Rrrrm-Rrrrm-Remember The Free Market?
Holman Jenkins writes at the WSJ that Government Motors (aka General Motors) is going to have some problems, and maybe require a future infusion of taxpayer welfare, thanks to the Obama admin's pie-in-the-skie fuel economy targets:
A perfectly good mechanism already exists to help Americans decide which cars to buy and how highly to value fuel efficiency. It's called the price of gasoline. Not well-remembered nowadays, the U.S. began regulating fuel efficiency only when it denied itself this useful mechanism during a disastrous experiment with gasoline price controls in the 1970s. The corporate average fuel economy rules (aka CAFE), though now fully institutionalized, stopped making sense as soon we stopped trying to fix the price of gasoline below market levels.In one of those kerfuffles that render the Web a net plus, financial blogger Louis Woodhill caused consternation by predicting at Forbes.com last week that GM is headed for another bailout.
Bob Lutz, the former GM vice chairman, posted an irate rejoinder. Others piled on. Mr. Woodhill dwelled on the shortcomings of the 2013 Chevy Malibu, a car that goes up against the Accord, Camry, VW Passat and a near-infinity of others in the crowded market for family sedans. But the real reason to worry about GM is that it's making a Malibu at all. No logic under the sun, or under Harvard Business School, tells a company to play to its weakness, to prefer low-margin opportunities to high-margin-opportunities, to plan and execute large investments designed to lose money.
Detroit's labor costs, brand aura and design knack long ago should have told GM to focus on vehicles with low labor content relative to price and profit margin, such as pickups and SUVs. It's only because of CAFE that GM invests billions in small-car technology without payback, including the electric Chevy Volt. It's only because of CAFE that GM saddled itself with the money pit known as Opel, to keep up with small-car technology and markets in Europe.
Even the Obama auto task force, as it was wrapping up the GM bailout, acknowledged the obvious in a leak to the New York Times: "At some point . . . the drive for profitability is likely to collide with Mr. Obama's fuel-efficiency and low-emission goals."
I bought a Honda Insight hybrid in 2004. I don't drive much, but I spent $93 on gas last year. All last year. My car, at its gas mileage worst, gets around 40 mpg. If I'm driving on the highway and not stuck in traffic, it gets about 60.
Once gas prices started going up, one thing changed for me: I started getting notes on my windshield begging me to sell my car.
I drive a loud V8 Muscle Car but I have the luxury of living close to work. Good thing I didnt get it supercharged. I call it my "precious child", "Big Red" and "Roy".
Damn I love my car.
Purplepen at August 23, 2012 12:46 AM
P.S. I call it "Big Red" because it's a common nickname for racehourses
Purplepen at August 23, 2012 12:48 AM
GM even spent big money on a V-8 engine plant recently.
Because oil is forever. Just ask Crid.
But don't forget union influences here. Saturn is no more, and neither is the EV-1, because of their influence.
Radwaste at August 23, 2012 2:52 AM
The EV-1's assassination had very little to do with 'union influence.'
DrCos at August 23, 2012 3:44 AM
I drive a Honda Civic because it was inexpensive to buy and reliable. I wouldn't buy a hybrid because battery replacement is a large future cost (I keep a car until it dies), and I couldn't possibly save enough on gas to make up the difference in price. Living close to work saves me time and money every day.
Economics. You don't have to like it.
MarkD at August 23, 2012 5:28 AM
If you look at GM -- the majority of its sales have been to fleets (i.e. government agencies, military, etc.) and as I understand if you take those numbers out of GM's sales figures -- the company is near the bottom on sales to the public.
As it stands, for the government to get its money back, at a break even rate, GM stock would have to hit $51 per share. The high so far has been about $27 and is trading at $21 today.
We are so screwed.
Jim P. at August 23, 2012 6:28 AM
> Because oil is forever. Just ask Crid.
Oh, Turtledove, find the "Hi Raddy" secret messages here.
Also, learn to make your case like responsible, fully-grown man: Your self-interest is as pathetic as it is transparent. (We all understand that you're experiencing some career stress.)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 6:54 AM
Cosh is gorgeously blunt:
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 6:59 AM
Also, P-Pen is ever-more alluring.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 7:02 AM
> Saturn is no more, and neither is the EV-1,
> because of their influence.
