The Trucker wrote:
> On Sat, 17 May 2008 02:30:44 -0400, Les Cargill wrote:
>
>> The Trucker wrote:
>>> In a tread entitled "BEFORE Trying To Simply Hike the Fuel Tax . . ."
>>> Day Brown <daybrown@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> ******************
>>> Now, in this case, I dont blame the oil outfits for not looking for
new
>>> sources of alternative energy. They know how to make money off oil,
and
>>> are not keen on some new technology to compete with it. Very well. Tax
>>> the bastards to motivate them. Profits are positive re-inforcement,
>>> taxes are negative re-inforcement. They both work.
>>> **********************
>>>
>>> The Taxation of oil company profits is in fact a tax on rent that will
not
>>> be passed to consumers. If the oil companies could get higher prices
they
>>> would already be doing it.
>> They haven't. Why did oil prices drop so precipitously after 1983?
>
> "Secrets of the Temple" was a good read for me. It did a good job of
> inadvertently describing the total gutting of the American economy by
Paul
> Volcker. As the economy went to hell in a hand basket, so too did the
oil
> consumption. At the same time the investments in oil development in
Mexico
> and South America started coming on line loosening the control of OPEC.
> We had yet another "oil glut".
>
I have not read that book, but my read on '83 is much simpler - Reagan
ostensibly agreed to oppose the Iran radicals wholesale, which gave
the various royal families enough to work with to take OPEC apart. There
had also been sufficient demand destruction by then to help make
the case.
>> Oil
>> companies themselves are largely gutted. They went from Silly Putty to
>> Enron.
>
> Good grief.
>
I met the guy who was named on the patent for Silly Putty. He was
a research scientist at Phillips Petroleum in Oklahoma.
The point is that we went from ... silly to nothing at all. There's
no there there at all anymore. In '68, Bartlesville had the highest
concentration of PhD's anywhere. It's gone now. Lots
of guys with bolo ties and flattops - Gene Krantz types
The cartoon "Venture Brothers" actually covers this movement, away
from technology, into tech being a whip hand instead of a hand up.
This is not because some elite stole it; *WE* rejected it as if
it were an organ transplant. See also T. Boone Pickens...
>>> And so long as the proceeds of the tax are
>>> disbursed to the general public it won't make any difference anyway.
>> Right. Once it's disbursed to everybody, it effectively
>> disappears.
>
> The objective in the esoteric economic academic sense is the
> redistribution of rent and the coercive power it creates. But that sort
> of talk is not going to get anywhere. Ya gotta stoop to politics. It
is
> nasty and messy, but it is the only way to get anywhere.
>
So it does nothing, but what can you do?
>>> So a
>>> 100% surtax on oil company profits in excess of X simply redistributed
as
>>> a quarterly "stimulus" in the same form as the present "stimulus" will
do
>>> very nicely.
>> You were doing pretty well up to that point. Best I can tell. Once it
>> becomes expected, it's background and it doesn't influence behavior
>> much anymore.
>
> I can't agree with that and won't agree with it. The price of gasoline
> will not have been actually affected by the redistribution. But CHOICE
as
> to what to do with the proceeds in the hands of rational individuals
will
> still CONSERVE gasoline. That is a market force and it will not be
denied.
>
>> As oil prices increase driving profits above X then the oil
>>> companies get the wrench. That is some serious motivation to help in
the
>>> effort to reduce the prices.
>>>
>> We've had twenty five years of reduced prices, at very high cost.
>
> We have had 30 years of enhanced rent privatization based on Hayekian
> horse****.
>
Hayek worked in Poland. Very well. We, you and I, have had 25 years of
advanced capitalist nihilism because once you developed something, not
one lone person was interested in it anymore.
This is what you object to - capitalist nihlism . Me too, me too.
Goshdarnit, you should *DO SOMETHING*, not simply let it play out
(not Truck, but the capitalo-nihilists).
There were two counterrotating Utopias, and they've apparently stopped.
>>> As the definition of X can become quite complicated, it is better to
>>> simply apply a lower tax rate to the entire profit. Say 50% so long as
>>> oil prices remain above $80 per barrel.
>>>
>>>
>> I have no doubt but what this will happen, and I can only consle myself
>> with the knowlege that I won't live long enough to see the end result.
>
> I think you are being overly dramatic and simply making a very big
mistake.
>
Probably. I really do despair of this. Nobody as done anything
significant on this front since I was quite young, and the curve
of it leads me to believe it will be mostly the same for a long
time.
This is what I mean. I am not self-destructive. I just see the
slope of this as quite shallow. This problem will well
outlive me.
>> *If* you can capture rent towards replacing oil, then it makes sense.
>> Only if. Anything else is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
>
> The plan is to use market forces to "replace oil". I don't see why this
> is a problem.
Nobody knows what "replace oil" means. I thin it means breeder reactors
in extraordinarily secure regions of the Nevada desert converting
immense quantities of excess biomass into oil-like products.
> The "fuel efficient" hybrids and the wind energy and all
> the rest is market forces. Very little of it is because of left winged
> moonbat-****. All I'm proposing is the castration of the overlords.
>
And all I am saying is that you know sweet FA about why the overlords
were here in the first place.
--
Les Cargill
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