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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: White Bear who wrote (14800)	4/2/2002 7:22:44 PM
From: blue_lotus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27666

Hi Sahara, I am no liberal...actually I find myself among the liberals on some issues and then among the conservatives on many others. What I am is a hard core capitalist (and proud of it) and so here is my purely economical solution... A) Impose extra taxes on Gas. B) Uses the proceeds from those extra taxes to subsidize the use of alternative energies like Solar, Fuel Cell etc. I know on the surface this doesn't seem to be that good an idea....After all who wants to pay more for Gas... I already pay $1.5 /gallon. But stay with me for a little while longer.... What will A) do: Well by increasing the cost of Gas we will i) Reduce the consumption a little bit (not a lot since Gas consumption is not a very price sensitive) May be we will get people to think twice before buying an SUV. ii) But more importantly we will make it economically viable to use the Canadian Gas (Canada has vast amounts of Gas reserves in Alberta that can be used but became economically viable only when per barrel Gas prices are above $30). Once the cost of gas is higher it will be more economically viable for various alternatives to kick in. What will B) do: i) CA already subsidizes solar power installation by up to 50%. The cut-even on what would seem an initial $20k investment for a average home installation is currently between 12-20 years. If the government subsidizes it more and/or the cost of electricity goes up (see A) and the cut-even is brought to under 7 years....well lots and lots of folks are going to reduce there dependence on Gas generated electricity by installing solar or other alternatives. ii) There can even be subsidies on Fuel cell technology or other future stuff making them viable sooner. Ofcourse, I am no economist and thus may have overlooked a lot. Also, I do agree that in the short term higher Gas prices may again hit the economy... But we may need to scarifice in the short term to free our selves in the longer run. Just my 2 cents. -Raj P.S: Ofcourse this may hit the energy industry the most and thus may be Politically very difficult to do. Solution throw a few subsidies at them to research/implement the alternatives.

To: White Bear who wrote (14800)	4/2/2002 7:55:21 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27666

My information is already well understood by the Senate Investigative Committees, the congressional GAO and the State Of California. It is why they are all after those energy papers, though smoking gun evidence may in fact be hard to find without a whistle-blower to testify. In case you don't know the State Of California is now suing the energy company culprits (minus Enron now that they are broke) alleging deliberate cutting off of energy supplies in order to create an artificial energy crisis and gouge away. Seeing as Enron and these other companies were working directly for Bush-Cheney and had everything to gain by getting them in power, the timing of this (right in the middle of the campaign) is more than just suspect. Unless you believe in polly-anna excuses and sheer coincidence, these allegations should be credible to anyone with deductive reasoning power considering the factual events. If not for 9/11 you would have heard a lot more about it, and you will in the future I'm sure. I am sure there's a big cover-up underway along with the stone-walling. The ironic fall of energy prices and fall of Enron further minimize the matter. But no one can argue with the actual events, their timing and their effects.