BTW, did you sell that racy motorbike you loved so much?
Or did you dismantle it and deform the parts so that it wound Gaia no more?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 7:27 AM
The price of gasoline of course, doesn't reflect its externalized costs.
Libertarians will never really understand the free market's deficiencies (and makes their condescension on economics to us liberal realists even more funny) because they don't understand the difference between absolute and relative advantage and that libertarianism has no way of controlling arms race consumption that leaves everyone with added costs and nobody with relative advantage. Behavioral economics is to libertarianism what Darwin is to creationism. People aren't rational. There are large public good costs to these minor consumer freedoms we got all worked up about. When a critical mass of individual decisions create a world of competition most would rather not be in if there were a referee putting the brakes on it, that is a problem.
BTW, I have owned large V-8 muscle cars (had a Ford Torino with a 351 Cleveland and a 1967 Mercury Cougar with a 289 and a Camaro with a 350) and my Mini Cooper S with some mods is faster 0-60 and gets 30+ mpg.
Every libertarian should read Robert Frank's The Darwin Economy. Answer some of his objections. They are generally just ignored.
Brian at August 23, 2012 10:27 AM
I don't like you. I don't think you're a very nice guy. Or smart, either.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 10:49 AM
Saturn was the perfect example of everything that was wrong with GM.
Instead of building a better Chevrolet to compete with Honda and Toyota, GM built a brand new car line - basically consigning Chevrolet, Pontiac, et al to an isolated market segment (one in which people considering buying Hondas and Toyotas were not part of the target market).
Then, GM applied its medicore managment techniques, overpriced UAW labor, substandard work, and car designs that a stoner coming off a three-day binge would have rejected even if you withheld his Doritos until he approved.
When the Saturn was new, it generated a swell of enthusiasm from that newness. But once a Saturn was being driven by every high school and college student, the novelty began to wear off.
Meanwhile, GM's workhorse brands continued to suffer from lack of management attention, tired designs, poor performance and handling, and outdated technology.
Once GM shifted some of its limited design and research resources from Saturn to save the other brands, Saturn became just another sad GM brand struggling in a marketplace already overcrowded with GM branded look-alike cars.
Conan the Grammarian at August 23, 2012 10:51 AM
And the Oxymoron of the Day Award goes to....
Realism and modern liberalism are incompatible.
The modern liberal is attempting to build a world in which outcomes are closely matched - as if Welfare Queen #1 and Mitt Romney should have an equal standard of living because of "fairness." And the standard of living the liberal envisions is that both will live at the Mitt Romney level. In reality, liberal economics ensures that both will live at the Welfare Queen #1 level.
The modern liberal assumes government coercion used to confiscate earnings from the better-off residents will not convince those residents to reduce their paid labor or to hide their earnings - that they will happily surrender a significant portion of the fruits of their labors (including deferring gratification to acquire career skills) to provide for those who have discovered the government will give them what they were unwilling to work and sacrifice to earn.
Nowhere in modern liberal economists' higher taxation proposals does reduced or altered economic activity appear.
Yet, every time taxes have been raised to confiscatory levels, income has been deferred or switched to methods with lower tax rates (e.g., paid health insurance in the '30s, car allowances in the '70s, and stock options in the '80s).
Assembly line labor is fungible. No assembly line worker is worth $65 an hour when his counterpart (equally skilled) in another country will do the job for less than half that.
Container shipping has reduced the cost of assembling things overseas and shipping them to the US to practically nothing (in terms of the total cost of bringing the product to market).
Increasing the cost of doing business will result in less business being done within reach of the taxing authority.
Modern liberal economists are still operating under economic models developed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s (and proven wrong in that same decade).
No one but the lunatic fringe of libertarian thought (Probability Broach anyone?) is advocating a pure competition model for the economy.
Realistic libertarians accept that some government oversight is necessary to regulate natural monopolies and artificial barriers to entry.
But modern liberals fool themselves (using terms like "public good") thinking that government oversight should be broad in scope and deep in reach.
