Assembled in the USA from 100% Chinese parts.

Ha! This is all because McCain proposed eliminating the gas tax and Obama called it a gimmick. Now the wingnuts are forced to go balls-to-the-wall for anything that looks like McCain's position lest they break ranks with the guy.

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There are a colossal number of folks that you would call 'wingnuts' that have no problem criticizing McCain on many different issues, they just happen to be different issues than you would criticize McCain for.

In fact, the consensus among many is that Republicans are having to deal with going into this election with the candidate that they have, rather than the candidate that they want. For my part, McCain was 5th among 5 choices in the primaries.

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I'm probably a wingnut, given who I voted for in the primary.

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Sadly, I ended up having to vote for Mitt Romney in Georgia's primary, because my top two choices (Rudy and Fred) had both dropped out, and John McCain and Mike Huckabee I both found scary.

I still find John McCain scary, just not as scary as his general election opponent.

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Fair enough. s/wingnuts/Rush/ at the very least.

So are you in favor of McCain's 'eliminate the gas tax' idea?

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I'm fairly ambivalent about it, actually. High prices tend to be their own economic correction, and it's already working; resale values of SUVs have fallen through the floor and you may have noticed that gas prices have backed off 20 cents or so in the last few weeks. I think McCain's motivation is less from an economic standpoint and more from a social standpoint-- a lot of people have been really squeezed by the price of gas doubling over the last two years, and McCain wants to give them a break at the pumps for the summer. Note that the 'eliminate the gas tax' idea was a summer-only thing; if he was doing it primarily for political gain, he would have proposed that the gas tax be suspended for the rest of the year (i.e. until after the election).

I don't think eliminating the gas tax for the summer would really matter much one way or the other. Really, we should be trying to increase *all* domestic sources of energy-- wind, solar, nuclear, drill in ANWR, drill off the coasts, suck the oil out of the shale in Colorado, clean coal, all of it. We've been pouring money primarily into research for 'alternative' sources of energy for a long time now, and haven't gotten much out of it; it's high time to go for the energy we know we have. Every bit of energy that we can produce ourselves, no matter the source, is that much energy we don't have to import from countries that hate us, and shipping oil from Alaska or from off-shore platforms has to be less risky than shipping it from halfway around the world.

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Market forces DO work, most of the time. Which is why the tax suspension would have done more harm than good, from the analyses I saw which said that the lower price would spur greater consumption which would drive the price right back up, with the added bonus of leaving the federal government short on highway funds.

I wholeheartedly agree with you re: increasing all sources of domestic energy. Of course we don't want to create environmental messes that cost more to clean up than the energy's worth, but what we're currently doing by importing so much energy (besides destroying the US economy) is just exporting the environmental risks. But it's all one planet.

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browngirl.livejournal.com

Hey, it's good to know the enemy. Thank you for reading and reporting.

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Larison's pretty interesting reading, actually.

For example, from that loyalty post I mention next:

"Bizarrely, it is those on the left who most want to pursue a real progressive agenda who are criticized for imitating the sort of lock-step partisan loyalty to political leadership that typified the Bush years, while those who are content to enable and collaborate in the worst abuses of the administration are the pragmatic and reasonable ones. This is the absurd, imaginary world in which Ron Paul and Russ Feingold are extremists and Joe Lieberman and John McCain are “centrists”–no wonder the arguments defending that world make no sense."

Limbaugh, though, I'll grant. :)

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browngirl.livejournal.com

*Puts Mr. Larison on my reading list* Thanks. :)

Having read the rest of your comments, and not having the time this weekend to debate an apologist, I've redacted the rest of this comment. *winks at you*

Edited Date: 2008-07-31 07:17 pm (UTC)

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Sure!

I mean, don't get me wrong. I disagree with a number of Larison's basic beliefs. He's an Orthodox (as in Eastern Orthodox) Christian paleoconservative. He broadly supports Russia in its dealings with the "near abroad". But he's thoughtful, and he writes well. Even when I disagree with him I think he's worth a look.

*winks back*

See you this weekend, I hope!

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cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com

I sometimes worry that I think that an idea is stupid not because of its intrinsic merits, but because of my opinion of the person who said it. I contrast that with things like this, where my already low opinion of the person who said this is lowered by the stupidity of their ideas.

To be fair, I've heard people I like suggest that China needs its gas subsidies to keep its economy growing fast. The sad thing is the complete lack of understanding of even basic economics that demonstrates. (Yes, in theory, there could be psychological effects to keeping gas prices low that are sufficiently strong that they result in more economic growth. No, I don't believe for a second that that's what happens-- instead, we get lots of dead-weight loss everywhere, while also harming the environment. Two great tastes that go great together...)

