At 11:48 PM 7/18/01 +1200 K.Feete wrote:
>>A good start would be pointing out that burning a gallon of gasoline
>>currently produces more damage to the atmosphere than is collected in
>>taxes. A serious argument for slowly increasing gasoline taxes
>>(especially now that the price is coming down) could go a long way.
>
>There is an entire large section of environmentalism devoted to this
>idea, John.
As you and Russell have both pointed out. No kidding. Its not like I
invented this stuff myself. I heard it from environmental economists,
just like you did.
I'm sorry if my statement was a bit unclear, but I really did mean what I
said. It would be nice if environmentalists spent more time making a
serious argument for increasing gasoline taxes.
I mean, how is it that this country has spent weeks upon weeks debating an
esoteric issue like federal funding for stem cells, but has barely spent a
moment in the past five years discussing the proper level of gasoline
taxes? Likewise, our country was absolutely captivated by the debate on
whether or not to drill for oil on a little postage stamp in one of the
remotest corners of Alaska you could imagine. Its not like
environmentalists were exactly lacking in press time during this debate, or
on the decision as to whether of not to drill for more oil in the Gulf of
Mexico, or anytime the IMF and World Bank come to town. Yet, there was
nothing but silence on this issue from the leaders of the enviro movement.
Somehow, they seem to see more benefit in expending political capital on
adding a tiny little slice to the vast swathe of protected Alaskan
wilderness, than in actually supporting a "free-market". Likewise,
environmentalists seem far more interested as of late in having the
government mandate fuel standards, rather than reducing fuel consumption
through market incentives, like fuel taxes. Go figure.
This is especially shocking because we had a *Presidential Candidate* last
year actually *re-publish a book* that called for higher gasoline taxes.
Yet, he ran away from it like wounded puppy, and nary an environmentalist
was heard to call him on it. Even Ralph Nader, when the media covered
him, was never to be heard talking about higher gasoline taxes - even
though *this* is a subject where many conservative economists agree with
the environmentalists!
So, as the gasoline prices rose lately, how come you couldn't find
*anybody* saying that this is *exaclty* what our country needed to combat
global warming? Where was somebody saying that once fuel prices started
to decline, fuel taxes should be added - even if we wouldn't be ratifying
Kyoto?
>The hard part is getting politicians to listen to moderate views.
>Politicians are generally a bit deaf; one has to shout *really loudly* to
>get their attention, and when one is screaming at the top of one's lungs
>certain finer points of the argument tend to get lost.
Actually politicians, like most people, tend to tune out people who don't
have a clue.
See below.
>A lot of people *are* very interested in getting markets to help the
>environmentalists... a *lot* of people.
Yeah, I'm one of them.
>Sadly it hasn't worked too well
>to date. It's too hard to explain, say, the "value" of a wilderness area
>in Alaska to an economist, because the defining characteristic of a
>wilderness is that it has no value. It's free. This word "free" brings
>horrified looks to the eyes of any good capitalist, and the discussion
>tends to break down shortly afterwards.
I am continually amazed that you can just so blithely insult an entire
class of people, when you have no idea whatsoever as to what those people
think or believe.
Assuming you actually knew something about economics, you'd realize that
one of the first things an economist does when an economist tries to
determine the value of something is determine the "opportunity cost."
The "opportunity cost" is the value of the next best thing you could be
doing with a resource. In this case, the "opportunity cost" of the
wilderness area is probably (but not necessarily) the value of the natural
resources that could be exploited from the land. So clearly, the
wilderness has *some* value. Also, please note that I am *not* saying
that the value of the wilderness *is* the value of the opportunity cost (in
this example, the opportunity cost is the exploitable resources.) I'm
just saying that this is the first approximation one would examine in
trying to determine the real value - and in so doing, point out that
economist very much recognize the value of wilderness.
The second step would be to examine how much the market values a
wilderness. For example, if the Sierra Club owned a given area of
wilderness, how much money would it take for them to sell it?
The third step would be to measure the intangible benefits of the
wilderness. For example, all of us benefit from having reserves of
biodiversity, and wild places to maybe visit once a lifetime, etc.
But, the wilderness most certainly isn't free, and it most certainly has
value.
>And I can't tell you how reassuring it was to know that I could no longer
>make choices based on my opinion about, say, genetically engineered food,
>bad fishing practices, the use of banned pesticides, or the explotation
>of underage workers thanks to the decisions of large, faceless
>corporations (*not* individuals, John) and a bunch of economists trained
>in everything but science.
Where do you live? I have the opportunity to make these choices every
day.
If you do not have this opportunity, then you have given up the right to
make these choices by choosing to live in your present location.
Oh, and by the way, Economics is, by definition, a science. You can't be
trained in economics and not be trained in science. Then again, you
already demonstrated that you don't know much about economics.
>Do you want to compare family incomes, John? I admit most of the
>environmentalist movement has been middle-class or upper middle-class,
>but that *is* changing. And I haven't noticed any prices going down from
>the removal of those trade barriers. By your logic, shouldn't that have
>happened? *Has* it happened? Well?
Yes.
Prices received by makers of electronic equipment and machinery have been
reduced by 4.3% since 1994.
Prices for photographic equipment and supplies? Down 6.6%
A great many other prices for other manufactured goods have only increased
marginally over the sevn years (on average, prices for most things went up
by a measured 2-3% per year during that time.)
And most importantly - a great many Mexicans are living much better lives,
while the US has had more jobs than it could fill.
JDG.
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
We are products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and
Athens to Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance.
We share a civilization. - George W. Bush, Warsaw, 06/15/01
