View Full Version : QE2 Is the Right Fed Policy
Eric Stoner
02-01-2011, 10:55 AM
Actually it matters to buyers of non-hybrid Toyota products ... who wind up paying higher than necessary prices in order to subsidize 'shifted' Prius warrantee costs. It also matters to Japanese taxpayers whose tax money funds Toyota R&D credits provided by the Japanese gov't.
Lol. You mean like what the U.S. Government is doing with the $32,780 Nissan Leaf and $41,000 Chevy Volt ? Both of which qualify for a $7500 tax credit.
I'm going to cover the latest machinations in a separate thread.
Melonie
02-01-2011, 01:48 PM
^^^ don't forget the additional ~$5,000 tax credit available from some states in addition to the $7,500 federal tax credit !
eagle2
02-01-2011, 02:28 PM
Actually it matters to buyers of non-hybrid Toyota products ... who wind up paying higher than necessary prices in order to subsidize 'shifted' Prius warrantee costs. It also matters to Japanese taxpayers whose tax money funds Toyota R&D credits provided by the Japanese gov't.
As always, you're making stuff up without having the slightest idea of whether it's true or not. Automakers price cars based on the maximum amount consumers will pay for them. Toyota would charge the same price for their vehicles regardless of whether or not any of the profits were being used to subsidize the Prius, which they aren't.
eagle2
02-01-2011, 02:36 PM
I have read reports that the Prius is sold at a loss. Doesn't matter. Most Americans do NOT want one. AWD is nice but an SUV also gives you greater ground clearance , more power and greater torque. All useful to go in the snow.
Reports from when? Ten years ago? How do you know what most Americans want? Have you taken a poll? When gas was $4 a gallon, Americans were lining up to buy a Prius and paying above the sticker price for one.
Iran is selling their oil to China. How is our cutting consumption going to affect how much oil China inports from Iran ?
If we buy less oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, they will sell more to China. Again, there is one world market for oil.
Eric Stoner
02-02-2011, 10:46 AM
Reports from when? Ten years ago? How do you know what most Americans want? Have you taken a poll? When gas was $4 a gallon, Americans were lining up to buy a Prius and paying above the sticker price for one.
If we buy less oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, they will sell more to China. Again, there is one world market for oil.
I haven't done a poll, but the market has. The one real "poll" that counts. That matters. All one has to do is LOOK at what vehicles Americans are buying. And question how many Priuses they would buy WITHOUT the $7500 Federal bribe and the $5000 bribe offered by certain states.
You might be right about the present, but the FACT is that Toyota sold the Prius at a LOSS for years. It MIGHT be "profitable" on a year to year basis BUT there are a LOT of loss years to make up for. To date, it has not turned an overall profit i.e. returned a profit on the initial investment and operating losses in PAST years.
I knew if Mel and I kept at it long enough, you'd finally come around to our way of thinking about global markets. That's right , there is ONE (1, UNO !) global market for oil and a lot of other things. China will happily buy whatever oil we do not use. So will India and many other emerging market countries. Kinda puts a damper on the whole:" Solve Global Warming by Driving Less Strategy", don't it ?
Melonie
02-02-2011, 12:07 PM
^^^ also the repeated tidbit that Toyota internally subsidizes true costs of the Prius by shifting Prius related costs onto conventional gasoline powered car side of the house. The obvious major item in this regard is the 'warrantee cost' to Toyota of Prius battery replacement. At a reported $5,000 per battery pack, and with a reported recharge cycle life of somewhere around 5-7 years, Toyota would lose money on every Prius if this cost were internally charged to the Prius. But instead it is internally charged over Toyota's entire product line, essentially adding $200 or so in 'warrantee cost' to every conventional gasoline powered car ( that doesn't actually exist for those cars ). At the moment, tacking on an extra $150 to the price of a Toyota Corolla, or tacking on an extra $300 to the price of a Toyota 4Runner really doesn't raise customer eyebrows. However, as the percentage of Prius like vehicles goes up in the future, and the percentage of conventional gasoline powered vehicles goes down, it will be less easy to 'hide' this subsidy.
Eric Stoner
02-02-2011, 12:28 PM
Thank you Mel. I didn't know that but I'm not surprised.
eagle2
02-02-2011, 01:09 PM
^^^ also the repeated tidbit that Toyota internally subsidizes true costs of the Prius by shifting Prius related costs onto conventional gasoline powered car side of the house. The obvious major item in this regard is the 'warrantee cost' to Toyota of Prius battery replacement. At a reported $5,000 per battery pack, and with a reported recharge cycle life of somewhere around 5-7 years, Toyota would lose money on every Prius if this cost were internally charged to the Prius. But instead it is internally charged over Toyota's entire product line, essentially adding $200 or so in 'warrantee cost' to every conventional gasoline powered car ( that doesn't actually exist for those cars ). At the moment, tacking on an extra $150 to the price of a Toyota Corolla, or tacking on an extra $300 to the price of a Toyota 4Runner really doesn't raise customer eyebrows. However, as the percentage of Prius like vehicles goes up in the future, and the percentage of conventional gasoline powered vehicles goes down, it will be less easy to 'hide' this subsidy.
As always you're making stuff up without having the slightest idea of how true it is, and as always, the stuff you make up is far from reality. The battery packs used in the Prius are expected to last the life of the car. So far Toyota has not had to replace a single battery pack on the Prius due to malfunction or wearing out. There are Priuses that have traveled over 200,000 miles without needing their batteries replaced.
http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-batteries-none-the-worse-for-wear-cga.htm
Melonie
02-02-2011, 02:42 PM
horseS#it ! From
(snip)"At 3,900 miles, in the fall of 2004, the ICE shut down on my Prius. I drove it to the dealer on electric, and they flashed the ECU with new code, and told me it was all beter. After that, I noticed the car drove differently, and that the MPG was never quite as high. I concluded that it was the new software to blame, and there was nothing I could do about it. Over the next two years the car continued to behave reasonably well, but would suffer sometimes in the heat. It would get sluggish, the battery would drop to one bar ( normally six, with a high of 8 ) and I would hear the battery cooling fan running. This would cause the MPG's to drop into the high 30's. I assumed it was the heat because it was only there in the summer. I had the dealer check it out in 2005 and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Two months ago, the car really started giving me trouble, MPG's in the 30's all the time (even a whole tank at 38!), one bar on the battery, and the cooling fan running to cool the battery pack even when the interior of the car wasn't hot. I brought it to the dealer, who couldn't find anything wrong with it. I insisted that they keep checking. Finally, they concluded that I needed a new battery. I was shocked. 20,000 owners on PriusChat.com, and not one has needed a battery.
Then the bombshell: Toyota corporate denied the warranty claim because I had added the "EV" button from Japan which gave you about a mile of all-electric operation. They claimed this damaged the battery, even though they supply this button in Japan and Europe!
(snip)"The District Tech asked the Dealer tech to check for one, then declared the warranty void, then flagged my VIN so I couldn't take it to another dealer."(snip)
(snip) Anyway, I proceded to appeal my case with Toyota corporate, explaining that the trouble started at 3900 miles, through no fault of my own, and they finally came back and agreed to buy me the $4500 battery if I would take out the $40 button. I did, and finally got new battery today."(snip)
eagle2
02-02-2011, 03:10 PM
In the above case, the owner modified his vehicle. Even if there are a few isolated cases where Toyota does need to replace batteries, the cost is insignificant relative to the hundreds of thousands of Priuses sold. As your post says, "20,000 owners on PriusChat.com, and not one has needed a battery".
Zofia
02-02-2011, 04:09 PM
I have to say, I like my Ford Escape Hybrid. I am getting 35 MPG in the city, with the airconditioning off. On the highway, again A/C off I got 35 MPG on a trip through the mountains. (About half mountain and half relatively flat land.) I love the Ipod jack. I plug my Iphone in and run my music through the sound system while my little girl has her own video system in the back. The price seemed about right, sticker was $34K, I paid $32 and sold my VW myself for $12K.
HTH
Z
eagle2
02-02-2011, 07:46 PM
I haven't done a poll, but the market has. The one real "poll" that counts. That matters. All one has to do is LOOK at what vehicles Americans are buying. And question how many Priuses they would buy WITHOUT the $7500 Federal bribe and the $5000 bribe offered by certain states.
There isn't a $7500 "bribe" for buying a Prius. The $7500 tax credit is for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. Of course in your mind, it's better to keep enriching Iran and other Islamic extremists than it is to go against your ideology.
You might be right about the present, but the FACT is that Toyota sold the Prius at a LOSS for years. It MIGHT be "profitable" on a year to year basis BUT there are a LOT of loss years to make up for. To date, it has not turned an overall profit i.e. returned a profit on the initial investment and operating losses in PAST years.
How do you know? Toyota has not just used the hybrid technology they developed for the Prius. It is also being used on other Toyota and Lexus vehicles and in addition, the technology was sold to Ford to use for their Escape SUV. The hybrid technology has been so successful that by 2020, Toyota expects to use it on all of their vehicles. The whole basis for your and Melonie's criticism is that it goes against your ideology.
I knew if Mel and I kept at it long enough, you'd finally come around to our way of thinking about global markets. That's right , there is ONE (1, UNO !) global market for oil and a lot of other things. China will happily buy whatever oil we do not use. So will India and many other emerging market countries. Kinda puts a damper on the whole:" Solve Global Warming by Driving Less Strategy", don't it ?
You don't understand there is one global market because you don't understand that by reducing our use of oil, Iran will sell less oil. China and India will not buy whatever oil we do not use. Right now the supply of oil exceeds the demand. If the US reduces our use of oil, it doesn't mean that China or India will somehow use more. If the US buys less oil from Canada and Mexico, China will buy oil from them instead of Iran, not in addition to what they're buying already. China and other countries have no problem buying all the oil they need at market prices.
Melonie
02-03-2011, 03:02 AM
There isn't a $7500 "bribe" for buying a Prius. The $7500 tax credit is for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. Of course in your mind, it's better to keep enriching Iran and other Islamic extremists than it is to go against your ideology.
In the above case, the owner modified his vehicle.
Yes ... the addition of the EV button ( which is factory equipment on Priuses sold in Europe and Asia ) makes the Prius qualify for the electric vehicle credit !!!! One hell of a good investment, isn't it ... $250 in installation costs in exchange for up to $12,500 in tax credits ?
My point about the battery replacement is that, unlike conventional gasoline vehicles, the complex and very specialized electrics and electronics of a Prius ( or Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt etc. ) essentially forces the vehicle buyer to remain 'married' to car dealer service / warrantee coverage. As such, we really have no way of knowing how many battery replacements or other warrantee repairs are actually taking place. The tongue in cheek comment by the battery replacement poster was in regard to the strong possibility that Prius owners are afraid to discuss their displeasures in a public forum for fear of similarly being denied warrantee coverage by Toyota for 'trumped up' reasons.
Of course I would also point out that, of the total number of Priuses sold in the US ( beginning in 2003 in any sort of volume ), the number that are now approaching the battery's useful cycle life is still miniscule. Additionally, as a quid-pro-quo for state tax credits, Toyota agreed to 10 year warrantee coverage. Thus like the old maxim of driving through a cheap housing development and seeing a dead water heater in front of every house on the block, Toyota's warrantee costs re battery replacement are about to explode upwards.
