More on the Gas Run

Gas prices surge as Ike moves in | ajc.com.

States warn gas stations against price gouging

These stories is just full of juicy quotes about indignant consumers (read: voters) about this gas run.  I’ll present some quotes:

Larry Ruiz of Duluth said it cost him $45 Tuesday to fill up his small pickup. Friday, it cost him $60. “It really is just too expensive,” he said. “The government has lost control of the gas.”

Larry, the government doesn’t have control over gas prices.  At all.  It controls one thing, the location and siting of oil refineries.  You know who has control over gas prices?  You.  But I bet you’re not willing to take responsiblity for your actions.  It’s alot easier to set blame on the government than yourself.

The wholesale price for a gallon of gasoline rose about $1, to $4.25, Thursday morning, topping the high price five years ago when hurricanes Katrina and Rita raked the Gulf Coast, said Tom Kloza, publisher of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. It was uncertain whether that price spike will filter down to the retail level.

“It’s pure panic,” Kloza said. “It’s related to the fact that there are worries about whether there’s going to be enough (gasoline) in the distribution system to satisfy some of the September pumping needs on the Gulf Coast.”

More proof that this is a run.  People don’t know if there’s going to be supplies, so they hoard.  This will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Every time there’s a hurricane this happens. They’re just doing this to rip people off,” said 19-year-old Megan Cohen, a South Carolina college student who settled for paying $4.11 a gallon after going to three stations.

Uh, this wasn’t the case in any other hurricane season except following Katrina, Megan.  It hadn’t happened with any of the hurricanes this year, including Gustav, which hit another large section of the oil and gas producing area of the country.  But Megan, you’re not helping by going to three gas stations and “settling” for $4.11 a gallon.  This means that you didn’t need gasoline (then why go to three stations unless they were out, and there’s an easy way to figure out if the station is empty: noone’s getting gas).  But Megan probably has never taken an economics class at her South Carolina college, otherwise she would know about SUPPLY AND DEMAND.  It’s not that hard people.  Less supply means prices go up.  Demand going up sharply because of panic buying means prices go up even futher.  Or, if they don’t go up quickly enough, there’s a shortage.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford asked residents to avoid filling up unless necessary. “Instead, this is a time to think of ways in which each of us can make a difference on what may come our way if refineries in Texas are significantly damaged,” Sanford said in statement. “It might mean riding to the football games with a neighbor or on Sunday riding to church with a friend. It might mean watching a video at home rather than going to the movies or riding to work with a co-worker.”

I know there’s not alot that can be done legally, but as the leader of a state, can’t Mark do something with a little more leadership?  Making a difference?  Throwing out silly suggestions?  This is wimpy politico talk here.  Man up, Mark!  Tell people to stop being so stupid and panicking, if this isn’t a problem.  If it is… be more forceful in telling them that this might be the case for a while.  But if this is his idea of leadership, then this state’s got problems.  This was also true of the Hanna situation, which was equally feeble in the public response.

In South Carolina – where gas prices increased about 20 cents a gallon on average Friday – Attorney General Henry McMaster said gas stations that price gouge would face criminal prosecution. He did not set a threshold, saying each case must be investigated separately to see whether prices were raised to an “unconscionable” level.

But putting the gouging laws into effect?  Now THAT’S going to make things better!  Making the suppliers walk on egg shells in pricing so that if some 19-year old tart with no clue of how things work gets pissed off and files a complaint, then you’ll have to deal with investigations for the next year.  Or you could price it so low that you’ll be out in 5 minutes, but you don’t have to deal with the state lawyers.  Or you could just go on vacation for the next 15 days until this expires.  Then you’re fine and it’s only the customers who get screwed.  But we already knew that about these types of laws.

North Carolina Republican Congressman Robin Hayes called for a federal investigation into some prices rising more than $1 per gallon in a day.

“I understand there is a substantial hurricane in a sensitive area of the country, but this dramatic spike in gas prices is breathtaking,” he said.

I just wanted to point out the party of the pandering politician here.  What’s a federal investigation going to do that the myriad of state investigations won’t?  Oh, that’s right.  Make it seem like you’re doing something about it.

John McCain Uses the Pickens Lie

From John McCain’s acceptance speech last night:

My fellow Americans, when I’m President, we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we’ll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles. (Emphasis added)

I’ve documented the fact that $700 billion is a bald-faced, economically illiterate number that was conjured up by T. Boone that has no basis on the realities of the oil market or just plain facts. Add to the fact that McCain just lumped natural gas in with solar and wind (“one of these things is not like the other, one of these things is just not the same”), and T. Boone must have been jumping for joy with the speech last night. I’m sure one of the first things McCain will reach across the aisle to Nancy Pelosi is to force private fleet vehicles to run on natural gas.

