Why or why not?
JustCurious:When hydrocarbons are essentially depleted as a fuel source, how will the market proceed to offer these alternatives in a cost effective and timely fashion without allocating a substantial amount of resources and research to them before the fact?
Nonsense, oil reserves are growing. The whole notion of "sustainable" energy is based on a fashionable fallacy, it assumes that current resource stocks should be able to last forever without any changes. But obviously there are changes. Humanity constantly invents new technologies, so it is wholly arbitrary to want current resources stocks to last forever. That's as if people in the year 1900 had gone through great pains to make the use of horses possible into all eternity. It would have been a waste of resources and humanity would be much poorer than it is now. But we're doning exactly that with oil.
RonPaulLol: That's rubbish. the primary motive of any firm is to increase its short term profits. driving millions and billionsof $ into potentially wasteful research for something that will happen 50 years down the line isn't something they would be inclined to do. there is no money to be made from investing in alternative fuels if these firms cant package and market it within a couple of years. hence, we need good old government to subsidize these industries into investing in new technologies.
That's rubbish. the primary motive of any firm is to increase its short term profits. driving millions and billionsof $ into potentially wasteful research for something that will happen 50 years down the line isn't something they would be inclined to do. there is no money to be made from investing in alternative fuels if these firms cant package and market it within a couple of years.
hence, we need good old government to subsidize these industries into investing in new technologies.
You sound like you know a lot about investing and how profits are made. What are the annual profits of the business you're running?
Laotzu del Zinn: How about instead of a cieling... we just have OPEC stop artificially restricting supply...? Just a thought.
And how do you plan to do that?
See, that's the thing with reality. It's easy to just say what would be great...it's a whole other thing to actually have a legitimate way to make that happen. Here's a much better solution.
RonPaulLol:the primary motive of any firm is to increase its short term profits. driving millions and billionsof $ into potentially wasteful research for something that will happen 50 years down the line isn't something they would be inclined to do. there is no money to be made from investing in alternative fuels if these firms cant package and market it within a couple of years.
Plenty of industries see their profits 50 years down the road. Yet they make that investment. Most oil rigs take 25 years to break even. What you are forgetting, I think, is that every investment, even if it may only pay off in 50 years, still has a present value, so you can sell it for money. All you have to do is build something now that may have value in the future, and somebody will buy it. So companies are perfectly willing to invest in long-term projects, and you see them do that all over the place.
"How about instead of a cieling... we just have OPEC stop artificially restricting supply...? Just a thought."
Another example of the mishmash of thinking that is the left. You'd think restricting the oil supply would be a good thing to an environmentalist.
RonPaulLol: That's rubbish. the primary motive of any firm is to increase its short term profits.
That's rubbish. the primary motive of any firm is to increase its short term profits.
Lol. Tell that to a mining company.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
It's funny that you guys are defending OPEC as the "owners of oil supplies" considering it is the Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries; an intergovernmental organization.
Dare I say it shows where your true loyalties lie? Gubment bad when it tries to help poor people, good when it helps the rich.
And as far as the "from an environmentalist" fallacy. I'm not a primitivist. Conservation != forsaking technology and a healthy standard of living.
In short.... /facepalm
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Laotzu del Zinn: It's funny that you guys are defending OPEC as the "owners of oil supplies" considering it is the Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries; an intergovernmental organization.
No one's defending anyone. My argument stands regardless of who the "owners of X supplies" are. You still have not answered how exactly you would "stop [OPEC from] artificially restricting supply". Let me guess: By building an even stronger (inter-)governmental parasite, but this time one that would truly represent "the people", especially "the workers", which will then force the other inter-governmetal parasite to give their oil to "the people"? Then "the people", especially "the workers", would live happily ever after, never having to worry again about filling up their bellies or gas tanks. Close?
Just have the workers seize control. They can distribute oil by such sophisticated means as "eeny meeny miny moe."
Laotzu del Zinn: It's funny that you guys are defending OPEC as the "owners of oil supplies" considering it is the Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries; an intergovernmental organization. Dare I say it shows where your true loyalties lie? Gubment bad when it tries to help poor people, good when it helps the rich. And as far as the "from an environmentalist" fallacy. I'm not a primitivist. Conservation != forsaking technology and a healthy standard of living. In short.... /facepalm
Why am I not surprised you had no shortage of accusations, but absolutely no answer for how you planned to actually do what you suggest.
RonPaulLol:
I was on the Board of Directors for a Computer Mfg company. We were bought by a Memory Mfg company because the memory market was too competitive to make significant profits. The Memory Mfg bought us to diversify for the future AND to increase their short term profits. So companies DO diversify their investments and look to the future. They aren't solely short sighted. I know this because I have experienced it.
Lyle: So companies DO diversify their investments and look to the future. They aren't solely short sighted. I know this because I have experienced it.
So companies DO diversify their investments and look to the future. They aren't solely short sighted. I know this because I have experienced it.
The far more important point I was trying to make is that markets are forward looking. The price of most commodities and assets (stocks, bonds, futures) today reflect the market's projections and expectations going decades into the future. If it was commonly accepted/known that the planet was going to run out of oil in 50 years, the price and investments in oil and alternative energy sources will be reflecting that today. The market doesn't just wake up one morning to find out that: "Crap, there's no more oil!"
I lawl at the idea that there are people who think politicians have better intentions, means or incentives then businessmen.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
I would be upset by your charge except for 3 reasons;
1. You don't impress me.
2. You have given no means of achieving your goal either. It's quite funny that you would make that charge against me. How are you going to;
a) Cut taxes on gas and oil
b) Open up offshore and national park drilling
c)Dissolve the SPR
You've offered no solution. You've merely frothed at the mouth at the idea that someone (leftists) want to get in the way of your profit, be it granted by the government or not.
3. If you think you, in fact, did offer a solution... than so did I. We're both talking about getting some government agency out of the oil business. I want to dissolve the one that is not in any way beholden to the people, but only to the shareholders in oil and gas companies. You want to dissolve the one that is, because it is.
No. That's rubbish. Companies have shown time and again that they are willing to look to future profits. This is why they build things that take years, even decades to become profitable. See offshore oil rigs and auto manufacturing plants.
driving millions and billionsof $ into potentially wasteful research for something that will happen 50 years down the line isn't something they would be inclined to do. there is no money to be made from investing in alternative fuels if these firms cant package and market it within a couple of years.
So nobody lends money for a period more than a few years? I guess those 30 year mortgages don't exist?
Good old government giving out padded contracts to political cronies.
Yes, I am a huge Dodgers fan.
Anti-state since I learned about the Cuban Revolution and why my dad had to flee the country.
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