==============================
Compare and contrast:
"When the planes hit the towers, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia was all of nine months old. Facebook (launched in 2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) were still no more than gleams in their founders’ eyes. In 2001, according to Forbes, the then-feared AOL-Time Warner was the ninth biggest company in America by market valuation, and the telecommunications giant WorldCom was the 25th most profitable. In 2002 AOL-Time Warner lost $99 billion, and by 2003 WorldCom was bankrupt." [Matt Welch - Reason - July 11, 2001]
Contrast that with the state-controlled economy of East Germany. When the Wall came down in the 1990s, East Germans were still driving the state-built two-stroke-engined Trabant (designed 40 years earlier in the 1950s and never updated) - thousands of which were abandoned by the sides of the road when East Germans were given the opportunity to purchase anything else (even GM's awful Opel cars).
Conan the Grammarian at August 23, 2012 11:40 AM
OK, Conan said what I'd have said if I'd had the time.
Socialists never understand that they sound like socialists.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 11:53 AM
"Behavioral economics is to libertarianism what Darwin is to creationism."
I know you just copied this, but I have to ask anyway. Explain, please, briefly, if you can, the first part. The second part, even for this dummie, is obvious. The first not so much.
I am glad you had the opportunity to enjoy a man car. Did you enjoy the experience?
Dave B at August 23, 2012 12:16 PM
"OK, Conan said what I'd have said if I'd had the time."
You are pushing it Crid but I get you point.
Your first comment gave me a good laugh - I thought boy, that dude got lucky - but your brevity hit all necessary points.
Dave B at August 23, 2012 12:25 PM
Crid: since you know everything, you should have no problem explaining how oil conservation is self-serving on my part.
You apparently don't know shit about any hard science or industry... but that doesn't slow you at all.
Oil is a finite resource, period, full stop.
Radwaste at August 23, 2012 12:27 PM
"Because oil is forever. Just ask Crid."
Just wondering Radwaste, if the world ended tomorrow, wouldn't oil have been forever?
I say let's just use it up as fast as we can and some smart aleck will come along and figure out a solution. Probably not in my lifetime, but for me that is forever.
Dave B at August 23, 2012 12:34 PM
"Oil is a finite resource, period, full stop."
Everything is. What is your point?
Dave B at August 23, 2012 12:39 PM
Libertarians are the useful idiots of the corporate GOP. Nonetheless, I love 'em.
Andre Friedmann at August 23, 2012 12:44 PM
> Oil is a finite resource, period, full stop.
Nope. Oil is a finite quantity. But reserves are bursting with no slowdown in sight... So who cares? We're good for the 21st.
You're either out of your depth or inexcusably delusive... I'm not sure it matters.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 1:31 PM
And liberals are the authoritarians, communist and others, for whom analogy neither applies nor is required.
They are the oppressors.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 1:33 PM
(That was for Andre, who like Brian, is probably not as pleasant a personage as he imagines himself to be.)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 1:34 PM
"We are kept by the state in the style that the state wants to keep us, i.e., in poverty." ~ Sue Townsend (The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole)
Conan the Grammarian at August 23, 2012 1:57 PM
> hit all necessary points.
These people aren't kind. They don't 'mean well'. They're not merely naive.
If they've actually lived under the sort of authoritarian regimes they seek now to encourage, it's because their spirits were broken, and power structures are all they know... It's what they've dreamt of across their whole lives.
And of course, if they've not lived under the sort of authoritarian regimes they seek now to encourage, then they're just assholes.
In either case, they know it's too late for them to move into an economic context that demands performance, that demands doing or making things for strangers in a competitive market.
We need not be pleasant with them when they blow snot.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 2:06 PM
...Strangers, or even loyal customers.
This is the best twitter exchange of 2012.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 2:09 PM
Brian said: The price of gasoline of course, doesn't reflect its externalized costs.
Which ones?
No, seriously. Specify them. Your handwaving about "arms race consumption" isn't sufficient (nor is it in evidence, given that hydrocarbon supplies are - for consumption competition purposes right now - effectively unlimited.)
Yes, there are externalities, in general, for things. And in theory, they should be price in (assuming that the cost of the pricing mechanism isn't so high as to overwhelm the externality itself; an external cost of e.g. $.01 per year simply isn't worth the effort of the accounting).