So if you oppose the Pickens Plan, or don’t like the fact that it’s based on sketchy numbers, has a significant chance of screwing up our electricity market and backed by someone who has a huge financial stake in it, then you don’t have a choice in the election. Well you do, but you won’t hear about it in the media.

I would call on John McCain’s campaign to fully disclose their relationship with T. Boone and fess up to the fact that he cited a horribly incorrect number during a nationally televised speech. It’s the least that he can do “for the country.” But I doubt that will happen.

McCain Invents New Constitutional Power

Again, from John McCain’s acceptance speech:

We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution and the end of the Cold War. We have to catch up to history, and we have to change the way we do business in Washington.

I must’ve missed that part of the Constitution where it says that the government sets the standards for transportation fuel. Yes, yes, I know I’m in a minority opinion, where the Supreme Court has given the federal government carte blanche to do whatever it wants with the economy. Of course, no one has opposed the ethanol mandates, or the EPA gasoline/diesel requirements yet either, at least not successfully. Of course, as a nation, we have long accepted federal limits on economic freedom. Perhaps when you’re required to trade in your gasoline powered car for a T. Boone special, you might make a peep, or not.

Regardless, this is just another way that McCain is letting everyone know that he’s going to be fulfilling the Pickens Plan when he gets into office. He just doesn’t want to say it so directly. So much for that openness and accountability that he’s running on.

Politics as Usual with Palin and the Media

So we’ve gone through a weekend of hearing about Sarah Palin as the new Republican VP nominee. And, to no one’s surprise, it was all about personal characteristics and almost nothing on policy.

There were thousands of stories on Palin’s children, both newborn and almost adult. But that’s the essence of the game as the liberal media and the blogosphere tried to find something against Palin that would stick in terms of criticism. I know it’s hard to find some actual information on three day’s notice, but I was somehow able to find information on her in five hours on Friday afternoon. You’d think the media could do that, since they’re getting paid for it after all. But instead, we get innuendo and slander, going after her personality, but not her policies. And it’s not like she’s a blank slate, as she’s got two years as governor and a couple of years as mayor to find information on. So, as usual, the ancien media fails at their job of investigation and reporting.

Meanwhile, the GOP side of the media is just ecstatic about the pick, as if this is all the people needed to warm up to McCain. To his credit, he did reinforce his social conservatism at the Rick Warren forum, and it appears that this is another pick along those lines. Which is why the anciens wanted to go after her personal life as to make the hypocrite tag stick. But there’s nothing to those attacks, which is why the GOP side is going after them on this issue. So instead of introducing their candidate and filling in the gaping holes on her policy ideas and where she stands on the issues, they’re, once again, playing on the other team’s field. But as this weekend has shown, there’s nothing to this issue, which is why the GOPers are attacking this hard.

But it doesn’t help us in the minority who actually, you know, still care about the issues and policies that government puts in place. And more to the point, both sides have been strangely silent on Palin’s energy policy while in Alaska. It’s supposed to be her strong point, and she even mentioned it in her introductory speech. But as I outlined in my Palin on Energy post, it’s at best a political pander, and at worst, a contradiction of the national Republican policy on taxation and a gold mine for the Democrats, if they’re going to take the bait.

In case you don’t know, Palin instituted a new severance tax on oil pumped from state-leased lands. And contrary to usual Republican policy, this tax was higher than the previous level. In fact, it became a windfall profits tax, as the structure of the tax was that it increased as the price of oil increased, the very definition of a windfall profits tax.

But people aren’t interested in the fact that it’s a tax increase out of the Obama handbook, they’re more interested in covering it up as “giving a tax rebate back to the people”, as epitomized by the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon:

CALLER: And you asked him a specific question, and what he picked out was so mundane, I mean it was on everyone’s mind. You asked him what were Sarah’s accomplishments here, and he had an ability to tell you a whole litany of things. And he picked out oh, you know, “She’s going to send us some money.” Well, yeah. It’s a small part of a much larger plan by the state —

RUSH: Well, but wait a minute.

CALLER: — to help us out.

