[QUOTE=Eric the Green]
How are these requirements for producing oil any different than natural gas, food, electricity, water, and a hundred other items we need, some of which are regulated as I propose commodity traders should be?
[/QUOTE]
Um…is this a trick question? Assuming not, then the answer is…they aren’t. All those things ARE traded commodities, with volatilizes and fluctuations. Oil, being an INTERNATIONAL commodity that has become more scarce AND desired, especially by countries with emerging economies, has more factors impacting it’s price than, say, the corn grown by your local farmer…but it’s all the same at the basic level. You know…that supply and demand stuff.
Um…you know, Libya did have a revolution, right? And that their production of oil dropped something like a million barrels a day…right? And that, because of that, it had a non-zero effect on oil futures…which means that if you were buying oil last year for 6 months from then, that you’d have to take that, among many other things, into account when deciding what you thought the price of oil would be when it actually got produced and delivered…right? Ok…probably not right as this is probably already getting into deep waters for you.
You have a fundamental ignorance of this topic. You don’t get it, even at the most basic level. And this paragraph you wrote here pretty much highlights that completely. It’s wrong and shows pretty definitively why you don’t get it.
Preaching to the choir. I’m all for alternative energy, especially nuclear. The old ones ARE running out, or at least becoming more and more difficult to exploit…which means more and more scarce (well, oil is anyway). What you don’t get is that it will be market forces that enact a change, long before your well meaning but ignorant cries for change happen. As a for instance…if gas gets to be $4/gallon (in the US obviously…it’s double or even 2.5-3 times that in many places in Europe already) it will cause some non-zero number of people to make a choice and buy a hybrid, a more fuel efficient car, or maybe even an AEV. Or, perhaps to just drive less. If gas goes to $5/gallon it will have a greater effect. At $6/gallon an even greater effect. And so on. At some price point, there will be an, oh, say event horizon…people will increasingly be demanding alternatives, and at some point the market will deliver and there will be an increasing shift to whatever alternative the market (i.e. you, me and your neighbor Doug) shows as a clear winner. All your government regulations and other horseshit won’t have as much effect as simply the price of gas that that average American has to pay. If you understood this, then what you’d REALLY be asking for/demanding is simply to have the price of gas go up and up. Since you are a progressive, then you’d probably want to advocate that the government increase taxes on gasoline in the US to levels at or above those in Europe. The LAST thing you should want, if you really grasped all this, is for the price of gas to go down or be cheaper, since that will cause people to actually want to use more and avoid making a change to alternatives.
It’s not. The price of gas has gone up maybe a dollar, on average, as a national average. It’s done so because the price of oil has risen due to several uncertainties in the Middle East, the biggest one being the threat/possibility of a shooting war between Israel and Iran. However, there are a bunch of other factors, including regional unrest in other countries, including many oil producing countries such as Libya, the fact that demand world wide continues to rise…and probably some factors that I’m unaware of on the production or even refining side. Also, TAXES have gone up on gas in many states (you say you are from CA…your taxes on gas are always high anyway, and IIRC they recently went up due to budget shortfalls. When I was in LA this winter the price of gas was nearly a dollar more than I pay in New Mexico…and that’s mainly due to your higher state taxes on gasoline, though there are a few other factors such as distribution and such).
But if you look at the price of oil historically, it’s always been volatile…and that’s only going to increase as it becomes more scarce (thus, harder and more expensive to produce AND to find and exploit new sources) AND the world wide demand continues to rise. I mean, you must know that countries like China and India, as well as a host of other emerging economies are on the rise wrt their demand for the stuff…right? China alone is putting millions of new cars on the road a year at this point. More bidders needing more oil, and that oil becoming more scarce=higher prices and more volatility in the market, with speculators having to guess what that volatility will be 6 months or a year or 5 years down the pike.
Of COURSE they are, if they are fixing prices. Either that or you are paying a hell of a lot more than you should be, and that buffers the utility when the price of their fuel fluctuates…or, in your case since you live in CA, the price your utility pays some other utility in some other state for power. Oil fluctuates more as a commodity for the reasons I’ve given you, but power production inherently has fluctuations as well, and if you aren’t seeing them then SOMEONE has to be buffering those fluctuations.
Well…I tried.
