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28282. resonance - 4/26/2006 9:32:17 PM Res : your reasoning looks rather circular. Wish fulfillment : People will still be able to afford to drive cars, because they simply HAVE to!
Not at all. What I'm saying is really not that hard to understand. People will pay a large portion of their income in order to remain mobile -- in many cases they require that mobility to get their income. Right now automobiles *ARE* aimed at a certain price point -- automobiles aren't made and sold with economy prices in mind. Their prices are arrived at after careful deliberation on what the market will bear. They are loaded with nice toys and the like to 'add value' and drive the price up.
If the amount of cash the 'average' person has to buy a car drops, that will not reduce the demand for it. That will just mean there is a bigger market for cheaper cars, and that market will be filled. If the amount of cash it takes to operate the vehicle rises, that does not mean that everyone will suddenly stop using their car. It just means that they will use it less. If gasoline suddenly quadruples in price, fuels such as biodiesel will look astonishingly cheap in comparison. If there is a lot of pressure for more fuel-efficient cars, then more fuel efficient cars will hit the market.
You seem to think that that last is a jump and it requires great, blind faith in scientific advance. I think it takes a lot more faith to assume that no more advances in fuel efficiency and alternative fuels will be made once the demand for them is real. It beggars the imagination, that faith.
This sounds a little bit conspiracy-theorist. Would you care to expand on it? Is some malevolent entity heavying us with price pressure?
What, besides the oil industry?
Well, there's always taxation, Alistair. Tell me how much gas costs a liter where you live. 28283. uzmakk - 4/26/2006 9:37:09 PM Amen, Nilsson. The prayer wheel, hey Lord, started turning...
On another forum there existed, for a while, a fellow with Jexster's habits. He called himself Postman. He was a dataamassa, not a real man. 28284. alistairConnor - 4/26/2006 9:55:24 PM Oh, so the oil industry is driving prices up. Right.
Nothing to do with demand and supply then. Nothing to do with Iran or Nigeria. It's the oil industry. And the guvvermint.
And it's immoral!!! 28285. alistairConnor - 4/26/2006 9:56:40 PM That's what astonishes me, Res... you seem to be expecting moral behaviour from ...
... markets?? 28286. jexster - 4/26/2006 11:35:26 PM This forum is about Religion..now you can talk about worship of Saabs all you want..it just adds to the ponderous weight of the chain around your soul..bitch 28287. jexster - 4/26/2006 11:37:43 PM Do I hear another "AMEN" from the Slerbian Pig Farmer corner? 28288. wonkers2 - 4/26/2006 11:41:21 PM Pollution and energy and religion are apparently inextricably intertwined. 28289. resonance - 4/27/2006 12:10:21 AM That's what astonishes me, Res... you seem to be expecting moral behaviour from ...
... markets??
For the second time, the question of morality is irrelevant to what I said about market forces. Grasp that. People will not sell more efficient cars in order to be nice. They will do so in order to make more money than they would selling guzzlers that no one will want. Any morality is incidental -- this is simple Econ 101. Your argument is presupposing the opposite -- that the automobile manufacturers and designers will turn their back on the majority of their available profits in order to help turn their product into a novelty only a small percentage of the population can afford. It's silly, and in your case it is wishful thinking.
Oh, so the oil industry is driving prices up. Right.
If you think there isn't rampant manipulation of the oil market, what can I say? You're lacking about 30 years worth of knowledge. Are you really lacking that knowledge, Alistair, or are you just being obstinate in your sing-song fashion?
Having said that, of course supply and demand have a huge role to play. That's not what you asked me, though.
In any case the original question on the morality of letting the market take a crash course versus intervention does not hinge, thankfully, on conspiracies or the greed of oil companies. There are lots of other tools available, from tax and incentives to enforcing higher standards of fuel economy. Gasoline users could start having to pay some scarcity rent on the resource or pay a tax to account for the 'real' cost of the gasoline, including the environmental cost of it. More radically, governments could start nationalizing oil production and refinement, and of course there are always alternative fuels. I'm a bit astonished that for you the question of the morality of this sort of intervention into the market reduces to a question about the Invisible Hand.
Oh, and to address what you said upthread about hydrogen fuel cells -- hydrogen doesn't have to contain as much usable energy per volume as gasoline in order to be a competitive fuel. Remember that gasoline engines are remarkably inefficient -- something like 30% of the energy they consume is successfully tapped and used by the automobile IIRC. The only reason the internal combustion engine, as we have it today, has been useful is that gas has been as rich of an energy source as it is. If you can produce a 60% efficient means of powering your car, your fuel only needs to produce half as much energy as gas, and so on. 28290. jexster - 4/27/2006 12:35:13 AM Vapid is as Pelle does Wonk 28291. jexster - 4/27/2006 12:36:24 AM Seeing as we are talking about cars, might as well talk about sail boats...what - again - is the model of your son's??? Bro wants to know...he worships that shit 28292. Adam Selene - 4/27/2006 1:02:48 AM Ok, enough. Since the slow thread is, well, slow... let's move the car/economics discussion there. I won't move the past posts (yet,) but please continue there. I'll start. 28293. Adam Selene - 4/27/2006 1:19:44 AM Now that that nonrelavent topic is dispensed with...
I haven't read any philosophy here lately.
Anyone want to state their world view for critique and mockery herein?
I'll start.... secular objectivist. You figure it out. 28294. wonkers2 - 4/27/2006 2:16:26 AM Express 27. Here. 28295. Adam Selene - 4/27/2006 2:18:26 AM ok, sailing models goes to the Cafe. Ok? 28296. judithathome - 4/27/2006 2:26:45 AM Does anyone need more evidence that jexster doesn't read, but just pumps out posts? Is he a member of this forum in the true sense of the word?
Pelle, you are usually the first to carp about posts being off topic. Jex comes in and posts ON topic and still you carp...WTF?
28297. uzmakk - 4/27/2006 2:39:42 AM I AMEN only when the spirit moves me, my religious one. Yawn. 28298. uzmakk - 4/27/2006 2:46:07 AM Spare me, Judith. How are Jexster's deposits on topic? 28299. Adam Selene - 4/27/2006 2:47:26 AM Ok, posting about posters' intentions is not relevent here. Please take it to the Cafe. 28300. uzmakk - 4/27/2006 2:50:25 AM To Hell with the Cafe! Straight to the Inferno! 28301. judithathome - 4/27/2006 4:47:04 AM How are Jexster's deposits on topic?
Well, I thought this was the religion and philosophy thread, not the oil and gas and car thread...Jex posted some religious shit, did he not?
Although...now I think about it, I do sometimes feel an almost religious awe about my car.
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