RUSH: No, I knew what he was talking about at the time. Alaskans — she gave them a rebate on rising gasoline prices added to whatever it is you guys already get for allowing the Alaska pipeline and other things up there, but she was simply saying, she made it a point in her announcement to say that she didn’t keep the money as a governor and put it in government coffers; she sent it back to the people who were experiencing this rapid increase in gasoline prices. Remember, Obama at the time the gasoline prices were skyrocketing up, said, (paraphrasing) “I’m not really worried about the price but I am concerned about how rapidly it went up.”

CALLER: Yeah, it was disgusting.

RUSH: She turned it back to the people, that’s all. No different than a tax rebate.

CALLER: Right, which was the original idea of the original permanent fund in the first place, because the oil revenue of the state, according to Hammond, our governor at the time, belonged to the people. And so the people get a tiny little portion of the interest, and that’s what that dividend is about, but I wouldn’t have chosen that as her most important accomplishment. Frank Murkowski was expected to be a really good governor, and he was just a bust. She beat him in the primary, and she filed his deal that he had made with the gas companies — or the oil companies, she filed that right in the trash. (Emphasis added)

First of all, it’s not a tax rebate, as the $1200 doled out by each citizen was never collected from the citizenry. It was collected from the oil companies and redistributed to taxpayers. That’s NOT a tax rebate. It’s the same problem that the Bush tax rebates/stimulus payments have, the rebates are uncorrelated with tax payments. So it can’t be a rebate if you don’t pay the tax in the first place.

But the bigger problem is that there is this entitlement to the oil company revenue because the oil came out of state-owned land. The fact that the state owns any land is something entirely different, but that’s different from a federally owned parcel (which was in most circumstances expropriated and definitely unconstitutional). Under the Alaska Constitution, the state can own land, and lease mineral rights, but it doesn’t own the oil. Well, they can own the oil, but they allow private entities to explore and produce the oil, at least until politicians decide to take over the production as a whole (or just go ahead and tax it 100%).

In the grander scheme of things, this should sound at least some concern for conservatives, but I haven’t heard a peep from either side of the aisle, but it’s actually pretty obvious once you think about it.

Republicans don’t want to dirty up the image of Palin, especially when she says that it’s not a tax increase, but it’s getting a fair valuation on the resources. If a Democrat tried doing that on a tax on… anything, Republicans would skin that Democrat alive.

Democrats are either waiting for a “gotcha” moment, possibly during the debate or closer to the election. The question will be obvious: “During your time as governor of Alaska, you passed a tax increase on oil companies that were then sent taxpayers as an energy rebate. Barack Obama has proposed the same thing, but John McCain and the Republicans have attacked this proposal. Do you support Obama’s plan that is very similar to your policy in Alaska?” And then she’s going to have to square the circle, saying that it’s ok to do it on the state level, but not on the national level, or backtrack on her record in Alaska. Either way, the Republicans are going to have to figure that one out quickly, because either she’s going to piss off fiscal conservatives or be attacked (rightly so) as a flip-flopper.

Right now, there’s no sign of what she’ll do, even if she highlighted the policy (in a limited way) in her speech in Dayton. But unlike the pregnancy/child issues, this is a serious issue that could very well put her in a bad position.

(UPDATE: The Cato Institute has done some research into her tax policies: Gov. Sarah Palin’s Record on Taxes and Spending and Palin: Uninspiring Tax Policy Record. Leave it to the libertarians to do the political work of the partisans. There’s a thesis to be had there, do non-mainstream party outlets cover the issues that the Big Two parties do not want to have discussed? I’m also thinking Obama/climate change and environmental parties.)

Sarah Palin on Larry Kudlow

Yes, I know it’s Larry Kudlow, so I apologize for that. But just skip to the 3:35 mark, which is where Palin’s populism comes out in droves. “The oil and gas resources that the Alaskan people own?” “We have to make sure that an appropriate value is placed on these resources and that the people who own these resources are able to benefit from them.” I’m sorry, but why does “the people own these resources?” That sounds pretty Venezuelan to me, which is NOT very conservative. She also avoids the deregulation question, but that’s because the blowhard Kudlow asked a 30 second question about three different things.

Sarah Palin on Energy

As most people know, Sarah Palin is now the VP nominee for the Republican Party. Everyone knows the obvious stuff: she’s a woman with 5 kids, current governor of Alaska, former mayor, elected on an anti-corruption kick.

But there’s not so much that people know about her policies and her accomplishments. So I’m going to try and fill in the blanks, especially on energy (It’ll be tougher to get her policy ideas on transportation, but they’re there in the land of the Bridge to Nowhere). I first had my antennae up when both McCain and Palin in this afternoon’s rally mentioned that she had fought against “Big Oil.” It might just be cover to make sure that she doesn’t get politically attacked for being cozy to oil interests or attacking her as “continuing Bush’s presidency.” Referring to the oil industry as “Big Oil” is not something the Bush presidency was known for.

