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akuma587 on 23 June 2009
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TheRealMafoo said:
akuma587 said:
TheRealMafoo said:
 

The problem is the government has no control over how people invent solutions. This sounds great and all, but you can't predict the future (at least we never have).

This idea is akin to someone 15-20 years ago saying we should beef up the cellular networks so grocery stores and fast food restaurants can more efficiently accept checks.

Only to have checks surpassed by credit cards, making the whole thing pointless.

If gas got to the point where it was worth more for corporations to find alternatives, there is no doubt in my mind that they will incredibly fast.

What they come up with is anybodies guess (hell, it could be compressed air).

I'm sorry, but you are just wrong.  Investment and research in new technology happens all the time because of government regulations, and sometimes because of the mere anticipation of future government regulations.  The government can, already has, and will continue to directly or indirectly encourage investment and research in new technology.

Yes, but for 10x the cost and 1/10th the speed of the private sector, if there was a need in the private sector.

When it becomes a good market decision for big companies to make alternative fuel products, they will blow away anything the government has ever thought of, let alone done.

They always do.

Why are you talking about the private sector as a whole?  The private sector is a heterogeneous amalgum of different groups with different interests.  Many people in the private sector benefit from the status quo.  Speaking of the private sector as a coherent whole doesn't really make any sense.  The private sector is full of people with competing interests.  The people who benefit from the status quo  have a strong incentive to maintain the status quo while the rest of the private sector is highly fragmented and largely functions as discrete individuals looking out for their own interests in the short run.  Not to mention the people who are most able to make the changes in our energy policy (oil companies/energy companies primarily) benefit more than anyone else from the status quo.  Do you honestly think that is a climate ripe for changing the status quo?

Oil companies are very active in maintaining the status quo.  They buy up patents to all kinds of new energy technology and just sit on them so that other people can't use them.  Do you call that the free market?

For this reason, the private sector can really drag its feet on a lot of issues.  Look at healthcare, dependence on oil, skyrocketing insurance costs on all types of insurance, CO2 emissions, and the U.S. China trade imbalance.



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