Re: Energy and "the Clash of Civilizations" -- a policy thought problem

From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Sun Sep 30 2001 - 14:25:20 MDT


In a message dated 9/29/01 7:48:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
samantha@objectent.com writes:

>I hope you are joking. Nuclear is cost-effective now compared to oil
>without seriously killing an already ailing economy with an arbitrary
>and utterly unnecessary 100-200% tax on gas. I can see why anyone
>would propose something of this kind. Especially since most of
>our energy needs are not for cars.

We're discussing oil and gas needs, and planes, trucks,
and automobiles are a huge portion (I think the majority)
of oil needs. Can't put nuke plants on those. I disagree
with the cost analysis even for power plants, given current
environmental constraints. If regs were more reasonable
you might be correct for that.

But whatever the reality, I proposed a plan that allows for it.
Oil/gas taxes go up gradually, year by year, until imports stop.
If you're correct imports will stop after a year or two of
tax increases, and taxes will then stabilize. Because of the
nature of the market, you're guaranteed that whatever
techniques were adopted to stop imports were highly
efficient ones, the best that could be developed by
millions of highly informed people.

Tax-induced depressionary effects should be stopped by
compensating for revenue increases with reductions in other
taxes. That's an important point, and I forgot to mention
it.



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