Circling back on topic, the whole point of QE2 is for the FED to print up additional dollars out of thin air that the gov't can then spend as IT chooses. Tax credits for hybrid / electric vehicles are just one of many gov't choices. As pointed out earlier, gov't spending on hybrid / electric vehicle tax credits tend to selectively benefit the typically 'rich' buyers of such vehicles, as well as selectively benefitting the auto manufacturers that produce them ( with the largest beneficiary soon to be GM ). However, the burden of inflated price levels on everything priced in US dollars falls on the poor, middle class, and 'rich' alike. And the future debt burden of QE2 bond repayments will fall primarily on the middle class.
~
Eric Stoner
02-03-2011, 08:35 AM
There isn't a $7500 "bribe" for buying a Prius. The $7500 tax credit is for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. Of course in your mind, it's better to keep enriching Iran and other Islamic extremists than it is to go against your ideology.
How do you know? Toyota has not just used the hybrid technology they developed for the Prius. It is also being used on other Toyota and Lexus vehicles and in addition, the technology was sold to Ford to use for their Escape SUV. The hybrid technology has been so successful that by 2020, Toyota expects to use it on all of their vehicles. The whole basis for your and Melonie's criticism is that it goes against your ideology.
You don't understand there is one global market because you don't understand that by reducing our use of oil, Iran will sell less oil. China and India will not buy whatever oil we do not use. Right now the supply of oil exceeds the demand. If the US reduces our use of oil, it doesn't mean that China or India will somehow use more. If the US buys less oil from Canada and Mexico, China will buy oil from them instead of Iran, not in addition to what they're buying already. China and other countries have no problem buying all the oil they need at market prices.
Except for GE under Jeff Immeldt, who has been enriching Iran ? Not the U.S. It HAS been the Chinese and the Russians. I'm sorry but I fail to see how incentivizing ( I hope you like that better than using the word "Bribe" ) people to buy hybrids and electric cars is going to hurt Iran in the pocketbook. The electricity used has to come from somewhere. For right now, it probably means burning more coal. "Clean coal " is a crock. It's nothing more than a PR stunt from coal companies and coal producing states. The technology extant makes it far from cost effective. What we CAN do is burn clean-ER forms of coal like anthracite over bituminous but it's still a relatively "dirty" fuel. My "ideology" has nothing to do with it.
Toyota did NOT just wake up one day and start installing electric and hybrid technology in its cars. I'm sure you'd agree that R & D costs have to be recouped somewhere along the line for a product to be profitable. It was also well documented that Toyota was selling the Prius at a LOSS for several years. Part of the reason was that its actual cost made it totally non-competitive. Over the years, Toyota has been able to refine the product and its procedures to lower the cost somewhat but it still has to sell lots of cars to A. recoup its R & D and B. make up for years of selling it at a loss. These are FACTS , totally apart from my "ideology".
If you are right, then the price of oil will decline which will do what to consumption ?
Melonie
02-03-2011, 10:21 AM
^^^ actually, in California at least, the electricity used to supply an increasing number of electric vehicles will come from new GE gas turbines ... which were just granted a 'waiver' from complying with new EPA emissions requirements by the White House. See 'Welfare Companies #3" thread !
As to coal fired power plants, new EPA emissions requirements will essentially render them uneconomical due to the capital costs associated with 'last decimal point' fume scrubbing and carbon entrapment hardware. So we'll see no new or expanded coal fired power plants - but will probably see many existing coal fired power plants shutting down operations as state and EPA mandated carbon reduction requirements can't be met economically.
eagle2
02-03-2011, 08:54 PM
Of course I would also point out that, of the total number of Priuses sold in the US ( beginning in 2003 in any sort of volume ), the number that are now approaching the battery's useful cycle life is still miniscule. Additionally, as a quid-pro-quo for state tax credits, Toyota agreed to 10 year warrantee coverage. Thus like the old maxim of driving through a cheap housing development and seeing a dead water heater in front of every house on the block, Toyota's warrantee costs re battery replacement are about to explode upwards.
You don't know that. You don't have the slightest bit of proof that any significant number of Priuses will need any batteries replaced. Your argument is based entirely on your ideology. It has nothing to do with facts.
Circling back on topic, the whole point of QE2 is for the FED to print up additional dollars out of thin air that the gov't can then spend as IT chooses. Tax credits for hybrid / electric vehicles are just one of many gov't choices. As pointed out earlier, gov't spending on hybrid / electric vehicle tax credits tend to selectively benefit the typically 'rich' buyers of such vehicles, as well as selectively benefitting the auto manufacturers that produce them ( with the largest beneficiary soon to be GM ). However, the burden of inflated price levels on everything priced in US dollars falls on the poor, middle class, and 'rich' alike. And the future debt burden of QE2 bond repayments will fall primarily on the middle class.
~
Poor and middle class people will greatly benefit from having vehicles that use far less fuel, especially those with long commutes. You can probably buy a used Prius or Insight for less than 10k. An adult entertainer that travels to a club 50-60 miles a way would save lots of money on her fuel costs if she bought a hybrid. Making our vehicles more fuel efficient will strengthen our economy and weaken the economy of our enemies.
There are numerous products available today that wouldn't be available if government hadn't funded the initial research, because it would have been to costly for the private sector to fund on its own. If our government didn't fund our space program, there would be no satellites. Without government funding of DARPA, there would be no internet. If our government didn't fund the development of jet engines, there would be no jet airliners.
eagle2
02-03-2011, 09:25 PM
Except for GE under Jeff Immeldt, who has been enriching Iran ? Not the U.S. It HAS been the Chinese and the Russians. I'm sorry but I fail to see how incentivizing ( I hope you like that better than using the word "Bribe" ) people to buy hybrids and electric cars is going to hurt Iran in the pocketbook.
The average mpg of cars in America is in the low 20's. If everyone were to buy a hybrid car or SUV averaging 40 mpg, we could greatly decrease our use of gas. Right now, the US uses about 25% of oil produced in the world. If we could reduce our use by 40-50 percent, it would cause a dramatic decrease in the price oil producing countries could sell oil for. That's what happened in the 80's. From 1975 - 1985, the average mpg of vehicles sold in the US increased from around 14 to 27. As a result of this, the price of oil fell greatly.
The electricity used has to come from somewhere. For right now, it probably means burning more coal. "Clean coal " is a crock. It's nothing more than a PR stunt from coal companies and coal producing states. The technology extant makes it far from cost effective. What we CAN do is burn clean-ER forms of coal like anthracite over bituminous but it's still a relatively "dirty" fuel. My "ideology" has nothing to do with it.
I agree "clean coal" is a crock. There's been huge amounts of natural gas deposits discovered in the US in the past few years. I'm also in favor of building a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. We can easily replace a significant number of our coal plants with natural gas plants. We are also starting to build nuclear power plants again. Wind and solar power are going down in price. I think Texas is already getting 7-8% of their electricity from wind.
Even if we just started increasing our use of conventional hybrids without plug-ins, we could significantly reduce our use of gasoline.
Toyota did NOT just wake up one day and start installing electric and hybrid technology in its cars. I'm sure you'd agree that R & D costs have to be recouped somewhere along the line for a product to be profitable. It was also well documented that Toyota was selling the Prius at a LOSS for several years. Part of the reason was that its actual cost made it totally non-competitive. Over the years, Toyota has been able to refine the product and its procedures to lower the cost somewhat but it still has to sell lots of cars to A. recoup its R & D and B. make up for years of selling it at a loss. These are FACTS , totally apart from my "ideology".
Yes, Toyota was selling the Prius at a loss for a time, but they have been able to significantly reduce the cost of the technology over the past 10 years. If Toyota sells millions of hybrids over the next decade, which they are planning to do, they will recoup their cost and more. The price of gasoline will in all likelihood, increase over the next 10 years. If that's the case, gas mileage will become an important factor again when consumers buy cars, and Toyota stands to benefit greatly from the money they spend on hybrid research and development.
If you are right, then the price of oil will decline which will do what to consumption ?
Which is why we should increase the tax on gasoline. If we were to put an additional $2 a gallon tax on gasoline, bringing the price up to approximately $5 a gallon, and Americans were to buy cars that get twice the gas mileage of an average car today, which is possible with current technology, Americans would be spending less money on gasoline at $5 a gallon than they currently are at $3 a gallon.
Melonie
02-04-2011, 03:37 AM
You don't have the slightest bit of proof that any significant number of Priuses will need any batteries replaced.
Well, let's see ... Prius battery designed with an 8 year life. First volume sales of Prius taking place in 2003. This is 2011. Yup, pure ideology there !
Which is why we should increase the tax on gasoline. If we were to put an additional $2 a gallon tax on gasoline, bringing the price up to approximately $5 a gallon, and Americans were to buy cars that get twice the gas mileage of an average car today, which is possible with current technology, Americans would be spending less money on gasoline at $5 a gallon than they currently are at $3 a gallon.
Actually, there is no basis for such a claim. The first question of course is road tax reaction. If the gov'ts costs of road maintenance presently financed by gasoline road tax are rising, while the volume of gasoline sold gets cut in half, the lost revenues will need to be made up by other means. Granted that the actual result may be that these lost road tax revenues are made up for by a decoupling from driving i.e. via an increased state income tax. However, the tax revenue dollars will still need to come from someware
The second question is economy of scale. Where domestically sold gasoline is concerned, the marginal break-even point for oil importers and oil refiners is volume sensitive. If California cars only consume half as much 'boutique' additive blend gasoline in the future as they currently are thanks to your doubling of average gas mileage, the production cost of lower volume batches is going to go up and with it the local retail price.
Hopper
02-04-2011, 04:36 AM
While we are on a tangent about fuel-saving cars, I want to point out that, although fuel efficiency increases are a good thing, EVs and hybrids are not the best way to lower fuel consumption. Therefore, while it is important to criticize the claims made for them, it is a non-argument in terms of fuel consumption and emissions.
What would lower fuel consumption (and vehicle emissions) the most is elimination (or significant reduction) of road traffic congestion at times of peak use. The "sustainable development" fraudsters say it can't be done other than by everybody switching to public transport, which relatively very few people choose to do no matter what incentives and penalties are applied to encourage (coerce) them to do so.
But here is one way it can be done. Abolish the gas taxes and vehicle registration fees or road tax and replace them with tolls on all major roads. The tolls pay for the roads instead of the taxes. They are not additional costs on top of what motorists already pay toward building and maintaining roads. With today's technology electronic tolling is possible, so stopping at toll booths (which greatly slows traffic) is not necessary.
Everybody pays the same fuel and road taxes regardless of how much they use a given road. If tolls are used instead, they pay according to how frequently they use that road. That is, the users of all roads pay for those roads. The tolls would be raised or lowered according to how frequently they are used by all motorists, i.e. they would be priced according to the demand at any given time. As with all other things, the price would regulate how often people pay to use the roads so that congestion (too great a demand on the available supply) would not occur.
When everyone pays the same amount for all roads regardless of how often (or whether at all) they use them all, there is no reason for motorists not to use any given road except congestion, therefore some degree of congestion persists. If people pay according to the demand on roads they use, prices can prohibit all but those who must use them from doing so. Prices of roads becomes a factor in everybody deciding where they live, work, shop etc.
