Goodbye 100w, 75w Incandescent Lamps

[JoeSpareBedroom]

From which country did most of the 9/11 thugs originate?

[Rick Brandt]

While sound in theory, two things destroy Adam Smith's main ideas. Monopolies and collusion. Those are why even he did not advocate an adoption of the ideas in absolute terms.

[trader4]

Another populist opinion based on ignorance. You obviously don't understand how the futures markets work, the purpose they serve and who the players are. Do you understand the difference between a speculator and a hedger and how they participate in the market? Ever trade a futures contract? I think not.

This notion that speculators have driven up the price of oil is nonsense. If anyone sees the price of a futures contract for crude and believes that the price is too high and wants to take advantage of it, they are free to step in. That includes oil producers, who can easily hedge their future output at high prices by selling short crude contracts way out into the future. So can OPEC producers. How do you think it is that a futures fund can just drive up the price of a wold commodity and keep it there? It reminds me of the story of the guy that bought some never heard of stock for 25 cents. He sees it going to 50 cents and calls his broker to buy more. It goes to 75 cents. He keeps buying and when he has 200,000 shares and it hits $5 he calls his broker and says SELL! And the broker says, "To whom?"

If you understand that story, you'd understand the silliness of your blaming specualtors for the rise in the price of oil.

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[JoeSpareBedroom]

Another populist opinion based on ignorance. You obviously don't understand how the futures markets work, the purpose they serve and who the players are.

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For some speculators, the purpose is nothing but to turn a quick profit, no different than flipping stocks. Neither you nor I know what percentage of the daily oil trades are done by people like that.

However, there is some noise being made about the problem by some governments, because what I taught you was absolutely true.

[Kurt Ullman]

But at what price? In order for us to become less dependent on foreign oil, we either have to use less oil or increase out supplies. The first lessens demand and thus lowers the price, the second increases supply and thus lowers the price. Of course we have been talking about lowering our dependence on foreign oil since at least the 70's with no change (at least for the better) so I think we are probably arguing a moot point in real life.

[Kurt Ullman]

Just to mention it in passing, the original suggestion of the use of nukes for electricity was in the US. I would doubt that one or two more legal civilian facilities within those borders woudl have a big impact on proliferation. The original discussion was supposed to be about the US using more nuclear power.

[Pete C.]

Well, in the 70s we did have that little oil embargo and folks in the US did start looking at conservation and alternate energy. Problem is that the OPEC folks figured out the embargo was bad for their profits and started shipping cheap oil again, and the US consumers promptly forgot all about conservation and alternate energy.

Today, many of those alternate energy technologies have greatly improved and should we have another oil embargo type event the US consumer may actually implement some alternates and cause a lasting effect on demand. The ultimate problem is the short attention span and memory of the US consumer. They forget all about oil embargoes, 9/11 and other problem events and the reasons they should look at doing things a bit differently. Even worse, in this age of the Internet and instant propaganda the failing memory of the US consumer makes it very easy for the propagandists to manipulate the uninformed public opinion.

[trader4]

Excuse, me but let's not change the subject. The discussion was someone made the commnet:

To which you replied:

That shows a shocking ignorance of free market economies. One of the basic principles of basic free market micro-economics is that everyone acts in their own interest to maximize profits. Do all players have to operate under govt regulation, yes. Is some govt regulation a good thing, like clean air standards? Of course. But anyone that dismisses what was said as nonsense, clearly doesn't understand basic economics and how free makets work. Adam Smith figured it out hundreds of years ago and it's what powers free market economies today.

[Pete C.]

Yep, cheap, clean, safe, non polluting, non greenhouse gas releasing nuclear power - power that could be used to replace a good deal of our current oil use and bring us a lot closer to energy self sufficiency. With the additional side benefit of eliminating all the daily pollution from coal and nat gas fired power plants *now*, instead of 30 years from now when we might have some of the renewable energy sources improved enough to make a real impact.

[Rich256]

All they have to do is like the Japanese and exercise some clever marketing. First hire a bunch of engineers and designers in the orient to design one. Then contact companies in the orient to make the parts. Ship the parts here jamming parts for hundreds of cars on container ships. Then moved those containers directly to factories that use Japanese (or other orient designed) robots that assemble the vehicles while being watched by a union representative. Then advertise them as "Made in America by American Union Labor". Need to get that international highway built so they can unload in Mexico and use Mexican trucks so they don't have to pay the "outrageous salaries" earned by American dock workers and truck drivers.

Impossible to compete with companies that don't have to pay taxes (about half the price of an American made product). If the US imposes import taxes those countries scream about free trade. Those countries have consumption tax (sales tax) so they don't tax exports but tax imports from the U.S..

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Excuse, me but let's not change the subject. The discussion was someone made the commnet:

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It's not a change of subject. We're talking about free markets making the right decision without a kick in the ass from the government. So:

When car makers began dealing with emissions problems, what made them do so?

If you don't answer the question, I'll assume that you either don't know the answer, or you're afraid the correct answer will let all the air out of the theory about free markets.

[Kurt Ullman]

Maybe. I'd doubt it though. As you mention below our short attention span. Also pretty much no matter what we do, there will a LONG time before it kicks in. You have to go through the regular life cycle of cars, power plants, etc., you have ramp up whatever alternatives you come up with. We can decide we want to energy independent tomorrow and it would still be better than 10 (probably coming up on 20) before any real savings would occur. By then...

On both sides of an issue.

