Exactly. Something which (at least in the petroleum sector) we don’t have now.
And that is the difference between the free market and capitalism. Capitalism we have.
I think you got whooshed. I read that as a response to someone saying gas prices should be FORCED down as being “free market”.
How is the petroleum industry not a free market? The price is set globally. There are hundreds or thousands of companies producing oil, hundreds of thousands consuming it directly. It’s about as free as you can get.
But those breaks for oil companies are the only way I can afford to install oil panels on my roof! And if it wasn’t for the tax write-off, I couldn’t have afforded the new gasoline-powered car I bought this year!
Whaaaaat?
Whaaaaat?
Tax breaks are not breaks from oil companies.
Amazing, huge tuitions and high salaries for administrators. and some teachers; and lots of corporations who benefit from the research, to which most students’ tuition goes.
The details need to be looked at by experts, but offhand certainly the oil companies subsidies, many subsidies to agribusiness and ethanol, and of course bloated defense contracts; to name a few.
No it isn’t. It’s too many people who are wrong about things. And no, reducing medical costs, not cutting medicare. Medicare needs to be extended to all. When all pay, and pay more than the small taxes they pay now, and since most Medicare is used by the elderly, it is financially viable. And it would cut out the outrageous insurance premiums, and control drug and doctor costs. Obama has good plans to cut costs; listen to his recent speech.
That’s not a problem, since they ARE true. The problem is that there are too many conservatives in this country, like you and Blake. They prefer to keep things as they are, which is not working, to trying new ways that make sense and work in many countries and states.
Not at all. They were non-existent threats that did not have anything to do with actual costs. If supply is cut off, only then does it make any “economics” sense to raise prices. And really, not even then. The costs still have not risen, only demand. But that’s another issue. Non-existent threats to supply are no reason to raise prices and force us to pay them; only greed. In 1973, this didn’t happen; prices went up only when the actual oil embargo occured, not before. In any case, oil companies made out like bandits. There was never any threat to their profits from threats or actual cutoffs. They make more money than anyone, and more today than ever-- all for harming our biosphere and home we depend on. They ought to be phased out of business and banned.
Good; the right kind of free market is a vital part of a mixed economy. Deceptive right wing trickle-down slogans are NOT a vital part of a mixed economy.
Quite the opposite is true. The problem today is cynicism and lack of idealism. Doing only makes sense as carrying out a vision and responding to good information.
The meaning of “a new progressive movement” is to make a bigger one than today, knowing that today many people are too discouraged and think nothing can be done, since right-wing movements are more powerful. Which party or other vehicle is not the issue; the way is to use whatever effective and ethical means exist, just as I said.
And voting IS one of those viable means. What is needed is support for the progressive program, not endless requests for specifics and evidence, or dickering about which party to support or not. We already know what we need to do, what will work, and what does work. We’ve known it for decades. The problem is resistance by authority, and their deception of too many people in thinking the only important issue is to lower their own taxes in the name of a false “freedom.” We need to get on with it. Move-on, as they say.
I agree with that.
There is no new party, and I support and participate in OWS, but think their concern over not being co-opted and refusing to support good candidates, handicaps the goals. My OP is partly inspired by the OWS statements of purpose, though it is my own.
So you remove the subsidies on the fuel/petrochemical industries, and there are no negative outcomes downstream? The cost of fuel doesn’t increase? The cost of transportation? Manufacturing? Retail distribution? Construction? Plastics? Anything that uses energy?
If prices are “set,” that’s not exactly “free.” There are only a few dominant international oil companies. They control the market, along with commodity speculators, and they get government support too in many ways.
Exactly. The price of oil is determined the same way that the price of corn, or rubber, or pork, or any other commodity is, by brokers who are buying future supplies to cover the future needs of their customers.
A commodities broker is trying to bet on the future price of a product. If he believes the price may go down in the near future he may only lock in a 6 month contract at the current price and buy more after the price falls. If he thinks the price may go up he will try to lock in a larger amount over a longer time period at todays lower price.
