Quote:
Originally Posted by davidmash
It's a catch 22. If fuel rices do not increase there is no incentive to develop alternatives. If they increase to much/quickly it can have devastating effects.
I would like to see fuel prices increase at a steady level with exemptions/rebates for transportation such as trucks/trains .. etc. I think if that happens people will learn to drive less as they did when we have the price spike a few years back), drive more efficient vehicles and perhaps states/cities will start to develop mass transit and the Fed will start pumping money into interstate transportation such as trains. If we do not start doing this soon (if not already) it will be to late.
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Actually David I can basically agree with you. The problem though, is that no one ever learns. I was a young guy when the first serious energy scare came along in the early seventies. People went completely bonkers, doing crazy things like replacing a paid for car by going in debt for one that went just a few more miles on a gallon of gas.
There was then a repeat and gas lines in the late seventies and people went bonkers again. Time went along and we got more fuel efficient cars of all types and things seemed to settle in. THEN the SUV and four door pickup craze set in.
NOW there are PLENTY of people driving 15 MPG land yachts to take a 120 pound lady back and forth to work and take the kids to soccer practice. She will go nuts when she's asked to drive a C Class or a Honda Fit.
Again, people never learn. I'm all for alternative solutions and energy sources, but we have to be able to function in the interim. Government can not find the solution by throwing away a half billion dollars on failed companies like Solyndra. Private entreneurship invented the light bulb, the telephone and the Model T that put the world on wheels. It's the only motivation that will work to get us to the next step. If the potential reward is big enough, an enterprising person out there will be willing enough to take sufficient risk to solve the problem. Government doing a force fit, will do nothing but waste more borrowed money.
The market place is the great equalizer.