BP Fails Booming School, Fails the Planet, Why Should We Put Up With This Any More?

The first problem is demonstrated in the following video.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w There is a significant amount of swearing, but I can understand, because the person who wrote it is very very angry, and it's the way oil people talk anyway. In case you don't want to watch it, it makes the case the BP is doing a massively horrible job of booming the beach. Instead of blocking and collecting the oil, they are purposely allowing the oil to overflow the booms and wreak havoc.

Secondly, and emphatically, the only way to keep the oil industry, market, companies, and consumption under control is a fuel tax that truly takes into account the externalities of the commodity. We have an industry that can simply do whatever it wants because it has so much money it can't be controlled. The only feeble attempts being made are to try to tell the car manufacturers that they have to abide by arbitrary fuel economy restrictions. All this does is cripple the car companies because they make all their money off big cars because that's what people want. A European style fuel tax changes the purchasing dynamic on the demand side. The fuel prices in the last few years have borne that out unarguably. The first to go was Hummer.

Who knows when the hole will be fixed, nobody's solutions will come in time. The only way to do it right is to do it right from the beginning. There is virtually no governmental control or regulation over the oil industry, and the courts have consistently required less of oil companies than damage caused. So you either have to tell the oil companies "you will pay for every dollar to every person inconvenienced by your choices and every dollar needed to clean up your mess in perpetuity, or you will simply never drill without forceful backup plans in triplicate." I vote for both.

Business will never do what it is supposed to.  Money always comes first.  Remember that.

WiredForStereo

Rick Wagoner Does Something Right.

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is now calling for higher federal gas taxes. Finally we see the American car companies doing something proactive to protect themselves rather than complaining and dragging their feet ad nauseum about fuel economy standards.

Rick is finally seeing what Europeans have seen for years. The only way to support higher fuel economy is to raise the price of fuel. When fuel economy standards are levied against car makers, they have to sell somewhat unpopular fuel efficient cars, often at a loss, so they can meet the standards, while the big money making gas guzzlers get sold quick because they are popular. As I've said before, this is a top down approach, and it hasn't worked for years. See car makers' financial crisis.

The bottom up approach, the correct approach is to encourage buyers to want to buy more fuel efficient cars. Why would they need to buy a fuel efficient car? The only way it works is if fuel is expensive. I noticed a stark difference in driving habits when I moved to Arkansas. When I lived in Oregon, I lived about 15 miles from town. We only went to town when we really needed to and cut or consolidated unnecessary trips. Gas was somewhat expensive. Therefore, many people drove smaller or at least more modest cars. Compact pickups like Chevy S10's, Toyota Tacomas and Nissans were more popular. Only the more wealthy among them drove the big SUV's, most families with a bunch of kids had minivans, not Suburbans. When I moved to Arkansas, I noticed that there were many more of the large SUVs, pickups and cars. The gas was cheaper.

The truth is, people will buy what they want to buy, you can't tell the car manufacturers to make fewer big vehicles. They make what is demanded of them. Now car makers realize that what is demanded of them (due to their needing money) is fuel efficinet cars. They also realize that they can't keep doing what they always have because the climate has changed. So in order to be able to market and support expensive but excellent electric and hybrid cars like the Chevy Volt, they need gas prices to be higher. We all need gas prices to be higher to support the changes that are necessary to achieve a sustainable existence.

If you buy a gallon of gas, the terrorists win. Really.
WiredForStereo