I’m not sure what a ‘free marketeer’ is, exactly, but yeah…I AM an advocate of the free market, yes. Never denied it. It’s interesting that you think that free market economics is ‘a delusion’, at a time when more and more countries, including many former or current COMMUNIST countries, embrace free market economics.
Perhaps you are again operating under the misconception that ‘free market’ means ‘completely unregulated and without restraint’. That SEEMS to be what you are getting at. I don’t advocate that, nor does any but the most fervent libertarian type. I have no problem with regulation or government oversight. The devil would be in where to draw the line, not whether there should or shouldn’t BE a line, as far as I’m concerned.
No, actually, they don’t. Basic goods and needs are cheaper in the US than just about anywhere else in the world. They are also more abundantly offered here than just about anywhere else in the world. Seriously…GO to other countries and see for yourself. Go to Europe and see what gas costs you…or what food or even a shirt cost. Or a car. Or a house. You have no idea what you are talking about even here, unfortunately.
It is hard to see how you could say that. Many commodities are bought and sold by producers and consumers. Oil is no more necessary than the other things, but its price is the only one that fluctuates because of events virtually unrelated to its cost. I have not had to pay huge hikes on any of the other commodities I have to buy often. Food prices do not fluctuate like oil prices do at the store; they just don’t. Food is more of a necessity than oil, and so are electricity, natural gas and water. That’s because they are regulated, even if there are traders involved. Food prices did not go up in spite of all the horrible natural disasters around the world last year, which are happening because we continue to use oil and coal. Traders exist because it’s a chance for someone to make money, not because they serve a need. BUt if you insist on having them, God knows why, at least they should be regulated. And it’s amazing how some of these people here even defend the Wall St. gamblers with derivatives and credit default swaps, as if they served some kind of need. What a bunch of rot.
I brought up Libya first; did you miss that? The point being that it had no effect on actual supply, only what some traders thought might happen. Why should that determine the price? Because traders want to make money by raising the price, that’s what.
That point was made already. Why go on and on about it? Read the other posts. To some extent I acknowledged this. But I am not one of those who think the market should determine whatever happens. Is that not obvious? There’s no reason we should not do what’s right, rather than wait for the market to force things, when we need the change to happen more quickly. And prices are unfair; why should we tolerate them? We should have switched already by now, and could have, except folks like you rave on about how we should let the market operate. Meanwhile the climate crisis claims more and more lives while we dither and wait for the market, because we agree with Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman or Ronald Reagan. Phooey with those guys; we should do what’s right.
The price has tripled in a decade. It’s only one thing that is hurting middle class and poor folks, while their wages decline relatively speaking. And folks like Blake snipe and scowl and ask me for statistics, when they are easily available and well-known. Anyone who doesn’t know how much the cost of higher education, housing and health care have risen, and how slowly wages have risen in recent years, has got to be living under a rock. It’s amazing how young people these days can make it at all.
It has never been as high or volatile as today. Prices vary between $70 and $140 a barrel within a year, and prices at the pump 3 times what they were just 10 years ago. And oil companies making more profit than any companies have EVER made, for providing a product we ought to be weaning ourselves off of as fast as we can. And there you are defending it.
Yes, the public utility commission buffers them, by requiring no more than fairly reasonable price hikes; at least not the hikes that oil companies and health insurance companies and colleges get away with.
The line has been moved over way too far, drastically, since Reagan. We need to put it back at least where it was, if we want a fair and more equal society with opportunity to advance, instead of just reserving everything for 1% of Americans.
In other countries things are more equal than here, and peoples lives are improving. Here they are declining fast. Gas has been more expensive in Europe than here for decades; that is not news. But it isn’t rising as fast. Before the crash we imposed on them, it was getting easier to live in Europe. But whatever the situation is, just because things are claimed to be worse in other nations, is not reason to tolerate greater inequality here than elsewhere, and much greater inequality before free market policies went into effect in 1981..
You are at least as determined as me not to hear what the other person is saying.
I already made the point that one person making a market decision has no effect on the market. That is an undeniable fact. The question then is, what else can we do to change things; not more talk about what I should or should not buy.
That IS what is happening, and no I DON’T like it.