This is an instance of how an unfree market controls consumption with queues while a free market controls consumption with prices.
Tolling roads is no worse a solution than the plan being discussed by governments of discouraging all car use with taxes and other financial penalties on vehicle use and the planning of roads and development to restrict car use. One way or another, our travel choices are going to be controlled, and the free market method (as always) is the fairest and most effective.
The savings in time and fuel use due to elimination of congestion would also justify the cost of the tolls. A faster trip takes less time and therefore requires less fuel. For any given travel distance, cars sitting in stop-and-go traffic use more fuel than cars moving at speed and they also produce less emissions for that trip.
eagle2
02-04-2011, 09:31 AM
Well, let's see ... Prius battery designed with an 8 year life. First volume sales of Prius taking place in 2003. This is 2011. Yup, pure ideology there !
It is based on ideology. You always seem to be critical of any action that will improve the environment. The Prius' batteries were designed to last the life of the car, not 8 years. The Prius went into production in December 1997. There are more than 100,000 Priuses that were produced over 8 years ago and 50,000 that were produced over 10 years ago. That's more than enough to know if a significant number will be needing their batteries replaced after 8 years. In addition, the technology has improved since the Prius first came out.
Actually, there is no basis for such a claim. The first question of course is road tax reaction. If the gov'ts costs of road maintenance presently financed by gasoline road tax are rising, while the volume of gasoline sold gets cut in half, the lost revenues will need to be made up by other means. Granted that the actual result may be that these lost road tax revenues are made up for by a decoupling from driving i.e. via an increased state income tax. However, the tax revenue dollars will still need to come from someware
Increasing the gasoline tax by $2 will more than double the tax revenue from each gallon of gas. If the volume of gas sold gets cut in half, the tax revenue would still be greater than it is today with the current tax on gasoline.
The second question is economy of scale. Where domestically sold gasoline is concerned, the marginal break-even point for oil importers and oil refiners is volume sensitive. If California cars only consume half as much 'boutique' additive blend gasoline in the future as they currently are thanks to your doubling of average gas mileage, the production cost of lower volume batches is going to go up and with it the local retail price.
If our demand for gasoline were cut in half, the price of oil would fall significantly.
Melonie
02-04-2011, 11:36 AM
If our demand for gasoline were cut in half, the price of oil would fall significantly.
Again a totally unfounded claim. To circle back on topic, the world market price of oil as denominated in US dollars is just as much affected by QE2 money printing and resulting devaluation of the US dollar as it is by changes in world oil supply / demand dynamics. Also, if US demand for gasoline were to actually be cut in half via electric vehicles, unless new nuclear or coal fired power plants are allowed to be built to charge those electric vehicles you're talking about a gasoline versus natural gas fuel swap not a pure reduction. And even if there were to be a pure reduction, the impact on world oil supply / demand dynamics would be strongly offset by rapidly growing gasoline consumption in China, India and other 'developing' countries.
Hopper
02-05-2011, 06:27 AM
It is based on ideology. You always seem to be critical of any action that will improve the environment.
Seems to me Melonie is only criticizing actions which improve the environment at unjustified expense - and profits. That's nothing to do with ideology.
Melonie
02-05-2011, 08:41 AM
Seems to me Melonie is only criticizing actions which improve the environment at unjustified expense - and profits. That's nothing to do with ideology.
... or even worse, actions which only improve the environment on a very localized basis at unjustified expense ... but which actually lead to the creation of LARGER environmental consequences on a global level ... because they cause the demise of reasonably environmentally responsible US industrial facilities / coal fired power plants / rare earth mines and refineries etc., which in turn are replaced with far less environmentally responsible facilities in Mexico or China. Obviously the drivers of hybrid / electric cars never see the environmental devastation taking place on the other side of the world in order to produce their rare earth electric motors and 'affordable' battery packs ! Similarly, the EPA officials must not see the carbon and pollutant emissions from ( unscrubbed ) Mexican coal fired power plants that are currently keeping the lights on in Texas, while Texas coal fired power plants are shut down because their scrubbers can't operate at EPA mandated efficiency levels in below freezing temperatures !
IMHO this is highly expensive hypocrisy at best, and counter-productive self-delusion at worst. And as noted in the GE thread, the latest example of this sort of policy was the recent granting of an 'exemption' from EPA carbon / pollutant limits for a new California power plant utilizing GE turbine generators whose emissions cannot meet the new EPA limits. This goes a step beyond the above irrationality of importing 'dirty' power from Mexico rather than temporarily waiving EPA limits for Texas power plants ( which would have avoided the Mexican power imports and rolling blackouts ) , and enters the realm of 'selective law enforcement' based on 'crony capitalism'.
And what do you know ... GE and 'crony capitalism' almost brings us back to the original topic of this thread i.e. QE2 money printing !
~
eagle2
02-05-2011, 11:50 AM
Seems to me Melonie is only criticizing actions which improve the environment at unjustified expense - and profits. That's nothing to do with ideology.
She's criticizing a private company's decision to develop high-mileage hybrid vehicles and offer warranties on the batteries, and she's criticizing a private company's decision to decide how much they want to charge for their vehicles. All of her criticisms are stuff she made up based on her ideology and her opposition to doing anything to improve the environment, rather than any facts. She has no proof that Toyota is going to need to replace any significant number of batteries for the Prius, or that Toyota is charging extra money on their vehicles to pay for the Prius. She just makes this stuff up because she doesn't like the fact that Toyota is doing something to improve the environment.
Hopper
02-05-2011, 06:26 PM
... or even worse, actions which only improve the environment on a very localized basis at unjustified expense ... but which actually lead to the creation of LARGER environmental consequences on a global level ... because they cause the demise of reasonably environmentally responsible US industrial facilities / coal fired power plants / rare earth mines and refineries etc., which in turn are replaced with far less environmentally responsible facilities in Mexico or China. Obviously the drivers of hybrid / electric cars never see the environmental devastation taking place on the other side of the world in order to produce their rare earth electric motors and 'affordable' battery packs ! Similarly, the EPA officials must not see the carbon and pollutant emissions from ( unscrubbed ) Mexican coal fired power plants that are currently keeping the lights on in Texas, while Texas coal fired power plants are shut down because their scrubbers can't operate at EPA mandated efficiency levels in below freezing temperatures !
IMHO this is highly expensive hypocrisy at best, and counter-productive self-delusion at worst. And as noted in the GE thread, the latest example of this sort of policy was the recent granting of an 'exemption' from EPA carbon / pollutant limits for a new California power plant utilizing GE turbine generators whose emissions cannot meet the new EPA limits. This goes a step beyond the above irrationality of importing 'dirty' power from Mexico rather than temporarily waiving EPA limits for Texas power plants ( which would have avoided the Mexican power imports and rolling blackouts ) , and enters the realm of 'selective law enforcement' based on 'crony capitalism'.
And what do you know ... GE and 'crony capitalism' almost brings us back to the original topic of this thread i.e. QE2 money printing !
~
Yes - they are not even improving the environment, so eagle2 is wrong to think that that is what you are opposing.
"Crony capitalism" is cooperation between big government and big business, which I assume is what you mean by it's relation to "selective law enforcement". The capitalist "cronies" wouldn't be able to achieve dominance in a free market - they need government assistance, for which there must be interventionist government power.
Therefore I don't believe it is "at worst" self-delusion. They know exactly what they are doing and why. They are not acting out of stupidity or being irrational, they are just acting in their own interests instead of those of other Americans, which conflict with their own. It is stupid and irrational in terms of serving the interests of all Americans, but that is not their aim. They are not even loyal to America - America's interests are not theirs. Therefore it suits them fine for Mexico to be supplying power to Texas or favoring foreign manufacturing industries by imposing environmental legislation at home (where, as you pointed out, industry would be "cleaner" than the foreign manufacturers even without that legislation). A strong and self-reliant economy and society are harder to dominate politically and financially.
Perhaps you already knew all that; it's just that I don't see it baldly stated enough. Perhaps you were just presenting it from the POV of the interests of all Americans; but the "stupidity" theory many people subscribe to is too lenient in cases like this.
eagle2
02-05-2011, 08:52 PM
Yes - they are not even improving the environment, so eagle2 is wrong to think that that is what you are opposing.
Environmental regulations have greatly improved the environment. Melonie just makes stuff up in opposition to these regulations, just because it's against her ideology. Notice how she never provides any statistics or evidence to support the stuff she makes up. She doesn't have the slightest idea if any of it is true. She just makes assumptions based on her ideology, and most of the time her assumptions are wrong. I'll bet that in the northern US, there are plenty of coal-powered plants that can meet EPA regulations and operate in freezing weather, but Melonie would rather blame the EPA than the Texas utilities, for not building power plants that can operate in freezing weather. She also doesn't know the source of electricity for Mexico's power plants. The main source for power in Mexico is natural gas, not coal. Even if Texas was temporarily getting electricity from dirty coal plants in Mexico, it would only be for a couple of weeks. Melonie is basically saying that we should let Texas greatly increase the amount of pollution it's power plants are emitting for 49-50 weeks a years, so Mexican power plants emit less pollution for a few weeks. It's very obvious that the EPA regulations make us better off.
I don't even see why Melonie cares what goes on in the US, since she no longer lives here. I do live in the US and I want to breathe clean air, not polluted air, so I am going to continue to support and vote for politicians who are in favor of cleaner air and less pollution in the US.
Hopper
02-05-2011, 11:00 PM
She's criticizing a private company's decision to develop high-mileage hybrid vehicles and offer warranties on the batteries, and she's criticizing a private company's decision to decide how much they want to charge for their vehicles. All of her criticisms are stuff she made up based on her ideology and her opposition to doing anything to improve the environment, rather than any facts. She has no proof that Toyota is going to need to replace any significant number of batteries for the Prius, or that Toyota is charging extra money on their vehicles to pay for the Prius. She just makes this stuff up because she doesn't like the fact that Toyota is doing something to improve the environment.
Melonie's "ideology" is free market, so it wouldn't make sense for her to criticize a private company for making whatever they wish and charging whatever they wish. But that is not what they are doing. The government is subsidizing these companies, which indicates that the car is not a viable product at the price they would have to charge without subsidization. Melonie is criticizing the subsidization of these cars and pointing out that they are not even improving the environment and that therefore the subsidization is not even justified on that basis. Therefore her criticism is not based on opposition to improving the environment, since she is showing that that is not happening.
The subsidies would not be justified even if they did improve the environment, because all subsidization is, is taking money from taxpayers and then returning that to the taxpayers (those who buy the cars) in the form of lower prices, which means the prices are not really lower. The only people who benefit are the owners of the company being subsidized, since the lower prices allow them to compete unevenly with other companies, which is unfair.
If the cars really were improving the environment, then car buyers should be left to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to pay more to improve the environment by buying those cars. They effectively pay the same whether from their own pockets or from a government subsidy paid with money confiscated from them the second they earned it. The government should not decide for them by diverting money to the company. The government is supposed to follow the wishes of the people, and if many people, like yourself, do want to improve the environment, then government coercion should not be necessary. Others, like Melonie, who disagree for whatever reason should be free not to spend the extra money. That's what keeps companies honest: everybody using their own judgment and voting with their feet; not some government bureaucrat deciding for everybody in his own interests.