But he MUST cover the needs of his customers. So they look into their crystal ball/industry reports and buy based upon what may happen. They are not buying for today at todays prices, they are buying for tomorrow at the price being offered today.
Doesn’t matter whether the broker is worried about a collapse of the anchovy fishing off Peru or the mining of the ship channels off Iran.
The market, and perceived future of that market, determines the price.
In other words, we need a real movement, with real energy, willing to support the left and progressives, and not so quick to claim they are moderates or try to please everybody, since they don’t think they can win otherwise.
A real willingness to support the causes I listed, rather than calling them motherhood statements and asking for endless specifics, when they have already been known for decades-- and in many cases had existed and were working quite well before the useless Reaganomics delusion took hold.
That system is unnecessary and only allows middle men to force us all to pay high prices for no reason. It has nothing to do with the market at all. There is no market between buyers and sellers there. It is a casino. People need to make money from real things, not from speculation. People need to produce things, and not be so eager to go into finance just to make money.
The good is that taxes are not raised to pay these ridiculous subsidies. Petroleum companies are making fuel hand over fist; that is obvious, so obvious it doesn’t even need to be said, and yet you forget. What do we need to give them any breaks for?
What would benefit us all is if they all went out of business! Why the endless excuses for the status quo? We need to change and move forward! Fossil fuels are ruining our climate and our resources.
You’re missing the point. Yes, people (“we”, if you prefer) have to “get on with it” and actually change hearts, minds, and votes. But whining about it on an internet message board, or at a college campus, or at scattered Occupy movements, doesn’t do jack diddly shit.
Cynicism, you say? It’s the natural and necessary defense against idealism run amok. Sitting around dreaming of a better world doesn’t make it happen, and as generations see the futility of idle hope, they downsize their over-lofty ideals into smaller achievable chunks and begin to effect concrete change – through careers or lifestyles, politics, science, direct action, yes, on occasion even activism and organization, blah blah blah. But they certainly don’t sit around screaming “EVERYTHING IS BROKEN! WE HAVE TO FIX IT!”. It’s the difference between the Clean Air Act and a cardboard sign, the difference between Sea Shepard and Save the Whales t-shirts, the difference between new civil rights lawsuits and internet conspiracies. Shit gets better because people identify a particular thing in need of fixing and then go on to try to fix it, not because they see all the world’s problems and demand across-the-board organized change.
We agree on one thing: “Use whatever effective and ethical means exist.” This is not it, and if you are encouraging others to jump on board the feel-good hollerwagon, you’re only creating more false hope and wasting everyone’s time.
Begin, (do something, as you say) instead of moaning the wasteland and saying how do we even begin. Help me convince these skeptics who ask for endless evidence and say things can’t be done because “opinions differ.” What nonsense!
And sharing goals and debunking false ideologies IS doing something.
I think your skeptics already have a more realistic sense of the problems and the difficulties. They’re long past the “something is broken” stage that you seem so far stuck at, and are contemplating the drawbacks of various solutions.
Want to convince them? Come up with tangible, implementable solutions whose benefits outweigh their costs. Screaming “change, change, change, damn you, change!” at them won’t do a thing. And if you have to learn that the hard way, good luck…
No. The major oil companies do not set or determine the price of oil, the people buying the oil determine the price by bidding against each other. Again, in an effort to meet the supply needs of their customers.
If today’s price is $90 per barrel and the broker is worried that the price is about to spike or the supply is about to be restricted, and he needs 2 million barrels to meet his customers needs, he will suggest a large buy now.
The broker’s competitor sees this part of the supply being locked in and begins to fret about when to buy for his customers. So he bids the price up and buys at $95.
Some government yahoo somewhere makes a careless remark and both buyers get spooked and lock in a future order at $102.
The oil companies profit because nothing has actually changed to influence the companies cost. But the oil companies had really little to do with the new higher price of oil.
That is the Econ 101 version.