Obama’s plan to reduce pain of gas prices
Barack Obama’s plan to reduce the economic burden of gasoline prices is to tax the oil companies, and give $1,000 “rebate” checks to consumers. Which, of course, will result in oil companies raising the price of their product to make up for the additional cost of the tax, erasing any benefit (and raising the price of everything that uses oil to get to its destination). Consumers lose, as oil prices and the price of everything goes up. The oil companies lose a little, as the increased price somewhat mutes demand (gasoline is inelastic, but not completely so), and the government gains more power.
Hooray for big government solutions. Hat tip to Rob Port. (One benefit of the seemingly inevitable Obama administration, I’m back in good standing with my old Conservative friends!)
That’s a nice circle you have there of economic failure!
You were never in my “bad” graces. I just happened to disagree with some of your other opinions strenuously.
The “I’m libertarian/green party/constitutional party/whatever party and above all the Republican/Democrat partisanship” stuff is irksome. As if libertarians, etc. aren’t every bit as capable of being stupid and trite and overly-broad in their pronouncements and Republicans and Democrats.
And I’m not even sure how conservative I am. I don’t have a problem with gay marriage. I think marijuana should be legal. I think we’re putting far too many people in jail in this country. And I think most Republicans in office only pay lip service to the limited government ideals that are supposedly at the heart of their party.
I am what I am, and when I doubt I tend to err on the side of liberty.
Those consumers who use more oil lose.
Those consumers who use less oil win.
Conservation driven by market forces! Shazzam!!
-danny
Rob,
I’ve just come to be tired of having principles reverse-engineered from pragmatic judgments. And as most of politics is pragmatic, I’ve grown cynical and, yes, a little bit haughty about the popular political landscape. It’s actually rather liberating. I don’t care which of McCain or Obama wins the election, because they both are enemies of freedom. And more generally it allows me to stand up for my convictions not because I think they are advantageous to the country’s prosperity, but because they’re right. e.g. I don’t have to argue that the minimum wage is bad because it results in a lowering of real wages. I can just say “screw you — it’s my money, and if I want to pay someone $4.00 an hour, that’s my business.”
I think we’re probably fairly closely in sync on domestic issues… it’s probably just the foreign policy stuff where I’ve diverged. But my main point was, an Obama presidency gives Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians a chance to commiserate about a common domestic enemy.
Sure, I get you.
Probably the only place where we diverge on domestic policy is that I’m not willing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It’s all well and good to say “screw you, I want to pay the wages I want to pay.” The reality is that there are a lot of people in the country who aren’t convinced by that argument.
Political reality is that we must persuade, not say “screw you.”
Put simply, when you say “screw you” I agree with you. But the whole reason I spend the time and resources I do on writing about politics in public is that I want to educate people about my way of thinking (which, like you, I think is the right one). To do that, I have to persuade.
And that means making valid, real-world arguments.
I wish things were simple as saying “F-you, it’s my money, use your own money to fund your charity.” But they’re not, alas.
And I should note that I’m not the perfect persuader. My “screw you” side comes out a bit too often. I consider a personal failing.
Also, I’d say that the “haughtiness” you allude to is a big reason why Ron Paul’s campaign (who, if I remember correctly, you supported) didn’t get a lot of traction.
Maybe if there was a bit less “screw you” in that campaign and a bit more “hey, this is why we’re right” it would have been more successful.
I’d be happy if the government persuaded with incentives, but mandating a minimum wage isn’t persuasion. Confiscatory taxes are not persuasion, but blatant robbery. I’ll gladly write a check directly to the military for the defense of the nation, and in all likely hood it would be larger than my tax bill today. I’ll gladly pay to send my child to school, but I want a choice of school, not a monopoly where my confiscated taxes go to a state run school and I can’t even transfer that amount to the private school of my choice. We have lost way to many liberties “for the common good” to do any good for the common people.
Missing my point, Chris. I was talking about me persuading. Not government.
Government never persuades. Just try not paying your taxes once.
Oh no no, I’m not saying that I don’t have to explain my principles. Just that I don’t have to justify the results of those principles. I’ll freely admin that freedom and human rights have real, measurable negative results. It doesn’t make my principles invalid — my principles aren’t beholden to the results of their implementation.
So the full version would be “screw you, it’s my money… and here is why it is morally right for people to own the fruits of their labor [...]”
If the results are good, that’s a bonus. Moral rectitude is more important to me than getting a desired result. I loathe pragmatism — the grandfather of socialism, communism and fascism in all their flavors.
LOL fail for obama.
Good diagram, it reminds me of something I would see on http://www.xkcd.com
Hilarious.
Wont work!
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