GM's Chief pushing for higher gas taxes.

On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 02:31:02 +0000 (UTC), Brent
> wrote:

>On 2011-06-07, Ashton Crusher > wrote:
>> On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 14:02:20 -0400, "C. E. White"
> wrote:
>>
>>>
> wrote in message
...
>>>> And, Washpost: 'Obama's phony accounting on auto bailout' 'Most
>>>> misleading collection of assertions we have seen'
>>>> http://www.drudgereport.com
>>>
>>>I am not a fan of the auto bailout (never was - terrible idea). I do beleive
>>>we should raise taxes on imported oil significantly.
>>>
>>>Ed
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> There should be a floating tariff on imported oil so that any imported
>> oil costs a minimum of $80 a barrel. That would provide a price floor
>> for alternative energy sources to be developed against. Any source
>> that would produce an equivalent barrel of energy would be able to be
>> sold for at least $80 per equivalent barrel under such a system. OPEC
>> would not be able to undercut the alterative sources because the
>> floating tariff would prevent the import costs from ever going below
>> the $80. If world oil prices dropped to $30 a barrel there would be a
>> $50 a barrel tax. It's a win for everyone, even those of us paying
>> the tax because it ensures alternative fuels get brought online which
>> is what we need to happen in the long run. And we can easily afford
>> to pay $80 a barrel, we've been paying at least that much for years
>> now.
>
>All market manipulations must end. All of them. Proposing different ones
>just changes the problems caused somewhat.
>
>


It's not a market manipulation, it's strategic planning to ensure our
countries security in the future. "Free" markets are great for most
things but not everything - they tend to be somewhat short sighted at
times and monopolistic at other times. There's a happy medium, which
we are not at, there is currently too much gvt control and it goes way
past market manipulation.

If you really hold totally free markets as your holy grail then you
are a one worlder because complete freedom of ALL markets makes ALL
countries borderless.

On 2011-06-08, Ashton Crusher > wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 02:31:02 +0000 (UTC), Brent
> wrote:
>
>>On 2011-06-07, Ashton Crusher > wrote:
>>> On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 14:02:20 -0400, "C. E. White"
> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
> wrote in message
...
>>>>> And, Washpost: 'Obama's phony accounting on auto bailout' 'Most
>>>>> misleading collection of assertions we have seen'
>>>>> http://www.drudgereport.com
>>>>
>>>>I am not a fan of the auto bailout (never was - terrible idea). I do beleive
>>>>we should raise taxes on imported oil significantly.
>>>>
>>>>Ed
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There should be a floating tariff on imported oil so that any imported
>>> oil costs a minimum of $80 a barrel. That would provide a price floor
>>> for alternative energy sources to be developed against. Any source
>>> that would produce an equivalent barrel of energy would be able to be
>>> sold for at least $80 per equivalent barrel under such a system. OPEC
>>> would not be able to undercut the alterative sources because the
>>> floating tariff would prevent the import costs from ever going below
>>> the $80. If world oil prices dropped to $30 a barrel there would be a
>>> $50 a barrel tax. It's a win for everyone, even those of us paying
>>> the tax because it ensures alternative fuels get brought online which
>>> is what we need to happen in the long run. And we can easily afford
>>> to pay $80 a barrel, we've been paying at least that much for years
>>> now.
>>
>>All market manipulations must end. All of them. Proposing different ones
>>just changes the problems caused somewhat.
>>
>>
>
>
> It's not a market manipulation, it's strategic planning to ensure our
> countries security in the future.

No. It's market manipulation which always has some excuse like that so
insiders can profit at the expense of outsiders.

> "Free" markets are great for most
> things but not everything - they tend to be somewhat short sighted at
> times and monopolistic at other times. There's a happy medium, which
> we are not at, there is currently too much gvt control and it goes way
> past market manipulation.

No single person or small group of people can know enough to manage a
market without causing distortions. There is no "happy medium" of
intervention. Once the first intervention is made it sets things on a
path to total government control. Each intervention causes problems
which needs more interventions which cause more problems that need
interventions to fix which cause yet more problems... government is
always considered the solution to these problems government causes so
you get more and more and more government.

> If you really hold totally free markets as your holy grail then you
> are a one worlder because complete freedom of ALL markets makes ALL
> countries borderless.

Did you pull a muscle making that stretch?

"Brent" > wrote in message
...

> All market manipulations must end. All of them. Proposing different ones
> just changes the problems caused somewhat.

You don't think the Saudi's (and OPEC) manipulate oil prices? Get them to
stop, then the oil companies would do it directly.

Ed

"Tegger" > wrote in message
...
> "C. E. White" > wrote in
> :
>
>>
>> > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> And, Washpost: 'Obama's phony accounting on auto bailout' 'Most
>>> misleading collection of assertions we have seen'
>>> http://www.drudgereport.com
>>
>> I am not a fan of the auto bailout (never was - terrible idea). I do
>> beleive we should raise taxes on imported oil significantly.
>>
>> Ed
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Why don't you just start voluntarily paying more tax? The IRS has a
> procedure for exactly that.

I don't want to pay more taxes. I want to discorage Americans from funding
terrorists and wackos by paying exhorbitant prices for their oil...and then
turning around and spending more tax dollars defending us from the terrorist
that we are funding by buying their oil.

The Saudis or ExxonMobil or whoever can jack-up gas prices by $0.50 or more
in a month and the DA Republicans mostly say little or nothing (and
certainly do nothing) - but let someone propose adding $0.01 to the gas tax
and the Republicans start squealing like stuck pigs. Makes me wonder who
they are working for....

Ed

"Tegger" > wrote in message
...

> "Congress shall make no law...".
>
> Music to my ears.

