[quote]dhickey wrote:
borrek wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Where do you think that money goes?
Record, multi-billion per quarter profits for oil companies. $351 million dollar severance packages for CEOs (Lee Raymond)
And where do these profits go?
Where does the money the CEOs get go?[/quote]
Into banks, new homes, sports cars and yachts?
[quote]dhickey wrote:
The free market has given us every significant technological advancement in the history of this country. I really don’t understand why poeple don’t think it will give us alternative energy sources. Gov’t can not give us the efficient alternatives. It can only confuse market signals and has the potential to shut out investments in the most efficient technologies. One need look no further than ethenol.
[/quote]
One needs to look no farther than Detroit to understand the stall of alternative energy. Average fuel efficiency has not budged in almost 30 years because auto makers wanted to ride the SUV/truck wave as long as possible. These guys knew the future was in innovative fuel technology, but the money was in business as usual.
Energy is the same. After Big Oil, only the government has the kind of funds needed to research alternatives. But why should big oil do it now if they can squeeze as many dimes and nickels as possible out of us?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Are you being serious with this statement? They have no incentive to provide new energy sources because the system as it stands makes them some of the richest people in the fucking country. This is like expecting tobacco companies to come out with alternatives to smoking.[/quote]
First off the oil companies are not the entire market. The profit that drives them to sell oil will drive someone else to discover efficient replacements when they are actually needed and viable. Reread that last part.
Secondly, are you saying oil companies are not investing in alternative and will just disappear when their current sources dry up?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
dhickey wrote:
borrek wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Where do you think that money goes?
Record, multi-billion per quarter profits for oil companies. $351 million dollar severance packages for CEOs (Lee Raymond)
And where do these profits go?
Where does the money the CEOs get go?
Into banks, new homes, sports cars and yachts?[/quote]
Do they pay taxes on some portion?
Do they invest in the market with some portion?
What do the banks do with the money?
Do workers build cars, homes, and yachts?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
<<< Great notion, but neither one of these candidates is offering tax free businesses. He is targeting big oil companies, and again, that bothers me for many reasons. For one, the power of lobbyists and those companies are WHY we still have yet to invest deeply in alternative fuel sources. this needs to happen if you plan on your grandkids still living in a powerful United States.
[/quote]
We began investing deeply in alternative fuel sources as far back as the Carter years and there was not then nor is there now a viable alternative to oil. If there were it would be here. Not because people love nature and hate oil companies, but because there would be a MOUNTAIN of money in it.
It does not take tax payer investment for this to happen. There are other investors who would beat each with blunt objects to be first in line to get this going if it were doable at this time. R&D is great and I hope we keep it up. I don’t think oil is the divine decree for energy. However, Obama and the dems only got KIND OF onboard on drilling after it became political suicide not to.
Listen man, have you not noticed that the socialist big government countries of the world are either collapsing, have collapsed or are only succeeding recently insofar as they emulate our way of life? If you want the United States to be a powerful prosperous nation for your grand kids then we cannot have these wealth redistributing, achievement punishing, failure rewarding socialists at the helm.
You’re a smart guy doc I cannot believe you don’t see that. Except for a very few areas, like defense for instance, which our constitution actually allows for, governments destroy everything they touch.
It was socio financial engineering that caused this disaster were in the middle of right now and we have only the most conservative house republicans pleading that we think before we essentially turn our economy over the the very people who caused it, in both parties.
Enough, we’ve been over all this. This is not radical right wing hysteria, it’s the desire to see those things that made us strong survive.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
]
First off the oil companies are the entire market.[/quote]
BINGO.
[quote]
The profit that drives them to sell oil will drive someone else to discover efficient replacements when they are actually needed and viable. Reread that last part.[/quote]
What? They are NEEDED right now and they won’t be viable as long as the entire system makes it easier to simply get gas in your tank from the ever growing “entire market”.
If they are investing it isn’t to any significant degree that will allow us to drive “other” powered cars in ten years. They are very much afraid of losing the mega-financial ground they own right now. Why would you expect alternative fuel sources to come out of a system like this?
