http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206010 … refer=home
Lucas and I were talking once, saying price gouging is a horrible term. In the case of disasters, high prices reflect the difficulty of supply, and if high prices are due to monopoly power then price gouging is an imprecise term, since any firm simply mazimizes profits.
Anyway, I love how the congress is trying to make sure we have cheap gas but putting little effort or funding into alternative energy. This smacks of pandering to me--a band-aid that is meant to make people happy rather than solve problems. I hope Bush does veto it--the higher gas prices are, the sooner we will implement better solutions.
Lucas and I were talking once, saying price gouging is a horrible term. In the case of disasters, high prices reflect the difficulty of supply, and if high prices are due to monopoly power then price gouging is an imprecise term, since any firm simply mazimizes profits.
Anyway, I love how the congress is trying to make sure we have cheap gas but putting little effort or funding into alternative energy. This smacks of pandering to me--a band-aid that is meant to make people happy rather than solve problems. I hope Bush does veto it--the higher gas prices are, the sooner we will implement better solutions.
Bush is the right hand man of big business. Hail Oil! No way that will get vetoed.
Big business is on your side. They fuck over the rest of the world so you don't have to. I'm not saying they aren't dickheads... but they are our dickheads. Team America BABY!
every few days i think about free markets and am amazed at how effectively they communicate information. markets aren't perfect (as evidenced by the io field) but they remain pretty great.
business men are like pawns in the game of economics. they seek out economics profits and exploit them. and as a result, society gets what it needs, working out the economic price theory.
it's also pretty awesome to think about microeconomic theory in day to day decisions. when you make allocation decisions, what are the implications? giving the waitress an undeservedly large tip is just a lump sum transfer, but it may prolong her employment there, which isn't good. or if you get shortchanged at target, you could just let it slide (another transfer), but it gives benefit for a poor action.
the point is that utility maximizing agents are key. so selfish business men and consumers are good for the market. they keep things efficient.
i think studying charities (administrative overhead and incentives) would be cool. also, rates of return on charities. would it be better to invest here for a while then make a transfer to buy condoms for africa, or would it be better to immediately and continually drop money on condoms? or, better yet, considering transaction costs, there is likely an optimal time to transfer funds.
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funding alt. energy is fine to correct pollution. but it's pretty retarded to subsidize alt. energy to keep gas cheap. but politicians are speakers of the people, not of logic and economics.
business men are like pawns in the game of economics. they seek out economics profits and exploit them. and as a result, society gets what it needs, working out the economic price theory.
it's also pretty awesome to think about microeconomic theory in day to day decisions. when you make allocation decisions, what are the implications? giving the waitress an undeservedly large tip is just a lump sum transfer, but it may prolong her employment there, which isn't good. or if you get shortchanged at target, you could just let it slide (another transfer), but it gives benefit for a poor action.
the point is that utility maximizing agents are key. so selfish business men and consumers are good for the market. they keep things efficient.
i think studying charities (administrative overhead and incentives) would be cool. also, rates of return on charities. would it be better to invest here for a while then make a transfer to buy condoms for africa, or would it be better to immediately and continually drop money on condoms? or, better yet, considering transaction costs, there is likely an optimal time to transfer funds.
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funding alt. energy is fine to correct pollution. but it's pretty retarded to subsidize alt. energy to keep gas cheap. but politicians are speakers of the people, not of logic and economics.
the point is not to subsidize other forms of energy to keep gas cheap. it is to develop technologies so we won't need fossil fuels anymore.
There are plenty of people trying to develop the new oil. And you can be sure with that much money at stake it is a vicious economic battle.
> it is to develop technologies so we won't need fossil fuels anymore.
well, i don't see anything wrong with that if it's an effort to reduce externalities (pollution, war).
well, i don't see anything wrong with that if it's an effort to reduce externalities (pollution, war).
LARZ the truthspeaker
sarcasm?
no.
I think this is the big problem with current policy. people try to ignore externalities. i am willing to sacrifice a significant portion of my income to live in a peaceful, sustainable, healthy world.
I think this is the big problem with current policy. people try to ignore externalities. i am willing to sacrifice a significant portion of my income to live in a peaceful, sustainable, healthy world.
Producing an alternative to oil should theoretically increase economic strife in the middle east and most likely lead to further radicalizing of islam and greater violence in the region. Why we should believe this would not spill out into the global community is beyond my understanding.
Seems to me as I think about it that this isn't much of a solution for our security concerns at all.
Seems to me as I think about it that this isn't much of a solution for our security concerns at all.
Do you read any Thomas Friedman? His "first law of petropolitics" is that freedom and the price of oil operate in an inverse fashion.
It seems to follow history pretty well. Anytime a person/society has been able to sustain itself without hard work, it will maintain all sorts of injustices to continue that. Slavery is the main example that I can think of. When money can just be pumped out of the ground, you are inviting people to fight over it.
Look at our economy--it requires education, hard work, and innovation to sustain itself, generally producing a more intelligent, modern, secular, and happy population. We HAVE to do this because we can't pull all our money out of the ground.
It seems to follow history pretty well. Anytime a person/society has been able to sustain itself without hard work, it will maintain all sorts of injustices to continue that. Slavery is the main example that I can think of. When money can just be pumped out of the ground, you are inviting people to fight over it.
Look at our economy--it requires education, hard work, and innovation to sustain itself, generally producing a more intelligent, modern, secular, and happy population. We HAVE to do this because we can't pull all our money out of the ground.
Also look at the lack of investment in really core infrastructure like public education, health care in lots of petrostates. Places in the Middle East are starting to come around but for a long time the middle/upper classes just sent their kids to Ivies and flew to Europe/NA for health care.