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

[Robert Adkins]

allen wrote:
> 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.
>   
    The average income in the US is on the decline.

    Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the record breaking 
numbers of mortgage foreclosures happening around the nation, of which 
Michigan has been the leader of.

    Have you heard about the State of Michigan's financial crisis?

    You're right, none of those things has anything to do with Free 
Trade shifting decent paying jobs from the US to extremely low wage 
markets around the world. That's just... a magic effect.

>>     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.
>   
    Competition isn't competition when you are forced to follow things 
like...

    Labor Laws, you know paying a minimum wage, having a safe work 
environment, being concerned about worker health

    Environmental Protections, you know, making sure that your company 
isn't pouring poison into the drinking water or ejecting chemicals 
directly into the neighborhoods you are working within...

    ...and your "competition" has none of that in place.

    That's not competition.

    Either the US needs to, for the betterment of all humanity, force 
our labor and environmental laws upon our trading partners or simply 
say, "Screw the US Citizen and the Environment" and simply repeal every 
single labor law (Which you handily benefit from today) and 
environmental protection (which you also benefit from.)

    Are you being obtuse or just ignorant of these issues?

> 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.
>   
    Who said tariffs are the only way to "fix" such an issue?

    Tariffs only as protectionism is old thinking that has no place in 
the Global Economy.

    What we want is "Fair Trade" which creates REAL competition. Make 
China, India and Mexico face the same environmental standards we have. 
Force China, India and Mexico to institute some form of worker 
protection laws that are fair and equitable for the local economy. 
(Note, when I say Fair and Equitable for the local economy I am 
certainly not saying exactly as we have in the US.)

    Level the playing field, we'll see real competition and then goods 
will be judged based upon quality and capability, more so than how dirt 
cheap you can get something.

    Then, instead of buying something made by a worker with an extremely 
high change of being poisoned/maimed or killed during their job, while 
their employer is poisoning the environment, you can feel confident that 
you bought something from someone who built the good(s) in an 
environment similar to the one your neighbor works in.

>>     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.
>   
    See, now you are looking at this through a bubble. China has a 
growing consumer market. There will be a point where their consumer 
market will be able to easily take up the slack and besides, when you 
have a "conventional war" going on, there's no need to be concerned with 
trading partners paying your people. Wars are great the economy of a 
nation involved in one, especially if they are winning the war, due to 
greater numbers and better manufacturing capability.

    Unless you want to ignore the historical realities of World War II...

>>     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.
>   

   There's far to much controversy surrounding the claims he made in his 
book to put strong weight behind what is in his book.

    The majority of scientifically accepted opinions regarding Carbon 
Emissions stand in stark contrast to the conclusions reached by 
"Industry Experts" and those paid by the Industry to "research" the 
issue. Even the Bush Administration has been forced to follow the 
science and begin action on dealing with Carbon Emissions.

>>     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.
>   
    I am only interested in the end result.

    The end result turned out to create a telecommunications technology 
explosion. Trying to weasel around that statement of fact by calling 
into question the reasons why it was done is dishonest. It doesn't 
address the point that we had a telecommunications technology explosion 
because the monopoly was dismantled.
> 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?
>   
    You think it's wrong to have seat belts be mandatory?

    Have you ever seen footage of high speed chases where the driver 
wasn't wearing a seat belt?

    It's interesting how far a human body will fly out of a vehicle 
traveling not much faster than 70 miles per hour in a roll over 
accident. The helicopter captured video I saw showed the vehicle clip a 
mini-van, slam into a side wall flip over twice, the driver was ejected, 
flew over the highway divider, flew another 10 feet or so, before two 
drivers going the opposite direction were forced to run over the rag 
doll corpse. Can you imagine being one of those two drivers that ran 
over that corpse?

    Do you really believe that everyone on the road should be allowed to 
endanger YOU while you are driving by not wearing a seatbelt so that if 
they do get into an accident, they can be ejected INTO your car as you 
are driving past? Do you really want to be driving and have the horrible 
event of a dead, mangled human body fly into your windshield? Seat belts 
decrease the likelihood of that happening by so many factors, it's just 
stupid beyond all levels of stupidity for anyone to refuse to wear one.
> 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
    Nowhere am I espousing Communist ideals.

    If you feel that my interest in "Fair Trade", Work and Environmental 
Protections as well as Government Regulation of Industry is Communist, 
then you live in a Communist nation, because that is what we have in the 
United States, "comrade."

    As Ray said, there is a middle ground and when the US is strongly 
grounded in that middle, we are at our very best.

    -Rob