Raising the price of another car line to lower the sake price of a more costly one, however, is the company's rightful choice. But Melonie is still right to criticize this if she believes that the claimed benefits of the car are not real. She is doing nothing more than any shrewd car buyer should do. That kind of criticism is also necessary. As for Melonie not giving proof of "price shifting" between lines, if the company does make a loss on the hybrid car line, they have to make up for that loss with prices of the other lines. And she has apparently shown that they are losing money on the hybrid lines.
eagle2
02-06-2011, 02:00 AM
Melonie's "ideology" is free market, so it wouldn't make sense for her to criticize a private company for making whatever they wish and charging whatever they wish. But that is not what they are doing. The government is subsidizing these companies, which indicates that the car is not a viable product at the price they would have to charge without subsidization. Melonie is criticizing the subsidization of these cars and pointing out that they are not even improving the environment and that therefore the subsidization is not even justified on that basis. Therefore her criticism is not based on opposition to improving the environment, since she is showing that that is not happening.
Her ideology isn't free market because she's criticizing Toyota for even building the Prius. The Prius is a viable product because Toyota has sold a significant number of them without subsidies.
The subsidies would not be justified even if they did improve the environment, because all subsidization is, is taking money from taxpayers and then returning that to the taxpayers (those who buy the cars) in the form of lower prices, which means the prices are not really lower. The only people who benefit are the owners of the company being subsidized, since the lower prices allow them to compete unevenly with other companies, which is unfair.
No, everyone benefits because they breathe cleaner air. What the government should be doing is placing taxes on vehicles based on how much pollution they give off, but I doubt Congress would be willing to do that.
If the cars really were improving the environment, then car buyers should be left to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to pay more to improve the environment by buying those cars. They effectively pay the same whether from their own pockets or from a government subsidy paid with money confiscated from them the second they earned it. The government should not decide for them by diverting money to the company. The government is supposed to follow the wishes of the people, and if many people, like yourself, do want to improve the environment, then government coercion should not be necessary. Others, like Melonie, who disagree for whatever reason should be free not to spend the extra money. That's what keeps companies honest: everybody using their own judgment and voting with their feet; not some government bureaucrat deciding for everybody in his own interests.
No, one person's freedom should stop when it harms someone else. If someone uses a vehicle that gives off lots of pollution, they're not just harming themselves, they're harming other people.
Raising the price of another car line to lower the sake price of a more costly one, however, is the company's rightful choice. But Melonie is still right to criticize this if she believes that the claimed benefits of the car are not real. She is doing nothing more than any shrewd car buyer should do. That kind of criticism is also necessary. As for Melonie not giving proof of "price shifting" between lines, if the company does make a loss on the hybrid car line, they have to make up for that loss with prices of the other lines. And she has apparently shown that they are losing money on the hybrid lines.
Toyota isn't raising the price of one car line to lower the price of another line. Melonie just made that up as an excuse to criticize the Prius. Cars are priced on their market value, not how much it cost to build them. If it costs Toyota $15,000 to build a Corolla and they can sell it for $17,000, that is what they're going to sell it for, regardless of whether a few hundred dollars is going towards R&D or to temporarily subsidize a new technology. Toyota's executives didn't meet in some conference room and decide they're going to start selling the Corolla for $17,000 instead of $16,700 so they could use $300 from each Corolla to subsidize the Prius and pay for its battery replacements. If people are willing to pay $17,000 for the Corolla in the numbers Toyota plans to produce them, that is what Toyota is going to sell them for. If some of the cars Toyota produces cost more to build than Toyota can sell them for, then the difference comes out of Toyota's profit.
Melonie
02-06-2011, 03:29 AM
just to put this matter of Prius 'subsidies' in realistic perspective ...
(snip)"Chrysler Vice Chairman Jim Press said Wednesday that he "in no way" meant to suggest the Japanese government improperly subsidized development of batteries for Toyota's popular Prius hybrid.
He was trying to quell a controversy that began after Toyota Motor on Wednesday vigorously rejected a comment attributed to Press in a BusinessWeek report published March 24: "The Japanese government paid for 100% of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius."(snip)
(snip)"If the Japanese government directly subsidized Toyota's hybrid work, that could violate international trade regulations. U.S. automakers have long been suspicious of overly close collaboration between Japan's automakers and its government, so the BusinessWeek quote appeared to confirm those suspicions.
The comment quoted in the magazine also would contradict Press' answer at a congressional hearing a year ago. Then head of Toyota's U.S. operations, he said, "No, sir," when asked if the government had paid for Toyota's hybrid development, and, "Yes, sir," when asked if Toyota had paid for it all."(snip)
from
Or put another way, from a political policy standpoint, neither the Japanese gov't nor the US gov't can acknowledge the existance of huge gov't subsidies for the Prius. From the US side, officially acknowledging such subsidies would have led to a potential ban on Prius imports into the USA due to 'anti-dumping' trade regulations. Pre-bailout Chrysler was getting fairly close to 'making a scene' in this regard, viewing it as 'unfair competition' in times of severe company economic distress ... a potential problem which conveniently disappeared as a result of the Government Motors bailout of Chrysler. Obviously, continued import of Priuses was in the interest of US gov't policy, as well as Japanese gov't policy, and of course Toyota stockholders / investors.
No, everyone benefits because they breathe cleaner air.
air quality in China, Mexico, and the 'developing' countries isn't getting any cleaner ! But yes the air gets marginally cleaner in California thanks to the sale of a few thousand Priuses ... at least to the point where the trade winds blow back more air pollution generated in China than the air pollution reduction of the Prius exhaust pipes !
(snip)"Beijng (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Fumes and dust from industrial factories, coal-powered energy plants and privately owned cars in China are crossing the ocean and polluting the air in the United States. If drastic intervention is not taken, the situation will deteriorate rapidly and affect the entire globe.
The consequences of the country's rapid economic development do not only pollute China: thousands of km away, across the ocean, on some days, nearly 25% of polluting matter above Los Angeles can be traced to Asia, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Scientists have confirmed that the pollution is carried by air currents and they fear that China could one day account for a third of all California's air pollution.
Ozone, carbon monoxide, mercury and polluting matter from Asia have been detected on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state, says Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.
"So far, pollution has spread in the air around the world," Professor Jaffe said. "There is no place you can put away your pollution any more."
Dr Cliff, a research engineer at the University of California, Davis, said: "From the expansion of China [with higher consumption of fossil fuels and more use of vehicles and private consumption], we're going to see increased pollution", and this will damage the climate too."(snip)
from
I don't even see why Melonie cares what goes on in the US, since she no longer lives here.
Well I'm still paying US / NY taxes even though I no longer officially reside there !!! At any rate, I obviously have family and friends in NY and would like to be able to visit more than 35 days per year without being charged tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes for the privelege. The embedded tax credit costs for hybrid / electric vehicles is just one more factor that keeps exerting upward pressure on my US tax rates ! Again I wouldn't mind paying for those tax credit costs for hybrid / electric vehicles if the money were actually being used to achieve the stated objective. But the main uses for the money have actually been to provide very localized marginal improvements in air quality ( i.e. southern California, metro NYC area ) at the expense of degraded air quality in Asia, and increased profits / market segment domination by 'crony capitalist' companies in both the US and Japan !
And again I'll try to use the point of 'crony capitalist' companies plus gov't policy driven spending on hybrid / electric vehicle subsidies to circle back towards a more generalized discussion of QE2 money printing !!!
~
eagle2
02-06-2011, 03:13 PM
Again you're making up, and the stuff you make up is very far removed from the facts.
But yes the air gets marginally cleaner in California thanks to the sale of a few thousand Priuses ... at least to the point where the trade winds blow back more air pollution generated in China than the air pollution reduction of the Prius exhaust pipes !
Toyota has sold close to a million Priuses in North America, not just a few thousand. You have no proof that any additional pollution is created in China as a result of the Prius. Since you're trying to claim there is, lets see you support your claim with facts and figures for once, instead of just making things up. Most of the estimates I've seen for the Prius, show it reducing pollution by about 70% compared to an average vehicle.
From:
http://www.velocityjournal.com/journal/2010/toyota/17860/releases/1239.html
"The new Prius produces over 70 percent fewer smog-forming emissions than the average new vehicle. "
That means a Prius gives off less than one third the pollution of an average vehicle. You seem to claim the pollution involved in producing the Prius is greater than the pollution reduction from driving a Prius. A Prius could probably last for 15 years or more if it is maintained properly. Please provide your figures showing that in the few hours it takes to produce a Prius from start to finish, more than three times as much pollution is given off from producing one vehicle, than that vehicle would give off during it's entire life. Please show specific numbers along with links and references, instead of just making stuff up for once.
Well I'm still paying US / NY taxes even though I no longer officially reside there !!! At any rate, I obviously have family and friends in NY and would like to be able to visit more than 35 days per year without being charged tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes for the privelege.
I doubt you would be paying tens of thousands of dollars more in taxes if you were living in the US, especially if you were to move to a state with no income tax, where you could visit your friends and family as often as you wanted.
I don't know your income sources, but since you seem to be retired and not working, I would guess most of your income comes from investments. If your investment income is coming from long-term capital gains or dividends, you would be paying a tax rate of 15% on your income. If your income is $200K, you would be paying $30K in income tax, before any deductions. I hardly consider paying $30K in taxes on an income of $200K as an undue hardship.
The embedded tax credit costs for hybrid / electric vehicles is just one more factor that keeps exerting upward pressure on my US tax rates !
More made up stuff. There have been no tax increases resulting from tax credits for hybrid / electric vehicles. Income tax rates are the same as before you you left. There has been a lot more upward pressure on taxes from the debt run up by the party you support than there has from any tax credits on hybrid vehicles. There's a lot more upward pressure on taxes as a result of the wars started by the party you support than there has been from tax credits on hybrid vehicles. Perhaps if everyone drove a hybrid or some other fuel-efficient vehicle, the wars would have been unnecessary. Perhaps Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Islamic extremists in Saudi Arabia would have gone bankrupt because they couldn't sell enough oil.
Melonie
02-07-2011, 03:30 AM
This is reaching the counter-productive stage, so I'll end the interchange with a few final comments ...
- only comparing emissions at the tailpipe is a convenient statistical 'trick'. In point of fact, producing electric motors, battery packs, copper wire etc. is very energy intensive, as well as very environmentally challenging given the mining / refining / chemical processing that must also take place. For a fact, for every Prius built, a whole lot of these activities are taking place in Asia - consuming a whole lot more dirty coal fired electric power, environmentally damaging mining and refining of rare earth metals for motors etc. that are not required for the production of a conventional gasoline powered vehicle. You can try to sweep this under the rug for US consumption, but the Chinese are already complaining on the world stage. And yes there is documented proof that Chinese pollution is being blown back to California to the point where it now arguably constitutes 25% of California's total source of pollution. And in addition, none of this addresses the future environmental impact of Prius battery disposals. In point of fact, the Prius trades lower tailpipe emissions over the vehicle's useful lifetime in exchange for much higher emissions during it's manufacture and it's eventual disposal. Conveniently for Prius buyers consciences, those much higher emissions during manufacture are occurring on the other side of the world.