But you haven't told me which ones are supposedly relevant to "gasoline" (let alone the equally ignored question, for most people going on about externalities, which is how you price them in the first place, given how nebulous most of them are), eh?
(The obvious example of "air pollution"* will be rejected on the grounds that the vast majority of consumption of gasoline is in newer cars, which do not pollute the air to speak of - indeed, I've heard that in polluted areas like LA, a modern car reduces atmospheric nitrogens and ozone, because between combustion and the catalytic converter, it can "use up" more per unit of air moved through the engine than it generates.
In other words, people driving newish cars are already paying the "external cost" of potential pollution - as part of the cost of the car and its emissions equipment. Rather, they're paying the cost of preventing the externality.
So why complain that "gasoline" is the problem...?
And people driving older cars are mostly the sort of poor folks "we" tend to feel might deserve a break in that sort of area...
* And if you say "CO2 emissions", I'm just going to laugh at you say, in the words of a homicidal computer, "this conversation can serve no purpose any more".)
(Also, "When a critical mass of individual decisions create a world of competition most would rather not be in if there were a referee putting the brakes on it, that is a problem. "
Maybe the problem is in your (and their) framing, not the situation.
Because "competition"'s only alternative is "central control" (the referee). And nobody likes him once it's clear he's not omniscient and Godlike in his impartiality.
Which he can't be, even if he really really wanted to be.
To hit from the Left - "No gods, no masters". And that means no "referees"' dead hands, either.)
Sigivald at August 23, 2012 2:17 PM
It takes a great deal of force, violence and oppression - via the police, guns, courts and jails of the state - to implement and maintain the ideal liberal society.
Ken R at August 23, 2012 2:29 PM
> hydrocarbon supplies are - for consumption
> competition purposes right now - effectively
> unlimited.
Yes. And for a considerable period into the future... Into multiple generations of exploding Chindian middle classes.
"Full-stop" chatter about "limited resources" is preposterous.
Masculine wording, though. Rilly butch! Serious command-and-control overtones. All the discussions on this page are of a piece, as are all evils under discussion.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 2:31 PM
> Rather, they're paying the cost of preventing the externality.
Love this blog.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 3:00 PM
Brian: "People aren't rational."
Non-liberal people are mostly quite rational.
But if you believe "people aren't rational", why do you want to have something as infinitely complex as the entire economy run like one big, monopolistic corporation by irrational people?
It would be rational to conclude that the people who are so irrational and deluded as to believe they are qualified to do it would be the last ones you'd want trying to do it. And we all do realize that the government, with all its power to regulate by coercion, is just one gigantic, corporate entity run by people (whom you believe aren't rational).
What's irrational is the liberal delusion that complex societies and economies can be successfully and justly managed by some elite class of enlightened, progressive intellectuals. "People" have pretty much all they can handle just planning and managing their own individual lives. There are very, very few who ever pull that off with exceptional or noteworthy success.
Large societies and economies, like ecologies, are far too complex to be planned and managed by entities with only human intelligence (e.g. governments, individuals, religions, United Nations); especially if "people aren't rational." (Though it can be beneficial when individuals, religions and other voluntary associations non-coercively exert influence - i.e. via persuasion, not force)
Liberals, and some conservatives, have a huge character defect. One of its manifestations is that they just cannot stand the idea of other people going around living their lives however they want.
The term "liberal realism" makes about as much sense as the term "legitimate rape".
Ken R at August 23, 2012 3:56 PM
"You're either out of your depth or inexcusably delusive... I'm not sure it matters."
This is coming from a guy in the video business? Or whatever?
You've opposed public monitoring of public worker pension funds, shown conclusively that you don't know anything about industry - and now you've linked to a couple of tweets and are an authority figure?
Now a limited quantity is somehow not a limited resource?
It's obvious you'll play any word game you want to try to keep some fictional upper hand, and you've decided that I'm an adversary of some sort. You make up things from whole cloth about what I say, or what Amy says, and argue that point as if it were real.
It's not. I'm not sure what it is you need, but you definitely need something. Maybe a job. URS is hiring; go do something constructive. You'd be better off changing tires in the Baghdad motor pool than making shit up here.