[quote]dhickey wrote:
borrek wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Where do you think that money goes?
Record, multi-billion per quarter profits for oil companies. $351 million dollar severance packages for CEOs (Lee Raymond)
And where do these profits go?
Where does the money the CEOs get go?[/quote]
You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I buy “trickle down”
Where does that money go? It gets rolled into hedge funds that capitalize on the trading back and forth of risky mortgages.
No one can argue that the wealth gap is growing. This money is not distributed in any way
[quote]Professor X wrote:
McCain’s tax plan bothers me, especially with the money he is giving to big oil companies. I agree with Obama that there needs to be a MAJOR focus on different fuel sources. I agree with McCain that we need more off shore drilling.
[/quote]
Let’s explore this as it should lead well into the coming debates.
Are you in favor of a progressive tax system and that people who make (an arbitrary) $250k per year should be penalized for their success?
Remember that 50% of workers in the US don’t pay taxes. The top 50% earners pay 95% of the taxes and the top 5% pay about 50% already.
Why should oil companies be severely penalized for taking the risk to bring product to market? By the same token, should ‘Big Oil’ be rewarded for their (significant) research into alternative energy research and bringing it to market?
[quote]borrek wrote:
No one can argue that the wealth gap is growing. This money is not distributed in any way[/quote]
Fundamental question: Do you believe it’s the government’s role to bridge the so-called ‘wealth gap’?
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Professor X wrote:
McCain’s tax plan bothers me, especially with the money he is giving to big oil companies. I agree with Obama that there needs to be a MAJOR focus on different fuel sources. I agree with McCain that we need more off shore drilling.
Let’s explore this as it should lead well into the coming debates.
Are you in favor of a progressive tax system and that people who make (an arbitrary) $250k per year should be penalized for their success?
Remember that 50% of workers in the US don’t pay taxes. The top 50% earners pay 95% of the taxes and the top 5% pay about 50% already.
Why should oil companies be severely penalized for taking the risk to bring product to market? By the same token, should ‘Big Oil’ be rewarded for their (significant) research into alternative energy research and bringing it to market?
[/quote]
Once again, I approach topics individually. I do NOT like the idea of paying more taxes the more money I make…but guess fucking what? It is already happening right now! I pay a shit load in taxes every month right now simply because I went to school and got “doctor” in front of my name.
The system as it stands SUCKS ASS and needs a change.
[quote]borrek wrote:
One needs to look no farther than Detroit to understand the stall of alternative energy. Average fuel efficiency has not budged in almost 30 years because auto makers wanted to ride the SUV/truck wave as long as possible. These guys knew the future was in innovative fuel technology, but the money was in business as usual.
[/quote]
They are not investing in vehicles that run on alternatives? Do think if there were REAL demand cars that run on efficient alternatives, they would not want to be the ones to sell them to us?
you seem to be implying that using current fuel and energy sources that actually work is bad and that one should not sell them or make a profit off providing them to us.
Gov’t has the funds to set us back decades on alternatives. Gov’t makes political decisions and spends money the same way. If they back the wrong technology or research projects, the bulk of the market will follow. This is catastrophic. Do you have confidence that the gov’t can spend this enormous amount of money (that they don’t have) on the most efficient research and on the most efficient technologies? You are going to have show me one single instance gov’t has been more efficient then the free market on domestic issues.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
They are not investing in vehicles that run on alternatives? Do think if there were REAL demand cars that run on efficient alternatives, they would not want to be the ones to sell them to us?[/quote]
Please, stop. There is no demand because most people are completely unprepared to pay MORE MONEY for an alternative fuel source when they can barely pay for gas as it stands. That means the entire system needs a overhaul. Find new fuel sources and make it cheap enough to afford and you will see demand increase.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
The free market has given us every significant technological advancement in the history of this country. [/quote]
Really?
[quote]lixy wrote:
dhickey wrote:
The free market has given us every significant technological advancement in the history of this country.