While there have been no federal tax increases that are specifically linked to the costs of Prius tax credits, there has indeed been an increase in federal deficit levels. Thus while a similar 'trick' can be used, in point of fact future US taxpayers will be paying higher tax rates to cover the costs of Prius tax credits. And on the state level the cost of Prius tax credits has arguably been addressed via increases in state income tax rates already put into effect. There is simply no free lunch, although it's still possible to shuffle lunch boxes.
And lastly, hybrid vehicles still comprise less than 3% of total vehicles. And while hybrid vehicles do get better gas mileage than conventional vehicles, their overall contribution to 'conservation' of oil consumption has been hugely offset by the addition of new vehicles throughout India, Asia, etc. Is the Prius a net positive ( on a global basis ) ... the facts are unclear ( other than the locally beneficial improvements in areas of disproportionately high Prius ownership like SoCal and Metro NYC ). Is the Prius a 'cost-effective' net positive ... IMHO no way !
Hopper
02-07-2011, 05:57 AM
More made up stuff. There have been no tax increases resulting from tax credits for hybrid / electric vehicles. Income tax rates are the same as before you you left. There has been a lot more upward pressure on taxes from the debt run up by the party you support than there has from any tax credits on hybrid vehicles. There's a lot more upward pressure on taxes as a result of the wars started by the party you support than there has been from tax credits on hybrid vehicles.
From her comments, it doesn't sound to me like Melonie supports the Republicans. I think you have assumed that because you associate them with free market and also associate free market ideas with support for corporations. The Republicans are now neo-cons, who were spawned by former socialists and Democrats. The Republican Party has been socialist from it's beginnings, before even their first President, Lincoln, who himself was no mean interventionist. Hoover was a Republican President and he installed a large chunk of today's intervening government agencies before Roosevelt. Nixon referred to himself as a Keynesian. Reagan was accused of implementing socialist policies by commentators on both left and right.
The Democrat Party went socialist under Roosevelt, though it began with Wilson. Originally it was founded on traditional American ideals, which are libertarian and free market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29#History
Perhaps if everyone drove a hybrid or some other fuel-efficient vehicle, the wars would have been unnecessary. Perhaps Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Islamic extremists in Saudi Arabia would have gone bankrupt because they couldn't sell enough oil.
Or better - if those caring environmentalists Melonie is viciously attacking would allow the oil in the U.S., which is comparable to that of Saudi Arabia, to be drilled by Americans. I doubt that everyone switching to hybrids would conserve enough oil to bankrupt the Middle Eastern oil industries. Or environmentalists could protest against drilling in Saudi Arabia as well as in the U.S. and close them down that way. Funny how they never have. Maybe they like wars too.
Eric Stoner
02-07-2011, 10:30 AM
1. The BIGGEST reason oil prices fell in the 1980's was Reagan's deregulating the oil industry.
A contributing factor was a strong dollar.
2. Oil prices fell in the late 1990's primarily because of a strong dollar.
3. Raising gasoline prices to $5 a gallon is a great way to promote a "double dip" recession.
Prior to and during 2008, oil prices skyrocketed and the economy tanked.
Melonie
02-07-2011, 10:51 AM
One last 'off topic' comment for the sake of clarity. I do not categorically oppose environmental regulations. America certainly learned the hard way from setting the Cuyaghoga river on fire, from coal miner life expectancies falling to 20 years below other occupations, from an entire suburb having to be evacuated due to widespread birth defects, miscarriages etc. that environmental regulations at some level are needed in order to prevent 'gross' pollution by US private industries. Over the past 40 years we have enacted environmental regulations, have stopped 'gross' pollution, and as a result we are in a much better environmental position today.
What I DO take issue with is the often short sighted, often unrealistic, and often non-cost effective advocacy of ever stricter environmental regulations. Again referring to hybrid / electric vehicle tax credits, had some independent cost-benefit analysis been performed ( and listened to ), a cost-benefit analysis that was GLOBAL in nature ( as opposed to SoCal or Metro NYC centric ), a cost-benefit analysis that included ALL ASPECTS of costs and pollution from 'cradle to grave', etc. it would undoubtedly show that not only is the 'bang for the taxpayer buck' pretty anemic versus other possible uses of taxpayer money, but that on a global basis MORE total pollution is being produced !!! This sort of situation seems to play out again and again ... most recently with Texas power plants being shut down due to non-compliant stack emissions ( i.e. 95% effective instead of 99% effective as required by the EPA because of very low temperatures) while power is instead imported from 0% effective unscrubbed power plants in Mexico !
IMHO for the last 5 years or so, gov't and environmental advocates have crossed the point of diminishing returns by several orders of magnitude. In the pursuit of 99.9% effectiveness, they are now presenting US industry with one choice of spending billions to improve their compliance hardware from 99% to 99.9% effectiveness in the US, or with an alternate choice of spending next to nothing on compliance hardware by shifting industrial activities to Mexico or China where there aren't any de-facto environmental effectiveness laws ( where one finds an increasing number of burning rivers, shortened life expectancy workers, 'uninhabitable' communities etc. ) ! This is counter-productive on so many levels it's almost laughable ( but it's hard to laugh while US jobs are also being exported to Mexico and China, and also hard to laugh about Mexican / Chinese birth defects and sickness rates ). In my heart I can't really believe that the US gov't and environmental advocates have knowingly incentivized massive pollution problems in China, Mexico etc. But ultimately that IS the de-facto unintended consequence of ever stricter 'last decimal point' US environmental regulations which have thrown the concept of cost-effectiveness in the dumpster in favor of a 'cost is no object' pursuit of ever more perfect effectiveness. Where the future existance of a US facility / US company is involved, 'cost is no object' simply isn't realistic !!!
3. Raising gasoline prices to $5 a gallon is a great way to promote a "double dip" recession.
Prior to and during 2008, oil prices skyrocketed and the economy tanked.
Thank you for swinging the discussion at least partially back towards the economic aspects of this topic !!! Indeed, all idealism and environmentalism aside, gasoline / fuel oil prices act as a REgressive tax on all Americans ... with the working poor having to pay a higher percentage of their net incomes towards this regressive tax since they purchase the fewest 'non-essential' items.
~
eagle2
02-07-2011, 07:29 PM
From her comments, it doesn't sound to me like Melonie supports the Republicans. I think you have assumed that because you associate them with free market and also associate free market ideas with support for corporations.
Melonie has stated her support for the Republican Party in past discussions.
The Democrat Party went socialist under Roosevelt, though it began with Wilson. Originally it was founded on traditional American ideals, which are libertarian and free market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29#History
The Democratic Party is not socialist. Anyone who considers themselves a socialist would not consider the Democratic Party socialist.
Or better - if those caring environmentalists Melonie is viciously attacking would allow the oil in the U.S., which is comparable to that of Saudi Arabia, to be drilled by Americans. I doubt that everyone switching to hybrids would conserve enough oil to bankrupt the Middle Eastern oil industries. Or environmentalists could protest against drilling in Saudi Arabia as well as in the U.S. and close them down that way. Funny how they never have. Maybe they like wars too.
The US doesn't have anywhere near as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Where do you get the idea we do? Saudia Arabia has more than 10 times the oil reserves of the US.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_res-energy-oil-reserves
When the US dramatically decreased our consumption of oil in the 1980's, many oil producing countries were in dire straights financially.
eagle2
02-07-2011, 08:00 PM
1. The BIGGEST reason oil prices fell in the 1980's was Reagan's deregulating the oil industry.
A contributing factor was a strong dollar.
How do you know this? What is your proof? Please provide references.
From 1978 to 1983, Oil consumption in the US fell from over 21 million barrels a day to below 15 million. (see link below) You don't think this was a major factor in the price of oil falling?
wtrg.com/oil_graphs/USpetroleumconsumption.gif
From the following page:
http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
2. Oil prices fell in the late 1990's primarily because of a strong dollar.
The dollar was weaker in 1994 than it is today and gasoline was approximately $1 a gallon. How do you explain such a low price for gasoline when the dollar was weak?
3. Raising gasoline prices to $5 a gallon is a great way to promote a "double dip" recession.
Prior to and during 2008, oil prices skyrocketed and the economy tanked.
We should do it gradually, not all at once. We should have done it a long time ago when the economy was booming.
Gasoline will eventually go to $5 a gallon. The question is, where do you want the money to go? To the US where it could be used to benefit the American people, or to Islamic extremists to fund terrorists?
The only factors that might prevent gasoline from reaching this level are the significant increase in the mileage requirements for new cars and new technologies, such as hybrids.
eagle2
02-07-2011, 08:17 PM
One last 'off topic' comment for the sake of clarity. I do not categorically oppose environmental regulations. America certainly learned the hard way from setting the Cuyaghoga river on fire, from coal miner life expectancies falling to 20 years below other occupations, from an entire suburb having to be evacuated due to widespread birth defects, miscarriages etc. that environmental regulations at some level are needed in order to prevent 'gross' pollution by US private industries. Over the past 40 years we have enacted environmental regulations, have stopped 'gross' pollution, and as a result we are in a much better environmental position today.
What I DO take issue with is the often short sighted, often unrealistic, and often non-cost effective advocacy of ever stricter environmental regulations.
40 years ago, you probably would have called the regulations being proposed back then short sighted and unrealistic, as many conservatives were at the time. 20 - 30 years from now, you will probably be saying how much sense the regulations being proposed today are.
Again referring to hybrid / electric vehicle tax credits, had some independent cost-benefit analysis been performed ( and listened to ), a cost-benefit analysis that was GLOBAL in nature ( as opposed to SoCal or Metro NYC centric ), a cost-benefit analysis that included ALL ASPECTS of costs and pollution from 'cradle to grave', etc. it would undoubtedly show that not only is the 'bang for the taxpayer buck' pretty anemic versus other possible uses of taxpayer money, but that on a global basis MORE total pollution is being produced !!!
Again you're making stuff up. I even asked you to provide facts and figures to support this, and of course you didn't because you just made it up.
Do you really think Toyota and Honda spent billions of dollars developing hybrids without doing a cost-benefit analysis? You don't have even the slightest idea of what you are talking about.
This sort of situation seems to play out again and again ... most recently with Texas power plants being shut down due to non-compliant stack emissions ( i.e. 95% effective instead of 99% effective as required by the EPA because of very low temperatures) while power is instead imported from 0% effective unscrubbed power plants in Mexico !
again you're making stuff up.
IMHO for the last 5 years or so, gov't and environmental advocates have crossed the point of diminishing returns by several orders of magnitude. In the pursuit of 99.9% effectiveness, they are now presenting US industry with one choice of spending billions to improve their compliance hardware from 99% to 99.9% effectiveness in the US, or with an alternate choice of spending next to nothing on compliance hardware by shifting industrial activities to Mexico or China where there aren't any de-facto environmental effectiveness laws ( where one finds an increasing number of burning rivers, shortened life expectancy workers, 'uninhabitable' communities etc. ) ! This is counter-productive on so many levels it's almost laughable ( but it's hard to laugh while US jobs are also being exported to Mexico and China, and also hard to laugh about Mexican / Chinese birth defects and sickness rates ). In my heart I can't really believe that the US gov't and environmental advocates have knowingly incentivized massive pollution problems in China, Mexico etc. But ultimately that IS the de-facto unintended consequence of ever stricter 'last decimal point' US environmental regulations which have thrown the concept of cost-effectiveness in the dumpster in favor of a 'cost is no object' pursuit of ever more perfect effectiveness. Where the future existance of a US facility / US company is involved, 'cost is no object' simply isn't realistic !!!
