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To: KyrosL who wrote (9418)	9/16/2001 12:22:42 AM
From: Moominoid	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

The US has a different industrial structure than Europe. It would have to be more fuel efficient than Europe and still find alternative energy in the future because US oil is heading for exhaustion.

To: KyrosL who wrote (9418)	9/16/2001 12:32:25 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 74559

Oh, Jeez. Again with the SUVs. Seventy five percent of our oil comes from the Middle East. We pay good money for it, too. The people we buy it from are happy to sell it to us. If some of the others don't like the way the money is doled out in their country, getting rid of the money won't cure that.

To: KyrosL who wrote (9418)	9/16/2001 1:51:45 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

K - CB, not true about the bicycles. If we achieve the same fuel efficiency as Europe has TODAY, we will not need a single drop of foreign oil. We will have to drive Civics instead of SUVs. Is that too big a sacrifice? All of your premises are wrong. Why do we import oil from the Middle East? Because doing so most efficiently (in an economic sense) serves the needs and desires of consumers as they vote with their dollars. Why does Europe have higher fuel efficiency than the US? Not because of technology, but because of high taxes, governments that are even more authoritarian and socialist than Washington, and a resulting lower standard of living that reduces the possibility of choosing load carrying capacity and various amenities over fuel economy. War is not the result of too much trade, but of much too little. Trade is by definition of mutual benefit to all of its multiple participants, and trying to kill off your customer or supplier will destroy those benefits. The problem is that the oil supplying countries in general make little attempt to develop the integrated diverse economies that would raise the standard of living of their people, preferring to allow the powerful and connected to reap all the benefits of trade. This results in large numbers of the disaffected who have no stake in preserving peace and the status quo, and who will always find a demagogue of one variety or another to lead them. In any case, the era of a mass petroleum based transportation economy is closer to its end than its beginning. If allowed to play out freely over decades, the combination of alternate technologies and finite supply will drive the price changes that restructure transportation without abrupt shocks to the standard of living. This will not be the case if central planning bureaucrats intervene with edicts, production subsidies and consumption tax credits for new, alternate technologies. Regards, Don