Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cirrus who wrote (3370)	10/23/2006 11:42:46 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 10087

Throughout our history major infrastructure projects that were critical to our nation's growth required government assistance because they were beyond the scope of "free markets". Perhaps some infrastructure would not have been built without government involvement, and some of that infrastructure was very worth building, not only having a positive return but maybe even having a higher return for the country as a whole than private investment of the same money would have had. But many such public investments do not have that type of return. More importantly hydrogen is not in a similar situation. With electricity we already had a winner and then extended further out with government assistance. With hydrogen we don't have a winner at this point. We know the technology works in a purely technical sense. You can make a hydrogen powered car and drive it around. But we don't know that the technology works in terms of actually providing an economically efficient way to power personal transportation. In fact at this point it doesn't work in that sense and that is the sense that it really has to work. and every dollar spent will be spent here Not very likely. creating jobs for Americans and destroying the jobs (or preventing the creation of jobs) that the same money would have created if used for private sector purposes. Its like all those studies about how stadium create jobs. They ignore or downplay the fact that the funds used to build them have to be pulled from the private sector which costs jobs. instead of fattening the pockets of OPEC - which is hardly a "free market" institution. OPEC is a cartel. Not always an effective cartel but your right that it isn't itself a free market solution. OTOH once the oil gets on the world market you do indeed have a free market in oil (at least as free as most markets are, governments tend to stick their fingers in to everything). Also the building of the gas stations, and the cars and car components, and repair, etc. is a mostly free market solution. If we do want government intervention for the move away from using as much oil, than we still have different ways the government can intervene. It can use a forceful "command and control" system and either take over the energy infrastructure (socialist) or leave it in private hands but still exert control over it ("market socialism", or the economic system often associated with fascism). Or you can have a less forceful control, and have the government not own the means of production and not exert extensive direct control over it or apply harsh measures to the owners, but still have the government decided policies and strongly intervene to decide what types of products and/or services will be created and sold in particular areas. Or you can decide that while too much oil is used (whether its from global warming, balance of payments, security, "peak oil", or some other type of concern) and decided we should move away from using as much oil, but not try to impose a specific solution to the problem. Not say "cars will use hydrogen", or "we will use electric cars", or "we will burn alcohol". Instead you just penalize the one alternative seen as undesirable or problematic (probably through taxing it) and let an alternative market solution be developed. Your idea is that we pick hydrogen and impose it. But even if we do have to move away from oil use over the next decade or four, hydrogen isn't automatically the best solution. Why impose it over alcohol, biodiesel, electric cars (with batteries or non-hydrogen based fuel cells), or some other solution? There were cars that used steam before there where any gasoline powered internal combustion engines in cars. What if government had imposed this solution? I don't think it would have been a good thing. inventors.about.com