More made up stuff.
I guess that's why Honda fared so poorly over the past decade by concentrating on low-emission vehicles that get good gas mileage, and American automakers did so well by concentrating on big SUV's with no regard as to how much fuel they used or how much pollution they gave off.
Thank you for swinging the discussion at least partially back towards the economic aspects of this topic !!! Indeed, all idealism and environmentalism aside, gasoline / fuel oil prices act as a REgressive tax on all Americans ... with the working poor having to pay a higher percentage of their net incomes towards this regressive tax since they purchase the fewest 'non-essential' items.
~
Many of the working poor rely on public transportation. You're also arguing against one of your other positions. In previous discussions you complained about so many Americans not paying any income taxes and not having a stake in government, since it's not their money. This would give far more Americans a stake in the government than we have now.
Hopper
02-08-2011, 01:02 AM
Melonie has stated her support for the Republican Party in past discussions.
Going by her ideas, she seems more like an old-time Democrat.
The Democratic Party is not socialist. Anyone who considers themselves a socialist would not consider the Democratic Party socialist.
No, they would just not consider it socialist enough. The Democrats are not outspokenly socialist, but their policies are socialist and are often identified as such by mainstream commentators.
The US doesn't have anywhere near as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Where do you get the idea we do? Saudia Arabia has more than 10 times the oil reserves of the US.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_res-energy-oil-reserves
When the US dramatically decreased our consumption of oil in the 1980's, many oil producing countries were in dire straights financially.
The figure in that table does not include all of the estimated reserves in the U.S. and it excludes shale oil reserves. Saudi Arabia has 297 billion barrels while the U.S. has an estimated 134 billion barrels of potential reserves. IN Any case, the U.S, does not need Arabian oil or Iranian oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States
Hopper
02-08-2011, 01:25 AM
Many of the working poor rely on public transportation. You're also arguing against one of your other positions. In previous discussions you complained about so many Americans not paying any income taxes and not having a stake in government, since it's not their money. This would give far more Americans a stake in the government than we have now.
Paying taxes doesn't give us a stake in the government. Taxes just allow the government to get more powerful and further out of control of the people. Tax revenue is one of the things which the government uses to control the people; they are not a way for the payers to control the government. Payers don't have any real say over how taxes are spent, so how do they give them a "stake" in government? Taxes are just money confiscated from the people by the ruling elite. That is all taxes have been through history and that is what they are in modern times. They are taken from you and afterward the money does not remain yours, nor do you get any "Stake" in return for them. You are not buying a share in the government, you are just being robbed.
Melonie
02-08-2011, 03:58 AM
I ran across this article that describes my 'ideological made-up stuff' precisely ...
(snip)It is well known that rare earths -- a group of 17 atomic elements -- are essential for the survival of cutting-edge industry in such diverse areas as nuclear launch missiles, hybrid autos, wind turbines, solar devices, oncological applications, night-vision devices and petroleum production.
Once upon a time America was a major source for these substances, but Beijing had the foresight to co-opt this essential nourishment for their own needs. This left the rest of the world fighting for survival. Recently China decreased the circulation of rare earths to the rest of the world by 35%. It is not too late to be waking up to the malady that threatens our economies. We must declare an immediate offensive as a national emergency! The US future security and survival is at stake as our representatives wrote in their letter to the head of our Defense Department. For this purpose a letter has been written on January 28, 2011 by three congressional leaders, Murkowski, Begich, and Coffman, to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
The following treatment protocols are proposed.
1. Diplomatic solutions with China are inadequate. They are only a temporary panacea to a long-time cure. China’s own needs will soon overwhelm its own production.
2. We must do away with hostile regulations that have driven US manufacturing to foreign shores and prevented mining rare earths in North America.
3. Our federal officials should think of setting up a rare earth reserve similar to the aforementioned Federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This would safeguard against the contingency of a supply interruption.
4. At the same time the Obama administration should work with our legislators to provide incentives for investments required to rebuild our rare earth industry. The lawmakers have to revamp existing regulatory hurdles and support mining companies with heavy rare earth separation needs such as Avalon’s (AVL) Nechalacho rare earth element deposit in Thor Lake, Northwest Territories. Avalon is the most advanced, heavy, rare earth deposit in North America and is the most advanced toward production after Lynas and Molycorp (MCP).
5. Having overcome these obstacles, we will require the scientific expertise needed to transmute this ore into viable commercial realities. This would necessitate the remaking of our entire educational system, emphasizing technology and engineering, mathematics and sciences with scholarships for students entering these areas.
Investors should look for available sources and the companies which are closest to production. Both Lynas and Molycorp are the closest to production but will not be able to satisfy the increased demand as China increases export quotas and won't fulfill the critical heavy rare earths (dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, europium) and neodymium, a critical light rare earth needed for permanent magnets. These permanent magnets are a major part of the clean energy legislation discussed recently during President Obama’s State of the Union address. Terbium, one of the pricey, heavy rare earths, is heavily used in fuel cells.(snip)
I don't know whether someone else has coined this phrase or not, but essentially what this describes is 'environmental colonialism' by western environmental advocates ... who want to enjoy the end use benefits while disregarding the up front consequences taking place on the opposite side of the world !
In this particular example, the US originally developed the mining, refining and manufacturing technology involved to produce very high efficiency electric motors and generators using neodymium magnets - primarily used for hard disks, missile flight controls, and other small devices due to the very high costs involved. However, tighter environmental and safety regulations enacted over the past 10 years or so essentially shut down these early north American rare earth mine and refinery operations - which were replaced with unregulated Chinese mines and refineries that were free of such regulations. Neodymium devices thus became much cheaper and thus larger, but with incredibly heavy environmental damage to China as a fundamental component of the production of large motors and generators at comparatively low cost. The same western environmentalists are now heavily promoting hybrid / electric cars, wind generators etc. that are almost totally dependent on the ongoing environmental damage in China in order for these large neodymium based motors and generators to be anywhere near price competitive ( even with taxpayer subsidies applied ).
Well the Chinese have finally put their foot down and limited export volumes of rare earth metals, which potentially leaves three options. First is the end of hybrid / electric vehicles, wind generators etc. made anywhere except China. Second is a reactivation of north american rare earth mining and refining operations, but at a gov't regulation compliant production cost per pound that may triple the cost of hybrid / electric vehicle motors and wind generators. Third is the reactivation of north american mining and refining operations with relaxed regulations, which would still increase the cost of hybrid / electric vehicle motors, wind generators, fuel cells etc. by at least 50% ! This is no small issue given that large rare earth motors and generators comprise some 20-30% of the total component cost of hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, wind generators etc.
...
(snip)"The land is scarred with toxic runoffs from the refining process and pock-marked with craters and trenches left by the huge trucks that transport the rocks across ice and mud. Rusting machinery lies scattered along the valley floor, giving it the appearance of a war zone.
Around 100 miles south of Baiyun Obo, larger rare-earth refineries sit around the banks of the world's largest tailing lake, Baogang - seven square miles of evil-smelling toxic waste that shows the shocking extent of this industry's impact.
It is a scene that Chinese officials, and particularly those from Baotou Steel, do not want the world to see. Several villages close to the lake have already been relocated because of pollution and only minutes after we reached the lake, security guards hired by the mining company arrived to hustle us away.
At a remote processing plant called He Jiao Mu Qu, in nearby Guyan county, workers showed me around what must be one of the most toxic factory floors anywhere. They earn relatively high salaries - 1,600 yuan (£145) a month for removing rare-earth from rocks.
Inside the factory, boiling sulphuric acid flows in open trenches and boiling yellow lava spews out of kilns at the end of rotating steel pipes. The sulphur-filled air stings the eyes and burns the lungs. Workers' clothes were peppered with acid burns. (snip)
^^^ this is what US taxpayer funding for hybrid / electric vehicle, wind generator, fuel cell etc. subsidies is actually subsidizing ^^^
~
Eric Stoner
02-08-2011, 08:40 AM
How do you know this? What is your proof? Please provide references.
From 1978 to 1983, Oil consumption in the US fell from over 21 million barrels a day to below 15 million. (see link below) You don't think this was a major factor in the price of oil falling?
wtrg.com/oil_graphs/USpetroleumconsumption.gif
From the following page:
http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
The dollar was weaker in 1994 than it is today and gasoline was approximately $1 a gallon. How do you explain such a low price for gasoline when the dollar was weak?
We should do it gradually, not all at once. We should have done it a long time ago when the economy was booming.
Gasoline will eventually go to $5 a gallon. The question is, where do you want the money to go? To the US where it could be used to benefit the American people, or to Islamic extremists to fund terrorists?
The only factors that might prevent gasoline from reaching this level are the significant increase in the mileage requirements for new cars and new technologies, such as hybrids.
Unlike Obama, Reagan deregulated DOMESTIC oil production. It's one of the FIRST things he did when he became President. What happened ? Production rose and the price went DOWN .
The years you cite , 1978 to 1983 , cover three years of CARTER and his idiotic energy policy. Remember the Federal Synfuels project ? Lowered thermostats ? Carter's sweater in the Oval Office ? Reagan killed the Synfuels Project and other Federal energy boondoggles. It also takes in years of increased import and production of more fuel efficient cars, conversion from oil to gas ( something else Reagan deregulated ), greater use of insulation and a host of conservation projects and prgrams. MOST importantly, it covers years of a weak dollar and a severe recession. One of many reasons for the booming recovery under Reagan was pent up demand for new cars. The age of the average American car had reached something like 10 years by 1983.
I said the LATE 90's. That means from 1996 to 2000. In 1998 I was paying less than $1 a gallon for gas. The world price fell to $14 a barrel ! The dollar was just one part of the equation. The BIGGEST reason for low oil prices was a worldwide glut. OPEC had lost control of its members who were all pumping out as much oil as they could disregarding production quotas.
We are well en route to $4 a gallon and $5 is not out of the question THIS year.
How is a regressive tax that will hurt consumption going to help the economy ?
Most of that money will be transferred overseas, NOT kept here in the U.S.
eagle2
02-09-2011, 09:45 PM
I ran across this article that describes my 'ideological made-up stuff' precisely ...
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/rare-earth-elements-rare-earths-investing/2/7/2011/id/32668
(snip)It is well known that rare earths -- a group of 17 atomic elements -- are essential for the survival of cutting-edge industry in such diverse areas as nuclear launch missiles, hybrid autos, wind turbines, solar devices, oncological applications, night-vision devices and petroleum production.
Once upon a time America was a major source for these substances, but Beijing had the foresight to co-opt this essential nourishment for their own needs. This left the rest of the world fighting for survival. Recently China decreased the circulation of rare earths to the rest of the world by 35%. It is not too late to be waking up to the malady that threatens our economies. We must declare an immediate offensive as a national emergency! The US future security and survival is at stake as our representatives wrote in their letter to the head of our Defense Department. For this purpose a letter has been written on January 28, 2011 by three congressional leaders, Murkowski, Begich, and Coffman, to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
The following treatment protocols are proposed.