Really? [/quote]
Well, all of those little guys don’t count…like that idiot who made the light bulb or the complete fool who discovered how to channel electricity.
Don’t even get me started on that moron who came up with “Peanut butter”
[quote]borrek wrote:
<<< but he is not a socialist. >>>
[/quote]
You are either delusional, a liar, a moron or woefully uninformed.
This guy is a textbook socialist with an abominable ultra left record to prove it.
This is what really really gets to me. What is it called when you take money from one group of people and give it to another group of people? Especially when the latter group doesn’t pay taxes at all.? What is it called when the government is responsible for your health and well being? What is it called when they declare their desire to begin “educating” your children in public institutions at preschool age? What is it called when every syllable that falls from a person’s lips is designed to induce envy and anger in one underachieving group toward their society’s achievers?
Change, CHANGE CHANGE!!! WTF, is just any ol CHANGE at all good by definition? I could bring change to DC and so could you. So could ANYBODY. We need to change BACK, yes, not forward in this perverse self destructive quest for more and more federal intrusion into our lives in the name of “progress”, but BACK to the principles that made us the most powerful, prosperous, envied, respected and feared nation in the history of this sorry planet.
Wake up bub. Obama is everything this country was founded to fight and defeat.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
dhickey wrote:
]
First off the oil companies are the entire market.
BINGO.
[/quote] I think you know what I mean’t.
They are not needed at the price points and efficiencies they are currently at. I have all the gas I need to run my car and heat my home.
[quote]
Secondly, are you saying oil companies are not investing in alternative and will just disappear when their current sources dry up?
If they are investing it isn’t to any significant degree that will allow us to drive “other” powered cars in ten years. They are very much afraid of losing the mega-financial ground they own right now. Why would you expect alternative fuel sources to come out of a system like this?[/quote]
Because they are spending more on it than anyone else. If the gov’t were to fund such projects, who do you think would undertake them and recieve this funding? Who is best equipped right now to prove us with alternatives?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
It does not take tax payer investment for this to happen. There are other investors who would beat each with blunt objects to be first in line to get this going if it were doable at this time. R&D is great and I hope we keep it up. I don’t think oil is the divine decree for energy. However, Obama and the dems only got KIND OF onboard on drilling after it became political suicide not to.
[/quote]
Don’t underestimate the cost of research. Take a look at SpaceX. Elon Musk of PayPal sunk $100 million of his own money into getting objects cheaply and reliably into space. He started in 2002 and has exploded rocket after rocket, and is going broke (or at least only a couple dozen million–the horror!) R&D is the first thing to go when times get tough for a company. Case in point, Pfizer laid off 3000 R&D employees and closed a 2 million square foot laboratory because Lipitor is going generic in a few years. Keeping that research going was not worth the short term cost for them.
Big Oil will not research while they’re cashing in, and when things get tough they will claim financial hardships and ask for government handouts (which they will probably get)
In the end something big like energy will have to come from government programs.
What made us strong? Farmland America was built on government agriculture programs. They still rely on gov’t subsidies, yet middle America gets tied up voting on abortion and gay marriage stances.
America is who it is because of the suburban booms post WW2 due to gov’t programs like the GI bill and FHA loans.
It seems to me, people forget how we got where we are.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Please, stop. There is no demand because most people are completely unprepared to pay MORE MONEY for an alternative fuel source when they can barely pay for gas as it stands.
[/quote]
I like how you put it earlier…BINGO.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
The free market has given us every significant technological advancement in the history of this country. I really don’t understand why poeple don’t think it will give us alternative energy sources. Gov’t can not give us the efficient alternatives.[/quote]
When have we ever had free market capitalism in recent history? This is not free market capitalism. This is state subsidized capitalism. In IT and medicine, most advances come from government funded research. Companies like Intel refuse to fund their own research whenever they can get away with getting the government to fund it, while they say “we are more of a production and manufacturing company.” And then they go forth and brag about “their” advancements.
True, the subsidies have to go.