None of those worries have caused a shortage of a single drop in oil. The status quo is what it is, because the oil and car companies deliberately killed the electric car, and that WAS a conspiracy. It is the status quo because of the arguments you just made, which amount to “we have to settle for the way things are, because the market says so.” No we don’t. We could have required the car companies to switch a long time ago. A little fiat here and there saves us a lot of trouble, when we bother to impose one, instead of waiting for the all-holy MARKET.
Nothing has been said here that I don’t already understand. Just because you trot things out to answer me, doesn’t mean I haven’t heard it all before. How does that follow?
No, I just don’t agree with your compulsive defense of the free market as it exists today.
The point is, the “mechanisms” have to change. They were put into effect by humans; they are not natural laws. Noone here yet has given me a “principle of economics,” and they won’t, because there aren’t any. They are nothing but habits. Our system has gotten so free-wheeling that crashes and depressions happen like after the 1920s, and yet tea party types just completely ignore this and want even more deregulation, and Republicans repeat it like they were parrots. It is outrageous beyond imagining. The restraints were taken off, and yet you seem totally ignorant of this, and don’t even know how traders ruined our economy by gambling on money they didn’t have and bet against their own customers without any requirements even to disclose what they were doing to anyone. If that’s not free-wheeling, then I don’t know what is. And someone here has the gall to keep asking me why someone should go into finance, completely ignoring my point that too many people go into finance. And yet that is an obvious point made by many experts. The free marketers like you just prefer to ignore this and continue to defend this evil system that enables 1% of Americans to trample on the rest of us and make money by gambling with other peoples money as if that were productive. I have news for you; it is not productive at all.
Just ignore facts then; that’s the way. Forget that oil was over $140 a barrel, and just a year before it was $60. Talk about ignorant. And what difference does it make where the oil comes from? Making excuses like that for gamblers is pretty lame in my book. :rolleyes: If we had any sense we would get off of all this foreign oil so we wouldn’t be beholden to oil traders someplace else, for goodness sakes. And we’ve been talking about doing that since Nixon, and have done nothing. Why? Because we believe in the free market, and the oil companies take advantage of this ignorance to do whatever they want and charge us whatever the hell they want to, and make more profits than any other companies have ever done, by FAR; that’s why, and there’s no other reason on God’s green Earth.
There is no conspiracy, except maybe about the electric car, and it was probably only one or two companies involved even in that one. Conspiracy theories are stupid. As I said, and you weren’t paying attention, there does not need to be a conspiracy, when all they have to do is sit back ands get rich off our “free market” obsession which lets them off the hook from changing what seems to be working well for them and keeps them rolling in dough. Why do they need to conspire, when all they need to do is refuse to change? That’s easy enough, for Christ’s sakes! No conspiracy needed.
at least spell site correctly. I heard it a number of places, but I will get more facts to back up my assertions as I go along, when I have time I will. I just don’t necessarily remember where I heard everything, since these things have been so widely reported it’s hard to believe they are not known by everyone. We know that China is switching to solar energy faster, and is outpacing us in making the panels and driving down the price. I think the same is true with electric cars and batteries and such. I’m SURE the EU has long passed us too, yes. The USA is the laggard on green energy.
Nothing has eluded experts in these fields; it’s you guys who have eluded the facts about them. If you were really interested in our country, you would know what the alternatives are, and you wouldn’t be arguing with me. Instead you are giving me the industry line. There are way too many conservatives and libertarians here, that seems apparent. But that’s fine; you have a right to express your opinions.
No, as I said, I pretty much assumed the things I have asserted are common knowledge, but I guess not. This IS a more general big-picture thread, and my first visit here (and maybe not a happy one), but most of the threads I see here don’t deal with important issues at all. Maybe I need to start a few to delve into these issues in more detail, assuming there’s really an interest. Maybe if others like you had already done so, instead of dwelling on the inane subjects that DO exist here, you would know more. I have already researched electric cars and solar energy and other subjects on other forums. Why haven’t you? And for that matter why AREN’T you calling for a bigger progressive movement? I don’t see any thread here on these vital issues.
And again, I don’t know why you have such a place in your heart for commodity traders. Why are you guys defending the people who rip you off? Stand up for yourselves and the ones who are charging you high prices. That is what drives up the cost of living; meanwhile you guys all complain about taxes (and regulations, as you do below), which have never been lower. Instead of arguing with me and calling me ignorant, join me in calling for lower prices.
