http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P150649.asp
Jubak's Journal
My 4-point plan to cut U.S. energy use
By Jim Jubak at jjmail@microsoft.com
***Begin Quote***
I want us to get real about wasteful, gas-guzzling vehicles and other stuff that soaks up too much electricity. Now, it’s your turn: Tell me how we can boost supplies.
{snip}
Raise gasoline prices to $4 a gallon
{snip}
Make the price increase permanent
{snip}
Create a national energy-efficiency lottery
{snip}
Use the remaining gas-tax revenue to shore up Social Security
{snip}
My suggestion: Sequester the tax money — I mean, really sequester it — by using the 75% that remains after my =
{snip}
Okay, your turn.
***End Quote***
Dear Jim,
Permit me to say that I enjoy reading your investment advice. Please allow me to repay that advice with some of my own. Stick to financial advice. Politically your plan is a disaster for liberty and a windfall to the big government statist.
First rule of political discussions is that they always generate more heat than light. I've been arguing for more freedom for a long time but don't have the sensitivity of a Mary Ruwart or the polish of a Harry Browne, may he rest in peace. So I'll try and be as gentle as possible.
Are you out of your mind?
Let's start with the fact that you can no more legislate the price of gas, or any other commodity. If the legal price is lower than the replacement cost then gas lines will ensue because no one will make it. President Carter demonstrated that. If the legal price is higher than the value it represents, then the sellers will be unable to sell it.
Why don't people recognize that there are "LAWS" in economics as there is the Law of Gravity in physics. Ignore the real world laws at your peril. Politicians in Louisiana repealed the Law of Gravity to demonstrate their stupidity.
It just seems obvious that you can't make people behave the way you want. If you have to force your ideas on people, then they can't be very good ideas. If they were, then you could convince people to do things voluntarily. See that is the problem with doing things by "law", you have to back up the laws with guns and worse.
So in the spirit you asked, here are some ideas that perhaps might convince you that freedom could work better.
(1) Increase supply
(a) Let's repeal all government rules in ANWAR. As a matter of fact, let's sell ANWAR to the highest bidders and leave the problem to the new owners. Maybe the Greens could partner with the oil companies to figure it out. Give them each a fifty percent interest and let them fight it out.
(b) Let's repeal all government rules on new refinery construction. And, then walk away.
(2) Reduce consumption
(a) Instead of raising the gasoline prices to $4 a gallon, let's eliminate all taxes on gasoline.
(b) Instead of making the price increase permanent, let's agree to make the tax reduction permanent.
(c) Instead of creating a national energy-efficiency lottery, let's just let people select the their own projects.
(d) Instead of using the remaining gas tax revenue to shore up Social Security, let sell the government's stuff and unwind social security completely. Chile did it. Why not us?
(e) Sequester the gas tax money! Yeah right. Maybe we can put it in the empty social security lockbox. That works so well.
Sorry about the last one, I'm an injineer and we think sensitivity is an electrical measurement.
Seriously, the only way to work with government is to starve it of it's life blood … … money.
You have to realize some key things:
(A) By uncoupling the dollar from gold in 1913, we permitted the government to inflate the currency. That means that the government can spend money without bothering to tax us.
(B) By hoodwinking us into the Social Security Ponzi scheme, we permitted the government to have an inter generational slush fund. That means that the government can spend money without bothering to tax us.
(C) By allowing the government to "protect us" by regulations, we permitted the government to foul up the economy and distorting the economy. That means the government can "direct" what we can and can not do.
Centralized planning did NOT work for the Communists. What makes you think it will work here?
Freedom doesn't require the government to tell us anything. The free marketplace allows peaceful exchanges that every one benefits from to occur.
In short, let's unlock the creative power of the free marketplace and put the government back in pandora's box.
IMHO,
a casual investor
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