Re: Nuclear Power

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:37:46 GMT, William Morse
<wdmorse@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

bwardREMOVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Ward) wrote in
44b34119.38575440@localhost:">news:44b34119.38575440@localhost:


The public is clearly subsidizing the oil and gas producers. They
don't "own" the oil and gas - that is a public good. They didn't make
it, they only exploit it and profit from it. We choose to assign
ownership to them for economic reasons, but let us be very clear on
this point - they do not "own" in any real sense the fossil fuels.
Since the fossil fuels are a public good, if we were trying to be
completely fair we would require the extraction industries to repay
the value of the oil extracted.

Without the "extraction industries", what is the value of
the unfound, unpumped oil? How is it determined?

By the replacement cost.

How do you know how much there is, or where it is?
Remember, it hasn't ben found, because there are no
"extraction industries".

Who
_does_ own the oil the extraction industries find, in your
paradigm?

God. If you are an agnostic, as I am, you might want to instead say We
the People as a substitute,

In your view, then, oil is a sort of "common good", like
property under communism. Where has that ever worked?


We
don't do that. So we are subsidizing the oil and gas producers.

Now why in the world would we do that? Because the use of the fossil
fuels subsidizes public purposes. Cheap energy has allowed us to do
lots of nice things to improve everyones standard of living, even if
it has had some side effects, such as the proliferation of SUV's,
which us true conservatives (you confusingly refer to us as liberals)
don't like.

That's a strange new use of the word "conservative".

My Webster's dictionary defines conserve as "to keep in a safe or sound
state". SUV's needlessly waste energy and are a danger to their drivers
and to other vehicles. So if I am interested in keeping the earth in
general and US drivers in particular in a safe and sound state, I should
be opposed to SUV's. No it is not a strange new use of the word
"conservative". The strange new use is to call "conservative" those who
approve of environmental damage in the name of progress. As a specific
instance, anyone who thinks we should drill for oil in the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge is by definition not a conservative.

So you're a conservative communist. Check around, you may
be entitled to protection as an endangered species.

Regards,

Bill Ward
.

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