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Technology Stocks : The Electric Car, or MPG "what me worry?" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (600)	12/4/2008 11:03:15 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17467

They calculated that the US spent between $30 to $60 billion Without their data its hard to asses their calculation. Actually I'm not as concerned about the data, or the math (I assume they get the later right, and I'd guess their data would probably be somewhat reasonable), but their definitions and methodology. The question is not "what is the cost of military activity in the Middle East?" (at least that's not the only important question), but how do you decide what counts as "safeguarding oil supplies in the Middle East". We have disagreed on that. Finding someone with more specific data, doesn't help resolve the disagreement, because the issue isn't the specific data. A more comprehensive study that includes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve The strategic petroleum reserve is hardly a subsidy for oil consumption. Also it contains valuable oil, you've only lost money on it if the price of oil goes down after you buy it (well there are storage costs, but they are a small fraction of the cost of the oil). the coast guard is clearing shipping lanes and doing navigational support to oil tankers, etc If that's a subsidy than is traffic enforcement, and even road building and maintenance, a subsidy to every business that relies on products that are delivered over roads, or customers and/or workers arriving over roads (almost every business). Get real. Also alternatives require things to be transported over oceans in many cases, and over roads in almost every case. If you do count the costs of maintaining the transportation links as a subsidy, then you have to add the cost to the alternatives as well.