Write a book. There, fiction sells.
Radwaste at August 23, 2012 5:33 PM
Let's go back to whale oil. After all, it's renewable.
Ltw at August 23, 2012 6:49 PM
Crid: "If they've actually lived under the sort of authoritarian regimes they seek now to encourage..."
Actually they have. Beginning at age 5, for six to eight hours a day, five days a week, for 13 years... isolated from the real world in those highly regimented, oppressive, conformist, maternalistic, age segregated, totalitarian, fenced-in, government compounds we euphemistically refer to as "schools".
When they are released at the end of 13 years many are terrified by freedom.
Ken R at August 23, 2012 6:50 PM
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 7:14 PM
LTW, read Postrel, I implore you. She uses whale oil in there (or in SOME of her writings) as a sturdy shield against exactly the kind of fear-mongering that Raddy is trying to propagate. TFAIE is the boy scout handbook for libertarian perspective... And it gives due respect to essential regulatory forces (enforceable contracts, etc.) that Conan mentions at 11:40 AM.
You probably already read it, which is why you offered that example. But for everyone else, consider any of Postrel's interviews on C-Span.
In this one, her next questioner (who happens to be Asian) cannot accept the idea that people should be allowed to try to do what they want to do if it means they might fail.
Postrel keeps her cool. I'd have gotten all spazzy with him.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 7:52 PM
Seekers:
Also imagine that the New Rule voice was really echo-y, like that one vocal part at the end of that Barry White record, just behind the french horn.Before we begin, I want you to imagine that a new rule came down from God in Heaven.... That’s right, the White Beard Guy, the one who sounds like Barry White with a boner. The new rule goes like this:
Got it? Everyone understands the new rule? Very well, let’s proceed.
> You've opposed public monitoring of public
> worker pension funds
Did I, Raddy? Golly, that occasion doesn't come to mind. So we're gonna need a cite there, Pilgrim... Y'know, specifics: How I said exactly what / exactly when. A link would be great, seeing as how the internet is the only way we've ever communicated, and Amy's blog is promptly indexed both by Google and the Wayback machine. Do what you need to do to provide us with that, because the ‘truth is out there,’ as the stoners used to say. Proof or retraction... Because your accusation is from the Lookjoopletits playbook—
Really? Really? That’s what I said? I opposed “monitoring of public worker pensions”?Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 8:26 PM
But I wonder how often I’ve tried to distract Amy’s Cali visitors by sending them to the Pension Tsunami website...
…Well, only twice, says Google.
I herewith nakedly and sincerely apologize to my brother and sister libertarians in this comment realm... I’ve been shirking my responsibilities in the Golden State I’ve called home for twenty years, and I’m just sick about it. Sometimes life just distracts us, y’know? There’s a recession on, and WITHOUT A JOB AS A GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR (Raddy), there’s been a lot going on at the house... Extra bills and stuff. I’ve been walking around, all up in my head, worrying about myself and my loved ones and my creditors, not paying attention to the big themes. Forgive me in this abject hour of humiliation, I beg you.... Guys, I’ll make it up to you, I swear to God in Heaven that I will.
But y’know, Raddy, again... The series of links by which you were challenged last time we talked about it represents maybe half of those in my collection for this topic. We’re not going to run out of energy, and we’re certainly not going to run out of oil. I’ve proved it, at least as much as I need to prove it for my own comfort, and for that of any creature with enough synaptic vigor to click on a link or two (or five, or ten, or as many as you want).
But you didn’t critique ANY of those pieces. You didn’t even respond the Wired article linked (for the second time) at August 23, 2012 6:59 AM... And if anyone can make today's twitching hipster cognoscenti dance to a scary song, Wired would be the ones. You don’t want to be bothered with making an argument.
In fact, the only link you offer in response is the one for a careerist website. That’s what you think it’s all about: Sinking the fangs of your scowling rictus into the milkiest public titty you can find.
Some of us aren’t afraid of market forces, and we resent government corruption of them.
Now about those grains of sand and the Thundering Voice in the Sky who is Not Kidding...