What a bunch of rot. I saw from the utility bills where the energy comes from, and it’s not what you say. See, you knock regulations, and then you deny that you are a laissez faire apologist. You are that.
If we aren’t doing so hot, it’s because of the high cost of living due to housing, high immigration pressures, and Republican politicians who strangle our budget. We are making reforms though, so I hope at least the latter situation will ease in the near future, and Ca at least (if not America) will move forward. We DO seem to know how to make some good reforms right now. If the switch to electric cars doesn’t happen, it will be because you rich folks and you rich free-market excuse-makers have succeeded again in derailing the regulations, and they already did before. That could happen. But otherwise, CA will not only shift a great deal, especially since electric cars are already the same price as others, all things considered, but what CA requires will require the same shift EVERYWHERE in the USA, because CA is the largest market, and car companies will have to adjust their entire way of doing things in order to meet the needs of the largest market. Your guess will be wrong, in that case. Just another case of you ignoring the facts in order to defend the way things are, and have fun calling someone else ignorant just because he states the facts that should be obvious.
I am certainly not the first to call it that; it is a famous phrase. Or at least it WAS until these days when a lot of younger people know nothing but free market insanity because they have been brought up in it. I guess that includes you, or you would have heard the phrase.
Does anyone wonder that I thought this was freshman screed?
There is so little understanding of the issues, so little thought to it, that it reads exactly like the ranting of a college freshman who has just had her “eyes opened” by her professors.
It’s not the type of material anyone would expect from someone over 20.
This part of your post is at least coherent and to the point.
That’s the way to run it, yes. And I don’t think that’s speculation in the sense of commodity gamblers. It’s negotiations. Negocios, the Spanish word for business.
Your preference is fine, what people have been trying to point out is that you haven’t made the case that it is either doable or capable of solving what you see as “a problem”. You seem to think that your ideas are as self-evident as they are wonderful and revolutionary. You seem to want to hand wave away particulars. Now, you’re free to do that. But you should realize that if you do, you’re ideas are simply not going to be taken as seriously as I think you’d like them to be.
I understand that. But you seem to think that the people going into finance now are not fulfilling a need the finance industry has. That’s how I was using need. By your own estimation, most of these people in finance are greedy and just care about money. So, why in the world would they hire people and give them huge chunks of money if they weren’t filling some need?
No snark intended, but it would really do you well to notice the holes in your knowledge base and theories. Again, trying to gloss over them is not helping you. You should really embrace what Blake has been pointing out.
Progressive has of course become “very left”. In the case of the US “to the left” of the mainstream democratic party.
I don’t view it as actual policies though, but progressive as populist…power to the people and change in general.
The original liberals were the limited government/free market guys!
I actually see limited, open government and free markets as progressive!
It’s a change all right, bringing power to the people.
Let me explain, I used to be a hardcore lefty. I believed in Social Democracy, specifically the Nordic Model.
I still do, however those countries are just special cases of humanity. It can’t happen here, it’s not in our mindset and our government is too corrupt.
So IMO how can we bring power to the working/middle classes and small business and end our oligarchy?
Less government.
See, I used to hate the free market but I realized we don’t really have one!
There are so many subsidies/breaks/rules that big business get, and that is NOT free market. Right? It should be less government intervention, not giving breaks to business.
IMO the only way to empower the masses is to:
. Greatly reduce our burden.
Between federal and state income tax, payroll taxes, outrageous property taxes here in NJ…god that must be like 40ish% for a MIDDLE CLASS family!
Obama has targeted $250,000 as wealthy, but if you make that and live in New York City…between Fed, State, City and property taxes…I believe its near 50% they pay! 250K is not a lot, that’s not fat cat wall street money!
To relieve this tax burden that chokes middle/working class and small business government needs to be reduced. Drastic cuts to defense spending, and make reasonable cuts to domestic government.
End subsidies and corporate welfare and promote an actual free market in things like health insurance and energy.
With a limited government we can reduce taxes on the middle class, have the room to fund welfare (!) and by ending all breaks for companies they’d have to actually compete. Health insurance and energy are very concentrated and that drives price up.