So I found this website, run by a lawyer named Beldar, who jumped on the Palin bandwagon early and often, as shown in the link. As for what she’s done in office:

• She’s spoken out against putting polar bears on the endangered species list. While only tangentially related to energy, putting the polar bear on the list would enable federal regulation of pretty much the entire economy, as the specious reasoning for putting the polar bear on the list as “threatened” is due to global warming climate change. If anything makes climate change worse for the polar bears, it can be regulated by the feds, according to the Endangered Species Act. This is a no-brainer, but it’s a politically risky action to take, for fear of being labeled a “Big Oil” supporter, or anti-green. But she makes up for it with…
• She signed onto the punitive damages case that was eventually brought to the Supreme Court. This case, stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, was about the $5 billion in punitive damages that were sought against Exxon (now ExxonMobil). Exxon thought that this was excessive and fought all the way to the Supreme Court to have them lowered. Exxon won in a 5-3 verdict to lower the damages, though the 4-4 split meant that there could actually be punitive damages under maritime law. The actual Court decision can be found here (warning, lots and lots of legalese). Funny thing, Palin found herself on the side of Breyer, Ginsberg and Stevens, and against Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy and Souter. But as you can see in the video below, this is mostly a populist action, since there were 33,000 people, businesses, and associations impacted by this. It’d be political suicide to not support this, but the populism still remains:
  
• In another populist move, she signed onto a tax increase. On oil companies (scroll to see discussion on “serverance” tax vs. “income” tax vs. “windfall” profits tax.) Here are the details of the actual tax. Key points:
  1. Increases base rate on all oil from 22.5% to 25%.
  2. Adds surtax on value of oil between $30 to $92.50 of .04%
  3. Adds surtax of .1% on all value above $92.50

  Whether you want to call it a windfall profits or a severance tax, she raised taxes on oil output, and made them progressive instead of flat. That’s pretty counter intuitive to pretty much all conservative tax thought, as we would like taxes lower and flatter.

  (As a side note, it CAN be argued that this is a windfall profits tax as this tax is increased as the value of the oil increases. The value of the oil increases NOT on the production capabilities of the oil company but on factors outside their concern, making additional profits prohibitively “windfall”. A flat tax would not be a windfall tax, as the tax would not increase as prices increase, but because of the progressive nature of the tax, it becomes a windfall profits tax. This makes any progressive tax a windfall profits tax, though it’s worse for income, because presumably, the increased income is through increased work, which is not a windfall to the user. Arguments against the windfall profits tax should be the same as arguments against progressive income taxes. It also increases the incentives for oil companies to increase their production costs (or more accurately, persuade the government to increase the production costs allowance) to avoid paying higher taxes, a perverse economic incentive.)

• And with these new tax revenues, she gave them back to the state already flush with government handouts. From the Seattle Times:
  Alaska’s oil windfall by the numbers
  $6 billion – Estimated revenue collected by state of Alaska from new tax on oil profits this fiscal year.
  $10 billion – Estimated total oil revenue collected by state this year (old plus new oil taxes).
  $1,200 – Special payment to each Alaskan resident this year from new oil tax.
  $2,000 – Estimated annual dividend each Alaskan will receive this year from oil-wealth savings account, not counting the new oil tax.

  So Gov. Palin raised taxes by more than 100%. Though to say this is on profits is somewhat disingenous, as it’s just on oil price above production and transport costs, which means that this isn’t even a tax on profits, as it ignores other costs (R&D, maintenance, marketing, etc.). So it’s even worse than a profits tax.

  But the revenues at least went straight back to the populace instead of funneled through all sorts of government programs. That would be even more wasteful and economically illiterate. First she wanted to create a debit card system for energy payments but instead settled on a straight check to “help with rising gas prices” although the money will probably be spent on things other than energy (like the stimulus checks). The straight check at least is good that it doesn’t increase government any more than it already does (the creation of a government check card bureaucracy), since they already have a system in place for doling out the money that they had already received.

  So this tax was in essence a populist ploy to get more oil money redistributed to the citizens of the state. It smacks me of being a little on the road to nationalizing the oil fields there (state-izing?). What happens when the citizenry wants more of it’s $1,200 dollars. The tax goes up. No surprise there.