If a rule about grains of sand came down like that from Heaven, we’d deal with it. The beaches of Santa Monica alone would cover sand-grain needs for the next gazillionty generations of left-handed humanity, and then we could go to Hawaii or the Carolinas, and eventually we could ask the rest of coastal humanity to kick in some dunes. And then we’d figure out a way to synthesize grains of sand, or to gently and painlessly encode ambidexterity in utero.
And yet, indisputably...
But we’ve got all we need, so who cares? If you happen to bring some home some sand in your Speedo after a dawn swim in Jacksonville, and it chafes in your crotch before you can take a shower, don’t feel bad, OK? The left-handed kids with the weird scissors are going to be fine.They’ll have gas for their cars, too.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 23, 2012 8:28 PM
"BTW, I have owned large V-8 muscle cars (had a Ford Torino with a 351 Cleveland and a 1967 Mercury Cougar with a 289 and a Camaro with a 350) and my Mini Cooper S with some mods is faster 0-60 and gets 30+ mpg."
*Rolls eyes* Yes, I owned a Mini too. So you're telling me a newer car with modifications is faster than an older car? Who knew....oh wait I knew, everyone knew.
I hate having to explain why muscle cars are so great. But the Japanese! The Germans! Purplepen I can beat you in my modified foreign car hah!
Bitch I can beat you if I modify my car too. The only reason I don't is because 1) I'd rather use that as a downpayment for my next faster car and 2) I don't fuck with my full coverage warranty.
Fuck off.
Purplepen at August 24, 2012 12:18 AM
Its not just CAFE standards, its safety standards, import tax rules, aversion to diesel given past design/quality issues, taxes on diesel fuel and CA state emission standards etc..
One of the most common trucks I see here in the northwest is the lightweight quad cab toyotas/nissans and now a gmc/bowtie variant. Supposedly the GM variant isn't selling well. Ford has a new redesigned Ranger quadcab they sell in Europe, AU and even Mexico but they won't bring it here. They stopped making Rangers because they weren't selling anymore and it was competing with the entry F150 pickups/quadcabs. Nevermind they'd not redesigned the ranger in about 15 years and kept the price about the same.
No new light pickup designs w/ efficient engines, means I buy a basic car and keep my older truck or go "foreign" made.
Sio at August 24, 2012 4:57 AM
I haven't read Postrel's TFAIE Crid, but it's on my list. I got the whale oil example from P. J. O'Rourke - probably All the Trouble in the World IIRC. I've always found it very instructive.
Staying on PJ, and segueing into PP, Sio, and Brian's conversation about cars, consider this classic quote from 'How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed Without Spilling Your Drink'
"Even more important than being drunk, however, is having the right car. You have to get a car that handles really well. This is extremely important, and there's a lot of debate on this subject – about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission into reverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than in any other kind."
Ltw at August 24, 2012 6:02 AM
> I got the whale oil example from P. J. O'Rourke -
> probably All the Trouble in the World IIRC. I've
> always found it very instructive.
OK, maybe I'm confusing them. Both good reads.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 6:15 AM
> consider this classic quote
My own favorite PJ passage, only mildly tarnished by 9/11:
"Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile."
There are cites of it all over the web. Forced to choose between "lose their hats in Cap D'Antibes" and "rather be a junkie in a New York City jail", I'd take my own life.Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 6:28 AM
Badly mangled paste up... You see the point.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 6:30 AM
"But if you believe "people aren't rational", why do you want to have something as infinitely complex as the entire economy run like one big, monopolistic corporation by irrational people? "
This made me think of something that gave me a laugh: thinking about all of the '50s and '60s sci-fi novels where the author assumed that in the future a supercomputer would run the world and make all economic and legal decisions. Because, y'know, you just can't trust stuff that important to mere humans. Casual leftism was all the rage (then as now), and consequences was just a word in the dictionary. A few weeks ago I was re-reading James Hogan's Giants Trilogy. In general, it's held up very well, but Hogan made one colossal goof: he assumed that in the future all space exploration would be turned over to the United Nations, and the UN would actually accomplish same. Hogan was a pretty libertarian sort and he probably came to regret that, although I don't know if he ever said as much.
