturn ads.

31

AFAIK, every US car manufacturer has ads for hybrids these days. The Chevy/GM and Saturn ads are the ones that most stick out in my mind on first thought, but the Ford ad is another one…and Dodge and Chrysler also run ads, which I think covers the major manufacturers.

But those stickers would only be worthwhile in California, no? And there are waiting lists just about everywhere for hybrids. I was kicking around the idea of getting a Prius '08 this year…but you can’t get one here in Alb. for love nor money, not without being on a long waiting list. Besides which, I don’t think I can resist that Mini-Cooper for to much longer in any case. :slight_smile:

I just don’t think the incentives were necessary as I think the time of the hybrid was and is here. I think the things pretty much sell themselves at this point, and that this was the case for the last year at least…which is why nearly every US car company has at least one hybrid in it’s stables now. They wouldn’t do that if there was no market for it.

-XT

32

The basic problem with the USA is the fact that the Congress is corrupt, and lobbyists infest the Federal government. That is why we pay 3X the world price fr sugar (the Fanjul brothers of Miami have seen to that-with liberal gifts to key senators and reps).It is also why we have no competition in insurance, and why we pay more for prescription drugs than the Canadians.
Our Congress also has no conception of a budget-they figure we can borrow money forever-so what’s a few hundred billion$? They don’t care-they figure thy will be long retired (on a congressional pension) when the sh*t hits the fan. That is why we just passed a Farm “assistance” bill-that pays subsidies to some of the richest corporations in the world. Will tyhe collapse of the dollar change things? probably not.

33

Here’s a comprehensive economic-stimulus proposal from the Economic Policy Institute. Cost: $140 billion (1% of GDP). Projected effect: 1.4-1.7 million new jobs.

34

How many of those guys in this institute have every run a business that actually created any jobs The blurb says 4% are from the business world and 25% from Organized Labor. Color me unimpressed. Very unimpressed.

35

You’re leaving out the economists.

And I think we’ve had quite enough of taking economic-policy advice from businessmen, thank you very much!

36

Meh. Any group that calls someone an economist who has 3 degrees, all of which are in sociology doesn’t impress me.

37

Oh, and their real economists include Lester Thurow who famously predicted in 1989 that the USSR was an economic threat to the US and lauded the results of their command economy. I’m getting less impressed the more I look into their staff.

38

The link is to a list of “Economists & Researchers.” Have you any reason to doubt the credibility of those who are economists?

Wiki:

You’ve heard of them, right?

39

No. There are some economists. But they call them all economists, and many are not.

Yeah, I’ve heard of some of them. And Reich is not an economists, although he seem to like to have people call him that. I’ve already commented on the prediction abilities of Thurow.

40

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24646556/ Industrial output is dropping rapidly. Heavy industry is disappearing. Is it possible to have a boom time without an industrial base.? The middle class was fueled by manufacturing and manufacturing support. I see little that offers hope. Every day another article about companies slashing workers, benefits and wages. Yet the rich are cleaning up. It is a redistribution of wealth.
American Axle just settled after a strike. Beginning workers in a production industry will be making 10 bucks an hour. Practically McDonald wages. Some workers went from 28 to 14 bucks an hour. This is not isolated. It is where we are heading faster and faster. Vacations and benefits were slashed. Medical coverage , of course , was trimmed again. This is our future.
I was reading an article today about worker unrest in Pakistan. They are tired of working hard and getting starving wages. Unions were developed in response to companies exploiting workers. do you thing foreign workers will work forever for nothing. ?

Out trade deficit will stay ugly because we have little to sell. China and India will own us someday, especially since conservatives thing it is a good thing.