I consider myself a limited government liberal, or efficient liberal. The core of liberalism just done well, with no benefits to big business and a generally free market, but not 100% with light but reasonable regulation.
[QUOTE=Eric the Green]
I already made the point that one person making a market decision has no effect on the market. That is an undeniable fact. The question then is, what else can we do to change things; not more talk about what I should or should not buy.
[/QUOTE]
That’s like saying we need to change our entire system because our one vote doesn’t count. No, of course your one decision is not going to change the market. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have choices you can make, and it doesn’t mean that in the aggregate that things won’t change if enough people make the same decisions. Since you are so focused on the price of gas, if it rises high enough then there WILL be change. The Market™ will force a change.
So, the REAL question DOES hinge on what you should or shouldn’t buy, multiplied by several hundred million of your fellow Americans, and impacted by several billion other humans throughout the world who are also part of the decision cycle. I realize that you don’t get it, but if you want REAL change there is already mechanisms in place to effect that change.
Say instead you don’t understand it and are just lashing out in ignorance. Otherwise you wouldn’t continue to insist that it’s what’s happening, after you’ve been shown why you are wrong by several different posters in several different ways. The pounding your chest and screeching that you don’t like it is a nice, dramatic touch, but it really isn’t helpful when it’s clear you don’t like something that you don’t understand and fail to grasp.
So much ignorance, so few words. People who have to to work in the real world and attempt to buy oil certainly DO worry about a drop in oil production from a single major producer, such as Libya. It can certainly cause short term shortages, but mainly it causes disruptions in the market due to logistics and that whole supply and demand thing that you also seem unable or unwilling to grasp. If supply drops but demand goes up then the price goes up. If supply goes up and demand drops then the price goes down.
The auto industry didn’t kill the electric car…here’s a news flash, you could go out and buy one right now, today. If you want one that has a similar performance envelop to your current car it’s going to cost you around a hundred thousand dollars, but they are out there. They are very expensive due to their use of those rare earth metal thingies that you don’t want to know about, there were safety and longevity concerns (there still are) in the past, and they didn’t perform as well as ICE vehicles. No one would buy them, so companies didn’t make them. Even today, they are a niche market, despite the fact that gas costs more today than in the past. It’s a ridiculous conspiracy theory that Big Auto Killed the Electric Car™ and doesn’t match the facts.
You don’t understand even what ‘the market’ is, nor do you have any understanding of electric vehicles, yet you feel you are qualified to assert that we could have just waved a magical wand and forced a change through. Again I ask…why hasn’t anyone else done so? Ok, the US is corrupt and evil and in the pocket of Big Business, and especially Big Auto and Big Oil. Got that…it’s standard screed. But why hasn’t Europe done it? They have stronger regulations and their people are more willing to go by fiat government dictates. They also signed the Kyoto Accords and were bound to heavily reduce CO2 emissions. So, why didn’t they do it? Oh, that’s right…Big Auto forced them to not make the change. Ok, why not Japan? Oh, that’s right…Big Auto forced them. Well, why not China then…still a communist country. Hell, by fiat they forced millions from their homes to build a big dam…oh, that’s right, Big Auto forced a totalitarian communist government to buy NEW ICE cars, instead of just going to magical AEV technology that only an American company could possibly have developed (well, unless all of the other foreign auto manufacturers, even those who have spent billions on R&D for alternative fuels and battery system are all in on the CT).
Lastly, the ‘all-holy MARKET’ is you and me and everyone else who buys things. You might want to try and wrap your head around that.
No, it hasn’t. Especially when you start doing little things like adjusting for inflation. You are right…those stats ARE easily accessible. I figure you didn’t go get them because you knew they would make you look even more foolish and clueless about this stuff. I’ve tried to give you this advice before, but her goes again…don’t talk about subjects you know nothing about, and don’t make assertions based on your lack of understanding and ignorance. LEARN something about the subject and THEN discuss it.
Horseshit. Click on the second link I provided above. Again, you don’t know what you are talking about. And oil companies don’t make more profits than any company ever, not in relative or absolute terms. Again, your ignorance is just rhetorical bullshit that you spout off without any actual knowledge on this subject. I was doing a quick search for a link for this, but instead I found this one which is pretty interesting, even if it doesn’t address your ridiculous assertion here.