1. Diplomatic solutions with China are inadequate. They are only a temporary panacea to a long-time cure. China’s own needs will soon overwhelm its own production.
2. We must do away with hostile regulations that have driven US manufacturing to foreign shores and prevented mining rare earths in North America.
3. Our federal officials should think of setting up a rare earth reserve similar to the aforementioned Federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This would safeguard against the contingency of a supply interruption.
4. At the same time the Obama administration should work with our legislators to provide incentives for investments required to rebuild our rare earth industry. The lawmakers have to revamp existing regulatory hurdles and support mining companies with heavy rare earth separation needs such as Avalon’s (AVL) Nechalacho rare earth element deposit in Thor Lake, Northwest Territories. Avalon is the most advanced, heavy, rare earth deposit in North America and is the most advanced toward production after Lynas and Molycorp (MCP).
5. Having overcome these obstacles, we will require the scientific expertise needed to transmute this ore into viable commercial realities. This would necessitate the remaking of our entire educational system, emphasizing technology and engineering, mathematics and sciences with scholarships for students entering these areas.
Investors should look for available sources and the companies which are closest to production. Both Lynas and Molycorp are the closest to production but will not be able to satisfy the increased demand as China increases export quotas and won't fulfill the critical heavy rare earths (dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, europium) and neodymium, a critical light rare earth needed for permanent magnets. These permanent magnets are a major part of the clean energy legislation discussed recently during President Obama’s State of the Union address. Terbium, one of the pricey, heavy rare earths, is heavily used in fuel cells.(snip)
There is nothing in your article that shows any valid reason not to produce hybrids now. Automakers are able to obtain the necessary materials to produce hybrids, so there is no reason not to. If the current supply of rare earth materials becomes no longer available, then alternative supplies could be used or automakers could find ways to produce magnets and electric motors without rare earth materials. Automakers have access to the same information you do, and more, and are aware of potential supply problems. Toyota has been buying and stockpiling rare earth materials and has invested in a mine. New facilities are scheduled to open in the US and Canada, which could result in more manufacturing being done in the US.
From:
http://www.hybridcars.com/news/shortage-rare-metals-hybrids-overblown-26072.html
--snip--
A mineral facility in Mountain Pass, Calif.—owned by Molycorp Mineral—is the richest rare earth deposit in the world, said Lifton. Molycorp and other North American mining companies stopped producing a decade ago, when China started supplying the metals at a cheaper price. If Molycorp, and other Canada-based companies, go back into production as planned, within three to four years, hybrid and electric car production will “not only be on track, it could be done in the United States,” said Lifton. Currently, nearly all hybrid components, such as batteries and motors, are manufactured in Asia.
There is a window of approximately five years, according to Lifton, before China’s planned use of neodymium for a range of products, especially wind turbines, could cut off automakers. At that point, “the electrification of motor cars will probably go on hold, but not for Toyota,” Lifton told HybridCars.com. “Toyota has been stockpiling. They’ve been buying. They’ve invested in a mine. Toyota will probably be okay.” He believes that Honda and Ford are also making necessary preparations, but that all other carmakers will have a difficult time with supplies needed for powerful motors required for hybrid and electric cars. “If you didn’t develop raw materials sourcing already, you’re done,” said Lifton.
--snip--
I don't know whether someone else has coined this phrase or not, but essentially what this describes is 'environmental colonialism' by western environmental advocates ... who want to enjoy the end use benefits while disregarding the up front consequences taking place on the opposite side of the world !
In this particular example, the US originally developed the mining, refining and manufacturing technology involved to produce very high efficiency electric motors and generators using neodymium magnets - primarily used for hard disks, missile flight controls, and other small devices due to the very high costs involved. However, tighter environmental and safety regulations enacted over the past 10 years or so essentially shut down these early north American rare earth mine and refinery operations - which were replaced with unregulated Chinese mines and refineries that were free of such regulations. Neodymium devices thus became much cheaper and thus larger, but with incredibly heavy environmental damage to China as a fundamental component of the production of large motors and generators at comparatively low cost. The same western environmentalists are now heavily promoting hybrid / electric cars, wind generators etc. that are almost totally dependent on the ongoing environmental damage in China in order for these large neodymium based motors and generators to be anywhere near price competitive ( even with taxpayer subsidies applied ).
Sorry, but western countries aren't responsible for what goes on in China, other than in any facilities owned by western firms. If the Chinese government chooses to have lax environmental regulations, there isn't much western countries can do about it. Even before the collapse of communism, when communist countries did little trade with the west, the environmental records of China and other communist countries was abysmal. In any case, trade with western countries has improved the lives of many Chinese. There isn't mass starvation in China today, like there was 50 years ago.
Well the Chinese have finally put their foot down and limited export volumes of rare earth metals, which potentially leaves three options. First is the end of hybrid / electric vehicles, wind generators etc. made anywhere except China. Second is a reactivation of north american rare earth mining and refining operations, but at a gov't regulation compliant production cost per pound that may triple the cost of hybrid / electric vehicle motors and wind generators. Third is the reactivation of north american mining and refining operations with relaxed regulations, which would still increase the cost of hybrid / electric vehicle motors, wind generators, fuel cells etc. by at least 50% ! This is no small issue given that large rare earth motors and generators comprise some 20-30% of the total component cost of hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, wind generators etc.
What is your proof of this? I read that Neodymium cost about $1 a gram and the Prius uses about 1 kilogram, or about $1,000 worth. Please show your figures from where you got your estimate of the cost of a hybrid tripling, or did you just make this up?
... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241872/EXCLUSIVE-Inside-Chinas-secret-toxic-unobtainium-mine.html
(snip)"The land is scarred with toxic runoffs from the refining process and pock-marked with craters and trenches left by the huge trucks that transport the rocks across ice and mud. Rusting machinery lies scattered along the valley floor, giving it the appearance of a war zone.
Around 100 miles south of Baiyun Obo, larger rare-earth refineries sit around the banks of the world's largest tailing lake, Baogang - seven square miles of evil-smelling toxic waste that shows the shocking extent of this industry's impact.
It is a scene that Chinese officials, and particularly those from Baotou Steel, do not want the world to see. Several villages close to the lake have already been relocated because of pollution and only minutes after we reached the lake, security guards hired by the mining company arrived to hustle us away.
At a remote processing plant called He Jiao Mu Qu, in nearby Guyan county, workers showed me around what must be one of the most toxic factory floors anywhere. They earn relatively high salaries - 1,600 yuan (£145) a month for removing rare-earth from rocks.
Inside the factory, boiling sulphuric acid flows in open trenches and boiling yellow lava spews out of kilns at the end of rotating steel pipes. The sulphur-filled air stings the eyes and burns the lungs. Workers' clothes were peppered with acid burns. (snip)
^^^ this is what US taxpayer funding for hybrid / electric vehicle, wind generator, fuel cell etc. subsidies is actually subsidizing ^^^
~
Again, you don't provide a single fact or figure showing that the pollution resulting from the production of the Prius comes anywhere close to the amount of pollution reduced from driving a Prius as opposed to an average vehicle. The Prius uses 1/2 the fuel of an average vehicle and gives off 70% less pollution. As I mentioned before the Prius uses about 1 kg, or about 2 lbs of Neodymium. Are you saying that mining 2 lbs. of Neodymium causes more pollution than all of the pollution reduced from driving a Prius instead of an average vehicle? Again, please show your figures.
In addition to all of the pollution released from driving cars with gasoline burning engines, there is the matter of the pollution involved in drilling for oil, refining oil, and transporting it. We've already had significant damage done to the Gulf Coast and Alaska from oil spills. As for working conditions, what do you think the conditions are like for the guest workers in Saudi oil fields or Kuwaiti oil fields? What do you think the conditions are like for oil workers in Nigeria?
Zofia
02-09-2011, 10:29 PM
Again, you don't provide a single fact or figure showing that the pollution resulting from the production of the Prius comes anywhere close to the amount of pollution reduced from driving a Prius as opposed to an average vehicle. The Prius uses 1/2 the fuel of an average vehicle and gives off 70% less pollution. As I mentioned before the Prius uses about 1 kg, or about 2 lbs of Neodymium. Are you saying that mining 2 lbs. of Neodymium causes more pollution than all of the pollution reduced from driving a Prius instead of an average vehicle? Again, please show your figures She never will provide facts of figures. Likewise she will never adhere to conventions of economics when they get in the way of her loopy positions. Like the way she ignores falling US oil consumption and then oil prices drop. Amazing how that old supply and demand idea works.
Z
Melonie
02-10-2011, 04:37 AM
Today's price for Chinese neodymium metal has increased by some 40% over the prices you quoted - if you can find any neodymium metal for sale outside of China with the export limits now in place. However, I'll take a page from your own 'playbook' and ask to see documentation that only 1kg of neodymium is used per Prius. Also, there are other rare earth metals besides neodymium used in the Prius, like Dyprosium.
Effectively there are no suitable substitutes because the ultra-high magnetic field density generated by rare earths is what makes possible the very small lightweight highly efficient electric motors and generators which are key to Prius overall fuel efficiency.
Yes Japan / Toyota has set up a 'strategic reserve' of rare earth metals. Where does that leave the Chevy Volt ? Probably dependent on the restart of shut down American rare earth mines and refineries ... whose break-even price levels will be FAR above Chinese mine and refinery price levels ( reread my linked article about Chinese open pit strip mining, moving entire communities to keep their residents from being poisoned, and flowing trenches of bubbling sulfuric acid at a refinery to get some idea of the relative cost structures that will be involved ). Can this cost difference be quantified precisely - obviously not. But it is certainly substantial !
Again this thread is about QE2 gov't money printing and subsequent gov't money spending. Arguably the $ 7,500 + $5,000 taxpayer subsidies for Chevy Volts will form a 'perfect gov't circle' where US taxpayer money is used to offset well above world market cost structures for a UMW rare earth mine, a unionized rare earth refinery, and UAW workers at GM if any volume production ever gets off the ground ! At the moment GM is selling less than 400 Chevy Volts per month.
Hopper
02-10-2011, 05:16 AM
Sorry, but western countries aren't responsible for what goes on in China, other than in any facilities owned by western firms. If the Chinese government chooses to have lax environmental regulations, there isn't much western countries can do about it.
Well, some "human rights" campaigners in western countries could band together in world-wide solidarity and demand a boycot by western countries against China because of harmful working conditions and environmental damage. That's what they always do when people in western countries allegedly commit the same crimes. Strangely though I don't hear them even talking about it. It might be listed in an entry in a Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International handbook somewhere but I haven't seen anybody campaigning on the streets about it.
Again, you don't provide a single fact or figure showing that the pollution resulting from the production of the Prius comes anywhere close to the amount of pollution reduced from driving a Prius as opposed to an average vehicle. The Prius uses 1/2 the fuel of an average vehicle and gives off 70% less pollution. As I mentioned before the Prius uses about 1 kg, or about 2 lbs of Neodymium. Are you saying that mining 2 lbs. of Neodymium causes more pollution than all of the pollution reduced from driving a Prius instead of an average vehicle? Again, please show your figures.