• Lest I seem too negative on Palin, there are some points that I do like about her. She supports drilling in ANWR and completed the natural gas pipeline to the US through Canada. The natural gas pipeline will be an immense help to the US natural gas market, even if you have to travel through Canada to get there. I don’t know enough about the pipeline as to whether the gas will be intermingled with Canadian gas or not, which would be an interesting trade issue, at least statistically.

So overall, I would peg Palin as a conservative populist on energy. This seems to fit with her overall philosophy, as so far as it can be determined by ontheissues.org:

But we’ll get a closer idea of what she brings to the table as the campaign unfolds.

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Constitution Party

Continuing the series on party platforms on transportation and energy, we come to the Constitution Party.

They do not have a section on transportation issues, much like the Libertarians. They do have an energy section:

Energy

James Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” (Federalist Papers #45) The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution , nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (Amendment X).

We call attention to the continuing need of these United States for a sufficient supply of energy for national security and for the immediate adoption of a policy of free market solutions to achieve energy independence for these United States. We call for abolishing the Department of Energy.

Private property rights should be respected, and the federal government should not interfere with the development of potential energy sources, including natural gas, hydroelectric power, solar energy, wind generators, and nuclear energy.

Pretty simple when you get down to it. Abolish the Department of Energy (much like the old Republicans, and no government interference. Pretty much a libertarian/free-market approach to energy.

I wish they would have something on transportation issues, but including everything risks having an unwieldy platform. It’s still an important federalist issue that would need to be addressed by any major candidate.

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Green Party

I have to give credit where credit is due: the Green Party is very, very open about what they want to do. Sure it’ll involve massive government intervention in everyone’s daily life, but they’re putting it out there in very specific terms.

The entire platform (including changes from 2004 to 2008) on energy and transportation policy, which they call “Ecological Sustainability” is available from the GP website. Unlike the Libertarian Party, the Greens are very specific about what they would like to do.

So lets see what they have on energy:

• “Our oil and gas addiction in particular has led to wars and human rights abuses in many countries….U.S. dependence on oil and gas has driven an unparalleled assault on the global environment and on human rights in many nations.” Of course, if we were to not use oil or natural gas anymore, these third world countries would be liberal democracies with no disputes or conflict whatsoever. This, of course, confuses the fact that the countries themselves start these wars. There are plenty of countries that have petroleum resources that don’t abuse their citizens (e.g. Canada), and there are countries that DON’T have oil resources and DO abuse their citizens (e.g. Zimbabwe). Removing the oil would not remove the source of these problems (the backwards societies and the lack of governing structure)
• “We oppose energy utility deregulation…. We recognize that deregulation and its reliance on markets – as opposed to state-based regulations – is incapable of providing affordable, reliable and clean energy…. We support state efforts to regain control over electricity by establishing democratic, public control systems to locally coordinate supply and demand and by eliminating energy trading.” It’s funny how people have no idea how economics (and socialism) work. PUCs are NOT democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and the current market system somehow does enable people to have affordable and reliable energy, and if you’re in a fully deregulated market like Texas, you can have clean energy too. If you’re in California or most other states, you have no choice in where you get your electricity and it’s “cleanliness”. But the Greens see markets as bad, no matter if they actually enable clean energy or not.
• “New construction should be required to achieve substantial portions of its heating energy from the sun.” Man, I’d hate to live in the Pacific Northwest under the Greens.
• “We oppose further oil and gas drilling or exploration – especially that which would occur in other countries, (emphasis mine)” I’d LOVE to see how they’d enforce banning oil exploration in other countries. This further enforces the general criticism of the enviros as wanting to keep the poor countries poor.
• “We call for independent, public-access radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities.” If you want to do this, do this. Go to your nearest nuclear power plant, set up shop with a Geiger counter, and report your results. I’m not going to stop you and if the government does, then THAT’s your problem. But you don’t need the government to do this for you.