Who decides what constitutes a ‘fairly reasonable price hike’ constitutes? And what happens if the price of whatever fuel or energy they are providing to their customers spikes? Well, as you indicated the commission does…which is another way of saying that the government and taxes are paying to smooth out those prices for you. At a guess this is a factor in why CA’s energy utilities and policies are all screwed up…people aren’t seeing the real costs of their energy use reflected in their bill, so are using all they want while simultaneously supporting efforts to get rid of coal fired power plants (and blocking new nuclear plants) in the state. I don’t know that’s what’s happening, mind…just a guess on my part, and there are probably several other factors I’m not aware of, but that’s a standard result of taking The Market™ out of the equation. And this is something you want to increasingly do on many other fronts…and without understanding of how any of it works.
I don’t think CA is a good model that the rest of the US would want to emulate, to be honest. Though you guys did have the Governator, which was kind of cool.
If you are asserting that food commodities don’t fluctuate in price, well, that is obviously false. I suspect your inability or unwillingness to understand economics is hindering your ability to understand how this undermines your position.
You appear to be calling for a new progressive movement that doesn’t know what it is talking about, and is deeply committed to courses of action that haven’t been thought thru beyond sloganeering.
We already have one of those, so the competition for supporters among the gullible and misguided is likely to be fierce.
Too bad you have no imaginable coalition for the foreseeable future. The idea of “small government” has been well and truly hijacked by big business interests.
If it comes, it will be brutal on the have-nots; it will keep the have-a-littles in line by giving them tax cuts and encouraging them not to think outside their class; and it will let the haves continue to consolidate power thru money.
More than likely, though, it will be big government allied to wealthy and social-conservative interests, and sold as small government thru middle class tax cuts and a heavy spin.
Like it or not, the only definition of “free market” that applies in American political thought is the idea that the market should have unlimited power and zero responsibility.
Don’t be ridiculous. You’re confusing the caricatures of the irresponsibly left-wing with what really gets said.
If that definition were the only one, Ron Paul would be the putative GOP nominee instead of a fringe candidate. It’s like saying Kucinich is in the Senate, therefore socialism is all we talk about.
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
Like it or not, the only definition of “free market” that applies in American political thought is the idea that the market should have unlimited power and zero responsibility.
[/QUOTE]
Sez who? The only folks I’ve ever heard talk about the ‘free market’ in terms of unlimited power and zero responsibility are US left wingers, usually of the more crazy variety. Folks I’ve heard talk about the ‘free market’ in terms of zero regulation and total freedom are generally the loonier libertarian types. It certainly doesn’t seem to me to be a mainstream political discussion point that I’ve ever heard of…and definitely not ‘the only definition’ of ‘free market’ as applied to US political thought.
Here is a question I’ve been thinking of: Why shouldn’t corporations have influence and have a say in government (this is different, needless to say, from corporations controlling government)? After all government can regulate and tax corporations separately from individuals who control and run those corporations, so isn’t it only natural corporations as a collective are lobbying government?
Everyone deserves a say; Hillary Clinton talked about that during her campaign. The question is should their money be the most influential aspect of our elections.
What we have in the USA is too little regulation, because of the philosophy that the market should be left as much as possible to manage itself without interference. We’ve had regulations that were applied after the last great crash in 1929, that were repealed to encourage the free market in financial gambling; leading to the next great crash of 2008. We have too little regulation of energy and fuel efficiency, leading to too much greenhouses gases. Our free health care market has resulted in higher insurance premiums than in other countries. Government agencies like the FDA and EPA get way too little funds, resulting in the poisoning of our food and water. Union rules have been abolished so that it is harder for workers to be represented at the bargaining table. Taxes are not enough to cover the expenses of government, because higher taxes are incorrectly assumed to hurt jobs by taking money away from “job creaters.” And so on.
The free market philosophy is dominant. It may not have won a complete victory, but keep letting the tea party control congress, and they will try to gain it.
Well, maybe I haven’t been good enough in justifying some of my positions, but then when you say other progressives are just as bad as me, you make my point. It is not me you are criticizing, but progressives, saying they are all as naive as you claim that I am.