[Kurt Ullman]

I think now is not likely. Even if we magically licensed a nuke plant tomorrow, it would still take 2-3 years to build it and bring it online. We would probably be hard pressed to take a current plant off line because of growth in demand in the interim. And that 2-3 year thing ain't gonna happen since we aren't going to magically license nuke plants any time soon. Heck just the enviornmental impact statement can take a year or so to put together, let alone argue.

[Pete C.]

We certainly won't get there with the status quo. Something like an executive order that we'll be energy independent in 5 years with the weight to quash all the NIMBY and Eco-Loon attempts to prevent it.

What I want to see is a comprehensive push starting with new nukes to allow the shutdown of the coal and NG plants and stop all that pollution, provide cheap electricity for electric and plug in hybrid cars and electric commuter rail and busses and home heating and cooling. Use the freed up US NG and US oil to keep other transportation going without foreign oil. Improve conservation as much as possible. Get realistic renewable sources, including distributed solar and wind generation online (again quashing NIBMY and Eco-Loon nonsense) over a reasonable period of time so that in 30 years when those nukes are reaching retirement they can be retires and we can by on entirely renewables.

Something sensible like that will never happen of course...

[Kurt Ullman]

Good luck. Little of that would be constitutionally valid to overturn as an EO since it is based on laws passed by Congress, at the minimum bringing up sepatation of powers.

Which brings up the rather creative accounting for "clean" electric cars where they look at tailpipe admissions and studiously ignore the extra electricity that has to be generated.

But I digress (g)

I am not all that sanguine about real life solar and wind generation as a viable major contributor. The solar cells have to too big and wind generation takes too much space and both are fairly polluting on the making of the cells or turbines. Might be useful at the margins, but I am not all that sold for large scale applications. Although even the marginal stuff would keep the growing part of the demand at bay, as it were.

[Pete C.]

Well, since something like that will never happen, the exact logistics don't really matter.

On my various business visits to San Francisco, I've note the fraudulent claim of "Zero emissions vehicle" on the electric busses, which are in fact "Remote emissions vehicles".

This is why I specified "distributed solar" (and wind where applicable), i.e. panels installed on existing rooftops. Basically something like a utility supplied and maintained battery less grid tie system. Trying to do utility scale solar any other way just isn't practical and has huge environmental impact. Distributed across customer's rooftops it uses no new space and also greatly extends the service life of the already overtaxed grid by producing a good portion of the power locally.

[trader4]

he

I th "Do all players have to operate under govt regulation, yes. Is some govt regulation a good thing, like clean air standards? Of course."

Saying there are exceptions to one of the basic principles of micro- economics and dismissing it as nonsense, are two very different things. Try taking a course or two in economics.

[trader4]

Wow, did you figure that out all by yourself? FYI, it's not just some speculators that are there to turn a quick profit. It's ALL SPECULATORS. And it's a very good thing.

Neither you nor I know what percentage of

Actually, you don't but I do. And anyone that cares to find out can. All they need to do is look at the CFTC committment of traders report, where all players who hold positions of any significant size in all the exchange traded futures have to report it to the CFTC.

Yeah, noise is a good term. But then you use that, where some politician in Indai is bitching as a reference?. They know so much about economics and how to run a country, look where it got them. And if we listened to you, that's where the US would soon be too. Here's some real gems from your article:

"Analysts say the market has gone from a small group of oil users and producers to a full-fledged investment arena in recent years, like stocks or bonds. Prices can move according to intangible factors like fear, just as they do in the equity markets, the analysts say. "

Wow, did they figure that out all by themselves? You mean if there is fear of a hurricane or a war affecting supplies of oil, it can actually change the price? What a break through in economics! And since when is it better to have a market with a small group involved, than a broad full-fledged market? Economics 101, hello?

"But voices as varied as those of Mohammad Alipour-Jeddi, the head of market analysis for OPEC, and William Galvin, the secretary of state in Massachusetts, have blamed speculators for rising prices. "There is enough crude in the markets," Alipour-Jeddi said Monday. Bottlenecks in refining and "speculative activities" are forcing prices higher, he said."

Hmmm, why should anyone doubt that OPEC putting the blame on speculators is a credible source? If OPEC wanted to bring down the price of oil and teach all the "speculators" a lesson, they could do it tomorrow morning. Announce a sharp increase in OPEC production and watch the price go down to $50 a barrel. You think maybe it's cheaper thought to give flippant BS excuses, that could only fool perhaps you and some politicians, instead?

[trader4]

You keep hearing that, but does it ever sink in? There is a worldwide market for oil and it's going to be there, with some ups and downs for decades to come. If the USA developed alternate sources of energy, it would take many years to reduce the amount of oil that we import. At the same time, worldwide demand, from places like China, will continue to grow.

So, the notion that by not importing oil you're somehow going to really screw some middle eastern countries is silly. Yes, they may wind up with less revenue, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean squat. They have a valuable resource that will have worldwide demand for decades to come.

And what exactly is this supposed to do to middle eastern countries anyway? All the terrorism in the world could be financed by maybe .

01% of the mideast oil revenue. So, unless you think you're going to put them out of the oil business altogether, it ain't gonna work.

[Jim Yanik]

"Dave Bugg" wrote in news:azSbj.37$ [e-mail]:

except that a commercial kitchen stove is not going to kill others. (unless they don't handle food safely....) SUVs are out on the roads,rolling over with some frequency,climbing over other smaller cars,too.