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Actually, that's the argument Limbaugh makes:

"They cannot afford a revolution. They cannot have a bunch of people, unemployed, not working, not productive, with very little income, not in their cities -- it's okay if that's out in the countryside, but even that's getting to be risky. But in their cities, they can't afford it. They will lose control of their population. So as far as the Hu Jintao and the ChiCom leadership is concerned, they will pollute this planet as much as they have to to make sure that they don't have a revolution launched against them."

(From http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072808/content/01125113.guest.html)

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Amazing to see this thousands-year old country pursuing such benighted short-term goals. What'll they do 30 years from now?

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They've been lifting the subsidies of late. Not long before you were there, gasoline was on the order of $2.70/gallon. Which, I will grant, is still high by Chinese standards, but nonetheless still a market intervention by about a third.

Not surprisingly, there were some distortions. They're stopping, but the distortions are still working themselves out.

Entirely with you on the public transport part, though.

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julianyap.livejournal.com

It actually still amazes me that people think the current US prices of gas are high. I mean, clearly they are, relatively speaking, but having grown up in Singapore, the gas prices here don't seem that expensive to me.

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I've paid £1 per liter to fill my fuel tank. By that standard, $4/gallon is laughably cheap.

Say, have you heard that the Malaysians are clamping down on foreigners crossing over the border to take advantage of their fuel subsidies, on both the Thai and Singapore ends of the country? Maybe soon the Singaporeans won't have to enforce that tankage limit on vehicles leaving for Malaysia!

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I'm certain that if you asked Rush Limbaugh if he supported fuel subsidies in the United States, that he would say no, and that what he supports instead is drilling for the oil that we have, thereby increasing supply and lowering the price of fuel just as effectively as a subsidy without the market-distorting effects (and costs) that a subsidy would bring.

It's easy to criticize someone that speaks as much as Rush Limbaugh does by taking their statements out of context and/or making them imply something that the author never said.

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I've read the original transcript from Limbaugh's site. It's here if you want it: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072808/content/01125113.guest.html

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He's mostly talking about China in it, and his basic gist seems to be 'China is doing what they think is necessary to keep their economy growing-- why aren't we?', with a subtext of 'if environmentalists are annoyed at us, why aren't they doubly annoyed at the Chinese?' I didn't see anything in it that said that any of the specific things the Chinese are doing to keep their economy going are things that the United States should be doing.

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What I got from it was: "look, the Chinese are taking action against high gas prices...why aren't we?" which I completely disagree with, regardless of who proposes it.

I'd actually thought of your comment on my earlier free markets post, when I posted this.

It's like they say, "The best cure for high prices is high prices".

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High prices tend to be their own cure because they stimulate supply and slow down demand. Problem is, US law is what's keeping supply restricted; we can't drill off 80 percent of our coastline, we can't extract shale oil like they're working on in Alberta, we can't drill in ANWR.

Back in the 1970s, domestic to foreign oil was about 70-30. Now it's flipped to more like 30-70. Not allowing supply to expand will make high gas prices much more painful than they would be otherwise. We need to be exploring every reasonable domestic energy possibility we have, since as I mentioned upscreen, every bit of energy we can produce here is that much less energy we have to import from countries that hate us.

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ishaa.livejournal.com

Talked to my uncle the geologist last week.

He says: "We're headed toward a wall at 70 mph. Some people are trying to hit the brakes and some people are trying to move the wall. We're going to have to do both. We're going to have to do everything."

Consume less, explore alternatives, AND drill in Alaska and off-shore.

He's in the oil industry, but it's okay, his company employs fewer than 10 people. They'd have to hire a lot more before they would become A Big Corporation to be feared and mistrusted. I forget where the cutoff is.

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I do think people are working hard to maintain a lifestyle which isn't sustainable. I mean, sure, go for it...but ultimately I think not only will people have to hit the brakes and others move the wall, but someone's going to have to consider turning the steering wheel. I grant that it's going to be a wild ride, and probably not a very comfortable one.

They'd have to hire a lot more before they would become A Big Corporation to be feared and mistrusted. I forget where the cutoff is.

Once again...who decides?

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ishaa.livejournal.com

I wish I knew. So do Larry and Sergey.

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rmd.livejournal.com

remember, socialism is only appropriate if the beneficiaries are corporations, not people.

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