And their section on transportation:

• “We call for major public investment in mass transportation, so that such systems are cheap or free to the public and are safe, accessible, and easily understandable to first-time users. ” hahaha Short of spending TRILLIONS on mass transit, you’re never going to get all three… and since we’re talking about the government running this system, you’re NEVER going to get anything that’s easily understandable. No matter how much you spend.
• “The present-day approach of upgrading streets to accommodate increased traffic generates new traffic because access is now easier, and people will now take jobs further from their homes or purchase homes further from their jobs. Some people shift from public transit to private cars due to the trip time in cars being shorter. As patronage for public transit decreases, public transit loses funding, becomes less viable, and service deteriorates thus encouraging even more people to use their cars. ” This is the best part, the Greens admit that people don’t like taking transit, admit that private transport is faster, and that public transit wouldn’t work without massive subsidies. So, their solution is to make people do something they would prefer not to do in the first place. A winning political strategy.
• “Redirect resources that currently go to enhancing auto capacity into expanding human-scale transit options….Develop affordable mass transit systems that are more economical to use than private vehicles. ” What the hell is a human-scale transit option? And I’d love to see the day when a public mass transit system is more economical to use than a private system. That’s also the day communism will finally work. And pigs will fly.
• “Emphasize the use of light and heavy rail for freight transportation. ” WHY? It’s slower, it has a lot more delays and is constrained in where and how it can go. An airplane or truck can bypass congestion. A train can’t. Just ask anyone who’s taken Amtrak. Speaking of which…
• “Expand our country’s network of rail lines, including high-speed regional passenger service.” Because outside of the Northeast, there is not a single place that is built in a similar way to that region. So you’d be trying to shoehorn a system that works (barely) in one region, where it’s not needed elsewhere. And as most people who take Amtrak can attest to, Amtrak is beset by delays and general incompetence.
• “Ban flights between cities where land-based travel options can get a passenger to their destination within four hours.” Since you have the Acela, all of the Northeast just lost their air service… sorry. Not to mention the whole hub-and-spoke system for the airline industry. So for example, I live in Columbia, SC. Since nobody in their right minds wants to travel to Columbia, there are not many direct flights, so you have to have connections in many cities. Thus, you have alot of flights from Columbia to Atlanta (4 hours away) and Charlotte (1 hour away). Congrats, you no longer can fly that route. So this will either:
  1. Force people to drive up to 4 hours to get to the airport
  2. Force airlines to have you connect from somewhere MORE THAN 4 hours away.

  Either way, you’ve just made the whole air travel system ALOT more complicated and wasteful. But environmentalists are pretty ignorant when it comes to the law of unintended consequences. And to put a cherry on top of their economic backwardness…

• “We encourage the social ownership and use of land at the community, local, and regional level.” The Greens have never studied or heard about the Tragedy of the Commons.

So overall, the Greens have set out an expansive list of things they want to do, which is ballsier than most political parties. Of course, given that most of what they want to do would be economically wasteful at best, it’s not a very smart plan either.

Stephen Spruiell on Energy & Environment on National Review Online

Stephen Spruiell on Energy & Environment on National Review Online

Sigh… is there any more reason to realize that Republicans made a huge mistake in nominating John McCain?  They’re going through all of these problems trying to square the platform with the candidate.  Of course, in a rational electoral system, the candidate would reflect the base and not have to be grafted together like “trying to write a lawsuit against yourself.”

But as a result, Republicans have now gone along with the environmental movement in calling all this “climate change” instead of “global warming.”  Which is a tautology, or some kind of logical infallacy, since CLIMATE IS ALWAYS CHANGING. Somehow, this society has become so narcissitic that the current climate SHOULD be the only climate on Earth for as long as humans remain here.  Try telling that to the people of North Africa, who have been screwed the past 1000 years or so with advancing desert conditions, which cannot be explained away in the past 50 years of industrial development.

So in continuing with my plan to review all of the party platforms, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like what I see in the Republican platform when it is formally adopted next week.

National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Libertarian Party

In a multi-part series, I am going to find and post the party platforms for all of the national political parties, concerning transportation and energy. Today I’ll start with the Libertarian Party.

2008 Platform

Nothing on transportation. On energy, they have this to say:

2.3 Energy and Resources

While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.

Short and to the point. But this has it’s good points and its bad. You can boil down the Libertarian platform to “free markets good, government intervention bad”. Which is pretty much what they did this year. Even to the point, that they don’t even have a stated position on transportation.

Of course, it isn’t to say that they’ve never had a position on transportation. They even had a position on public utilities once upon a time. That’s something only a policy wonk would love, but framed the right way, the Libertarians could even put this in a winning message:

“You know why you pay $80 a month for 200 cable channels you don’t watch. Government policies don’t allow you to pick and choose the channels you want to watch, even though the technology is available. You can choose an individual plan for your cell phone, but the government forces everyone to have a one-size fits all plan for cable. It’s time to take cable out of the hands of bureaucrats and lobbyists and back where it belongs, the customer.”

So as an idea of where Libertarians stand on more complex issues, below is the 2004 Libertarian Party platform on some key issues.