[mdlug-discuss] Ethanol vs gasoline economy [Was: [mdlug] Automotive technical info ...]

[allen]

Robert Adkins wrote:
>     There's a shit-ton of things that are done that is contrary to our 
> national interest.
>
>     A huge one is the Free Trade Agreements that have been screwing US 
> Manufacturing and the "Favored Trade Status" with certain nations that 
> certainly aren't our friend.
>
>     Buying the line that Kyoto is bad for our national interest, while 
> not saying anything against the manufacturing being pushed wholesale 
> outside of the US is.. kind of silly to me.
>
>   
You're entitled to your opinion although the more hysterical predictions 
about free trade - great, big, sucking sounds and like that - never 
materialized. Of course, the people who benefit from trade barriers 
don't see it that way but you can't please everybody.
>     Right now, the average age of a Tool&Die guy, the people who are the 
> backbone of manufacturing, at least in the Detroit Area, is reaching 60. 
> Twenty years ago, that average age was around 30 to 40. What happens 
> when all that mentoring knowledge is gone and the we are in a pinch 
> where we actually need manufacturing, like let's say the unthinkable 
> happens and a conventional world war erupts with us on one side and 
> China on the other?
>
>   
I used to be puzzled by the expression "patriotism is the last refuge of 
the scoundrel". Then someone told me that real Americans buy American 
and it was all very clear. When you can no longer compete you wave the 
flag, hoping to trade on misplaced patriotism.

Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often. Otherwise we'd be buying 
cars made with patriotic steel by sturdy American yoemanry for way more 
then the job is worth using equipment far less productive then the state 
of the art.

Actually, that happened, didn't it? All those patriotic steel unions got 
a nice, high tariff laid on imported steel - for the good of the nation 
of course - and then relaxed in the shelter of those nice, high tarrifs.

It didn't quite work as planned though. Turns out those tariffs didn't 
hold down the price of steel-containing U.S. exports or hold up the 
price of steel-containing foreign imports. So the steel tariffs that 
were such a good deal, and patriotic, ended up screwing the American 
consumer and the people working in American export industries. As I 
said, you can't please everybody.
>     What are we going to do, import tanks, planes and warships from China?
>
>   
Sure. We'll probably get them for a pretty good price as well since the 
Chinese economy will collapse deprived of its primary trading partner.
>     We need to do what's good for us and good for our future 
> generations. If that means we can figure out some way of seriously 
> cutting our Carbon Emissions, regardless of the costs and 
> maintain/rebuild our manufacturing base, then we must do so.
>
>   
I've got two words for you: Bjorn Lomborg.
>     Before anyone starts up with the "Oh, but it's going to cost so 
> much, think about the Profit Margins!!1!!!"
>
>     Government Regulation has done more to spur the development of 
> industry, creating many millions of jobs and growth in our economy than 
> anything some Profit Margin concerned corporation ever as. I work in the 
> Seating and Restraint industry that never would have existed, as it does 
> today, without government regulation, there simply wasn't any 
> draw/reason for the car companies to create any kind of safety industry 
> until the government stepped in. Look at the rapid growth of the 
> telecommunications industry after the government stepped in and broke up 
> Ma Bell, does anyone in this list honestly believe that we would have 
> had the telecommunications technology explosion we had if Ma Bell 
> remained as it was?
>   
In reverse order: Ma Bell was a creation of the federal government and 
while there might be something to be said for unified control of a 
gigantic star-topology communications system the price was pretty high, 
the stifling of innovation being among the costs although not the only one.

And the idea that a government-created and regulated monopoly was broken 
up because of its monopolistic practices is pretty funny. Since it was 
created to ensure the benefits of monopoly it's quite a stretch to 
believe that it was broken up because it was a monopoly.

If you're actually interested in why "the government stepped in and 
broke up Ma Bell" you'd be better served familiarizing yourself with the 
history of MCI and what MCI did to the improbable profitability of 
long-distance and business telephone service and what the handwriting on 
the wall said when ATT couldn't use the power to government to crush MCI.

With regard to mandating auto safety equipment, not only is purchase 
mandatory but so's use.

We just can't be trusted to want what we ought to want and we have to be 
forced to do what we ought to do. Of course "the masses" need to be led 
by our betters when possible and driven along by our betters when 
necessary or is it the other way round?

If government is such a magnificent engine of jobs and growth why leave 
anything for those nasty capitalists to screw up? With the means of 
production in the hands of the proletariat we could, at last, achieve a 
classless society. Too bad that of the various classless societies the 
world's seen, class was what their leadership didn't have much of and 
anything else - freedom, prosperity, security, medical care, food - was 
what the lower class in the classless society didn't have much of. It's 
notable that the sort of leadership those classless societies inevitably 
drew made Bill Gates, Henry Ford and every other capitalist look like a 
frikkin' angel by comparison.

Allen