Anyway, going back to the quote from Ken, I can answer that by stating the fundamental, foundational, down-at-the-very-root-of-the-tree bedrock principle of leftism. And I can state it in four words. It reads: "We're smart. You're stupid." Understand that and you will understand everything there is to know about leftism.
Cousin Dave at August 24, 2012 4:30 PM
They don't even think their cohorts are smart.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 6:35 PM
I kinda do. When I meet a libertarian who shares my principles, or even an thoughtful conservative, I credit them courage and stoicism and compassion and a few other things.
I also know they would never waste my time on a silly petition.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 6:37 PM
> assumed that in the future all space
> exploration would be turned over to the
> United Nations
Is the a good time for some free-floating UN resentment?
Good! I got some.
So not only do I want others to listen carefully for condescension from lefties, I want others to listen for themes about "unity." Unity gets credit for overwhelming all sorts of evil (racism, sexism, etc.), even though these achievements always required other corrective forces. By Pavlovian rhetorical habit, simple (lefty) folks will always respond to chatter about "unity" with affection, no matter how eagerly they pursue distance from others as a practical matter.
And the United Nations is (for my generation and surrounding ones) the Big Daddy unity. The fact that it's peopled with corrupt crime families from every shabby valley on this globe and has a wretched history of performance means nothing to most liberals... What's more important to them is the pretense that all the world's cultures have things to contribute and a voice worth hearing.
Unity is overrated. Every day I quite specifically admire the spaces between people. You do too, even if you don't think about it. I think people should make a conscious effort to admire the fact that we're not all on the same page, a condition that only happens in contexts of servitude.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 24, 2012 11:32 PM
Amy:
What year did you get your Insight? If you've got a '04, you _really_ want to go get it to fail enough to get Honda to replace it. (10 year replacement).
(Or $4000+ to get Honda's part. There's 2 better options out there, and several places that will sell refurbs (as in all the cells balanced) for $1500 or so.)
Trust me.
(Just spent the weekend removing a 2000's pack and putting a plug-in "grid charger" on it to try and rejuve it. It's only about 80 pounds. But it's hell to get to and pick up.)
Or, if you start getting battery errors, lemme know, I'm getting to know a lot about the little cars.
Unix-Jedi at August 26, 2012 8:15 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/08/rrrrm-rrrrm-rem.html#comment-3315172">comment from Unix-JediUnix, can you please email me about this? Thanks!
Amy Alkon at August 26, 2012 8:39 AM
"Did I, Raddy? Golly, that occasion doesn't come to mind."
And now memory is convenient. Anything goes to avoid being wrong about something...
Doesn't the phrase, "a term of art" come to mind - your attempt to dismiss my use of "paying agent" in describing the arbiter of pension benefits despite my defining it?
Attempts to pretend that oil is infinite are simply fallacious, appeals to consequences.
Radwaste at August 27, 2012 2:43 AM
> Doesn't the phrase, "a term of art" come to mind
Extra comma, Pilgrim.
> despite my defining it?
You can't define it anymore than you can 'define' "LIBOR" or "Gross National Product". The oversight may just have been silly, but it makes your argument seem oblivious as well as self-aggrandizing. A child steps into the the cockpit, straps himself in, grabs a random knob (stall warning test) and says 'Time to retract the landing gear, everyone!'
> Attempts to pretend that oil is infinite are
> simply fallacious
And if anyone tried to pretend "oil was infinite," that might be a point worth making. But the indisputable truth is that oil reserves are plenty sufficient, and you'd have to be a threatened and dishonest guy from a competing industry to contend otherwise.
Just reviewing the page with your original fearmongering passage:
> We're in the Age of Oil, and that time is limited.
> When energy costs get so high we can't ship
> anymore, I hope we can get these businesses
> re-established.
As a rhetorical move, the caps for "age" and "oil" are straight outta Hell. Christ, this is embarrassing, Raddy.
Just for clarity— If "that time is limited," but that time is 10,000 years in duration, do you really think the flower shop on the corner needs to worry about gas for the truck? Are we really going to need to worry about 'getting that business re-established'? Please answer specifically, OK? Be courageous. Just this once.
Again, looking at that old thread, I see that Garland was serving your balls on toast points before I even had my knife out.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 27, 2012 6:36 AM
Leave a comment