In addition to all of the pollution released from driving cars with gasoline burning engines, there is the matter of the pollution involved in drilling for oil, refining oil, and transporting it. We've already had significant damage done to the Gulf Coast and Alaska from oil spills. As for working conditions, what do you think the conditions are like for the guest workers in Saudi oil fields or Kuwaiti oil fields? What do you think the conditions are like for oil workers in Nigeria?
The fact that they have to source it from China, instead of all those mines in the U.S. you mentioned, indicates that somebody does think mining rare earths is an environmental threat. They source it from China because the environmental regulations in the U.S. make it too expensive even in the small amounts you mention above.
Rare earth mining and refining is also a worse kind of threat than pollution from oil use. And with rare earth mining, we are not just talking about environmental pollution, but also harmful working conditions for those involved in producing it. Whatever the working conditions are in drill sites and refineries in Nigeria, the oil itself is not a hazard.
eagle2
02-10-2011, 05:27 PM
Today's price for Chinese neodymium metal has increased by some 40% over the prices you quoted - if you can find any neodymium metal for sale outside of China with the export limits now in place. However, I'll take a page from your own 'playbook' and ask to see documentation that only 1kg of neodymium is used per Prius. Also, there are other rare earth metals besides neodymium used in the Prius, like Dyprosium.
Do a search for "Prius + neodymium + kilogram" and you will find lots of articles with this information. Here's one:
http://southcapitolstreet.com/tag/prius%E2%80%99s/
--snip--
The auto industry purchases 40% of the world’s supply of neodymium and Toyota buys more than any other company, said Jack Lifton, a rare earth materials expert and founder of Technology Metals Research in Carpentersville, Ill. There is about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of neodymium in every Prius, he said. Toyota declined to comment on this figure.
--snip--
also, from the same article:
--snip--
Toyota Motor Corp. is striving to develop a new type of electric motor to escape a simmering trade conflict involving China’s grip on a rare mineral.
The Japanese auto maker believes it is near a breakthrough in developing electric motors for hybrid cars that eliminates the use of rare earth metals, whose prices have risen sharply in the past year as China restricted supply. The minerals are found in the magnets used in the motors.
--snip--
eagle2
02-10-2011, 06:31 PM
Unlike Obama, Reagan deregulated DOMESTIC oil production. It's one of the FIRST things he did when he became President. What happened ? Production rose and the price went DOWN .
What is your proof that deregulation was the reason gasoline prices went down? Please show the facts and figures you are basing this on.
Here is a chart showing US historical oil production and imports:
http://www.greatdreams.com/oil/US_Oil_Production_and_Imports_1920_to_2005%20.jpg
Notice how dramatically oil imports fell from 1979 to 1985, while oil production barely increased. From looking at the chart, it looks like oil production increased more when Jimmy Carter was President than during Reagan's first term. During Reagan's second term, oil production actually fell significantly. What is your explanation for the dramatic decrease in production after Reagan de-regulated oil production? We were producing less oil after Reagan left office than we were when he became President. How do you see oil-deregulation as being the biggest reason for the falling price of oil in the 1980's?
Eric Stoner
02-11-2011, 12:09 PM
^^^ Are we looking at the same chart ? YOUR chart shows domestic production went UP after 1980, before declining again after around 1985-6. How do YOU account for the increase in DOMESTIC production ? Whio was President during those years ? Reagan ! And when oil fell to $14 a barrel what happened to imports ? They went up ? Why ? For one thing it was often CHEAPER for oil companies to import foreign oil than to produce domestically. That was a big story back in the 80's and 90's : That it was cheaper to just import instead to drill and pump U.S. wells.
Melonie
02-13-2011, 04:51 AM
here's a very ON TOPIC treatise from investment advisor Sean Corrigan ...
(snip)"From Sean Corrigan of Diapason Securities
In his recent Congressional testimony, our dangerous monetary Dr. Moreau [ Ben Bernanke - sic ]was forthright in defence of his latest wild experiment in inflationism, saying that the rate of the fall in the value of people's money was "expected to persist below the levels that Federal Reserve policymakers have judged to be consistent with their mandate."
Obviously, the Chairman has not been to the gas station recently, nor has he popped out to the supermarket to restock his larder or he might have noticed that, as AP reported at about the time he was speaking, "Some food makers... began selectively raising prices within the past few quarters. Those higher prices have begun filtering into stores. Supermarkets have resisted price increases for some time, hoping to hold onto their cost-conscious customers in the tough economy. But chains such as Kroger now also say higher prices are coming..."
As the article goes on to note, such notables as Kellogg, Sara Lee, Smucker, Tyson Foods, and McDonalds are well on the way to taking steps to defend their margins with overt price rises while many companies have already moved to disguise the adjustment by changing portion sizes or switching to lower grade ingredients.
Cotton prices have, meanwhile, more than doubled in the past 5 months — potentially pushing up apparel costs across the board — an escalation which has not been seen in a like period for at least half a century.
While Bernanke is trying to blame such inconveniences on demand in the emerging markets (without inquiring too closely into what it is that such demand is predicated upon), the disinterested observer might note that it is not entirely a coincidence that this latest resurgence has occurred as he and his colleagues have done their best to make good on the cart-before-the-horse, Jackson Hole doctrine of raising inflation expectations in order to lower hypothetical real yields in some corner of the de Wittian multiverse (incidentally, a source of obvious contradiction when he now attempts to deflect his critics with the claim that such expectations have remained gratifyingly 'stable')
Indeed, as the next figure shows, the rate of increase of proper (Austrian) money supply this past semester is in excess of trend to its greatest degree since the immediate LEH-AIG, core meltdown SCRAM and lies in the 96th percentile of the last three decades' range.
Moreover, as the graph appended in large format at the end of this article makes plain, the implementation of QE-II via the programme of buying Treasury bonds has been mirrored in a surge in commodity prices no less strikingly than did their rebound from the post-Crash lows correspond to that of QE-I.(snip)
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/von%20havenstein/Austrian%20Money%20Supply_0.jpg
(snip)More fundamentally, this whole issue of using monetary and fiscal 'stimulus' to repair a slump which has been typically brought about through previous, ill-judged attempts to steer 'policy' has at its heart a dirty little secret. Because of the entrenched factional interests of the Entitlement State — often, but not always, reinforced by labour union militancy — the same Fabian elite whose bankrupt, Tooth Fairy wishfulness has cost far too many souls their livelihoods perennially despairs of anyone ever regaining employment by facing up to the tough but inescapable fact that the man giving them a job has to earn his living, too.
Thus our leaders routinely quail before the political and presentational difficulties of telling those who have misleadingly become accustomed to a better standard of living in the Boom than their input into the productive process actually merits that they must now face a less comfortable reality and temporarily accept less reward for more effort while the economic structure reorders itself in a more sustainably fashion.
Ultimately, the so-called Keynesian miracle is based on the shallow deceit that if Mohammed will not go to the mountain of lower unit, nominal wages, the mountain must be transported to Mohammed using the machinery of inflation to reduce the real value of those same wages.
The only problem with this nostrum is that it fails — in typical aggregationist fashion — to see that what counts for each individual employer (the idiosyncratic human atom who helps constitute the featureless, mathematical abstraction called 'employment') is that the monetary value of the sales of his particular goods or services must rise faster than the sums he expends on the workers who give rise to them — i.e., that the value of their marginal product exceeds once more their marginal cost, or else there is no point hiring them.
Even that is not the end of the story, for our businessman also needs to pay for all the other inputs which go into his endeavour — raw materials, plant, equipment, components, capital means, rent, taxes, and levies such as mandatory health-care, carbon taxes, unemployment 'insurance', and pension contributions (the last, you will notice, thoroughly amenable to alleviating political action of a far more beneficial kind).
It should be obvious that, once the authorities begin monkeying with the volume of money in the system, it rapidly becomes almost a matter of happenstance that any one company finds itself in the favourable position that its costs will inflate more slowly than its revenues: it should be even more apparent that it is an outright impossibility that this can be the case for everyone, all at once (snip)
(snip)Given this reality, what do you suppose are the chances that the renewed inflationary tide will not only lift all boats equally — that there will somehow arise absolutely no differential injection, or Cantillon, effects - but that it will preferentially refloat the seabed wrecks of those which have foundered amid the Bust and so miraculously restore employment and income levels to their former, febrile heights?
Beyond even this, a further malign feature of inflation is that it makes the reading of the underlying balance of supply and demand - not just for specific goods, but for all goods in their ever- shifting, near-infinite matrix of interrelations - even more difficult than usual because it corrupts the signals inherent in their relative, even more than in their absolute, prices.
Think of the transmission of money in the act of exchange as the sending of a communique describing some essential features of what took place in that transaction and why. Now imagine that the text of the message is arbitrarily and unpredictably altered — sometimes with the addition of characters, sometimes with their deletion - and also that the time taken to deliver such missives is expanding and contracting in what may be a quasi-random fashion.
Contemplate the difficulties which also arise because of the time-varying nature of the inflation. Because the inflation is an extraneous act of political will (or financial caprice) — and so is subject to sudden stops, starts, and redirections — it represents a dangerous aggravation of the normal entrepreneurial hazards inherent in organizing profitable production on into an uncertain future in a constantly-evolving economy.
At the very least, this confusion should serve to heighten actual business risk even if ostensible risk premia are being artificially suppressed by the weight of new money acting on the financial market - a combination which is all too likely to lead an entirely new fleet of White Star liners on to the rocks of the inevitable Bust to come.(snip)
from
Thus in 'bare bones' terms ...
- there is a very high degree of proven correlation between QE1 / QE2 'printing' of US dollars out of thin air, and rising commodity / 'input' prices ( albeit the correlation includes a time delay between dollar 'printing' versus rising prices )
- rising commodity / 'input' prices have more or less been 'absorbed' by US companies to date in the form of reduced profit margins ( with minor tinkering re package sizes, quality of ingredients etc.)
- many US companies have now reached the point where intolerably low profitability must result in retail price increases in order to restore the ( declining ) differential between 'input' costs and sales revenues.
- US retail consumers receiving non-rising paychecks / benefit checks, but forced to pay higher retail prices for necessary items, will see their standard of living decline.
- ongoing volatility in future 'input' costs, plus an unknown response to higher retail prices from US retail consumers ( i.e. falling sales volumes at higher prices = no change in sales revenues ? ), causes US companies to be highly risk adverse to adding new employees / expanding business operations - thus causing US unemployment problems to persist.
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eagle2
02-14-2011, 12:14 AM
^^^ Are we looking at the same chart ? YOUR chart shows domestic production went UP after 1980, before declining again after around 1985-6. How do YOU account for the increase in DOMESTIC production ? Whio was President during those years ? Reagan ! And when oil fell to $14 a barrel what happened to imports ? They went up ? Why ? For one thing it was often CHEAPER for oil companies to import froeign oil than to produce domestically. That was a big story back in the 80's and 90's : That it was cheaper to just import instead to drill and pump U.S. wells.
Yes, production went up by about 500,000 barrels a day during Reagan's first term. As I said before, consumption of oil in the US decreased from over 21 million barrels a day in 1978 to below 15 million barrels in 1983, or by more than 6 million barrels a day.
So, which do you think was a bigger factor in falling oil prices during the 1980's?
A. Increasing production by approximately 1/2 million barrels a day
B. Decreasing consumption by over 6 million barrels a day