You left out a whole bunch of stuff in the Constitution that qualifies that
snipet and renders it mostly irrelevant....

In this case the following applies:

"Section 8
"1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts
and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States."

The way I see it, we are spending billions on wars that are a direct result
of our use of imported oil. Seems only fair to pay for these wars with a tax
on imported oil.

Ed

C. E. White wrote:
>
> I am not a fan of the auto bailout (never was - terrible idea). I do beleive
> we should raise taxes on imported oil significantly.

Won't that simply subsidize domestic producers?

Why not instead raise the federal gas tax, which has remained at 18.4
cents/gallon for 17 years? The cost of maintaining the Interstate
Highway System hasn't stayed constant over that time.

I'm normally against corporate bailouts, but the economy went into
such a big dive in 2008 that the federal takeover of GM and Chrysler
was probably a lot cheaper than the alternative, and if those
companies had folded, even temporarily, suppliers would have collapsed
as well, and that would have affected even Ford, despite that company
being in sound financial shape. At least the auto bailout wasn't
mishandled like TARP, which had few strings attached, so instead of
putting money back into the economy, much of the federal funds were
just pocketed by the big banks. The federal government actually has
an unusually good overall track record at bailing out companies, maybe
because it does it so infrequently, and when it is done, the
government acts like an investment banker, rather than a bleeding
heart social worker.

"larry moe 'n curly" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> C. E. White wrote:
>>
>> I am not a fan of the auto bailout (never was - terrible idea). I do
>> beleive
>> we should raise taxes on imported oil significantly.
>
> Won't that simply subsidize domestic producers?
>
> Why not instead raise the federal gas tax, which has remained at 18.4
> cents/gallon for 17 years? The cost of maintaining the Interstate
> Highway System hasn't stayed constant over that time.
>
> I'm normally against corporate bailouts, but the economy went into
> such a big dive in 2008 that the federal takeover of GM and Chrysler
> was probably a lot cheaper than the alternative, and if those
> companies had folded, even temporarily, suppliers would have collapsed
> as well, and that would have affected even Ford, despite that company
> being in sound financial shape. At least the auto bailout wasn't
> mishandled like TARP, which had few strings attached, so instead of
> putting money back into the economy, much of the federal funds were
> just pocketed by the big banks. The federal government actually has
> an unusually good overall track record at bailing out companies, maybe
> because it does it so infrequently, and when it is done, the
> government acts like an investment banker, rather than a bleeding
> heart social worker.

I am still trying to figure out why some people think letting GM and
Chrysler die would have been a good thing. To lose manufacturing capacity
of that magnitude, and the number of jobs directly and indirectly lost, and
the subsequent shift of purchases to even more foreign product would have
been disastrous from both an economic and a national security standpoint.
I'd like to hear someone's reasoning for this in more specific terms than
the usual sloganeering.

mg

On 2011-06-09, C. E. White > wrote:
>
> "Brent" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>> All market manipulations must end. All of them. Proposing different ones
>> just changes the problems caused somewhat.
>
> You don't think the Saudi's (and OPEC) manipulate oil prices? Get them to
> stop, then the oil companies would do it directly.

So your argument is because some other government varies production of
oil in the territory it rules, the US federal government then has the
right to manipulate the fuel markets here inside the USA? What's next,
the argument that because North Korea's rulers do something, then it's
ok for the US federal government to do it?

Anyway, the Saudis would have been long out of power without the US
federal government proping them up.

On 2011-06-09, C. E. White > wrote:

> I don't want to pay more taxes. I want to discorage Americans from funding
> terrorists and wackos by paying exhorbitant prices for their oil...and then
> turning around and spending more tax dollars defending us from the terrorist
> that we are funding by buying their oil.

"the terrorists", the ones that americans would need be concerned about,
are products of, reactions to, decades of US federal government foreign
policy.

"Brent" > wrote in message
...
> On 2011-06-09, C. E. White > wrote:
>>
>> "Brent" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>
>>> All market manipulations must end. All of them. Proposing different ones
>>> just changes the problems caused somewhat.
>>
>> You don't think the Saudi's (and OPEC) manipulate oil prices? Get them to
>> stop, then the oil companies would do it directly.
>
> So your argument is because some other government varies production of
> oil in the territory it rules, the US federal government then has the
> right to manipulate the fuel markets here inside the USA? What's next,
> the argument that because North Korea's rulers do something, then it's
> ok for the US federal government to do it?

I want to the US Federal governemnt to address a security threart by cutting
off the sorce of funding to most of the wackos in the world. Instead of just
slapping an import duty on Saudi Oil, I would prefer to prohibit us doing
buisness with them at all, but in the short run that is impossible. So as an
alternative, I want to raise the cost of Saudi Oil to make domestic
production / energy alternatives more attractive. Are you really comfortable
sending billions to wackos like the ones in Saudi Arabia, or closer to home,
Venezuela, or for that matter the Russians? The DA Republicans talk a good
game when it comes to national security, but it seems to me they are the
tools of the Saudis and the Military Industrial Complex. If you are in the
arms business it is a perfect senario - we buy oil from the Saudis, who give
a chunk of it to terrorists, who we then have to "defeat" by spending
billions on the military. It is an insane game.

> Anyway, the Saudis would have been long out of power without the US
> federal government proping them up.

True and they (the Saudis) spend big time to keep the Republicans in power
(and Democrats too). And they are buying politicians with the money we send
them.

Wasn't it Lenin who said something like "The Capitalist will sell you the
rope you hang him with?" Well it seems to me that is sort of what we are
doing when we buy oil from the Saudis and other wackos.

A lot of Republicans get really upset becasue we keep dealing with the
Chinese, but to my way of thinking, dealing with the Saudis is just as bad.

Ed