Consumers are too stupid to make good choices

[kandrathe]

So the term super greed seems confusing, judgmental, and pejorative to you, and you insist that fraud is what happened. Ok, I'll grant you that fraud is the 'what'. But do you really blanch at the 'why'? What else would you call it? Fastow and Skilling and Lay did it as an economic experiment?

Like most debacles, it started as a convenient way to cook the books so that they looked better to investors. Probably not massive at first, but just a swap of a little bit of loss under the carpet to make Enron look a little better than it would have otherwise. I've seen many, many corporate annual reports that gloss over little items like extraordinary gains due to the sale of some long held asset most likely to cover up the otherwise dismal performance that year. It's perfectly legal, and when simply looking at the corporate profits charts all you see is nice steady growth. You have to dig into the details to see the real picture, and the telling thing about Enron was they were unwilling to give anyone the details.

Greed is defined as having/wanting more than you need. So what is hyper-greed? I guess I equate labels like "greedy", along with other morality judgments akin to "lustful", "lazy" or "sloppy". People should have the freedom to determine for themselves how much is enough, as long as they don't lie, cheat and steal to accomplish it. Or, in other words, find your own truth as long as you don't hurt anyone else doing it. So, take Warren Buffet... By far the richest guy on the planet. He doesn't believe in inheritance, so now that he's got a foot in the grave, he's donating his shares of BH stock a few billion dollars at a time to the B&L Gates Foundation. I don't have a problem with Mr. Buffet acquiring $60 billion in assets. Look at how he lives, and what he doesn't do with that money. But, I admit, I don't understand him or his motivations.

I think somehow Skilling and Fastow believed they could eventually make the big lie they had concocted just go away if enough people invested in their stock. That once they got the losses under control, then it would just all be ok again, and no one would need to be the wiser as to how messed up it all was really. And, besides, they had one of the best accounting firms in the country helping them do this. But, that is when the market started to wobble, and people stopped being foolish and giddy with astronomical growth, they started to pay attention and ask the good questions they should have asked from the beginning.

Hey look a squirrel!

Where? Darn, I missed it!

[--Pete]

Hi,

Just a couple of technical nits.

Getting 50mpg due to plugging it in at night drawing electricity does not make it green, only transfers the energy consumed to coal fired plants.

Magi's Civic hybrid has no power plug, and, AFAIK, neither do any of the others. Thus, all MPG improvements are obtained from balancing the good features and avoiding the bad of the electric motor and the gas engine. By charging a battery during low demand conditions and cutting in the motor when additional power is needed, the engine can be run in a more efficient, constant load regime.

Then consider the additional number of components on a hybrid vehicle and the energy and cost to make them, maintain them, and dispose of them.

True, but mostly moot. Most products, and autos especially so, are replaced long before they wear out. The difference in energy costs to make a conventional auto compared to those to make a hybrid are small in comparison to the energy required to build either of them. Changing the life cycle of an auto from a few years and under one hundred thousand miles to a few decades and closer to a million miles would have a much greater impact and is completely within the bounds of present possibility. However, except for the occasional Rolls or Bentley, people just don't want to be seen in older cars -- and to many 'older' means last year's model.

Now on the positive side, using regenerative braking and other conservation of energy devices does make sense, and it was prophesied to be an imminent car feature in Popular Mechanics back in the late 1960's when I was a lad. It would make sense for all vehicles to try to convert as much of the wasted heat, and momentum back into stored energy when possible.

This is exactly what hybrids do. Since there is no way to store the recovered energy so that it could be used in an internal combustion engine, and there is no way (yet) to make a practical all electric car, hybrids are the best solution available at present.

--Pete

[eppie]

True, but mostly moot. Most products, and autos especially so, are replaced long before they wear out. The difference in energy costs to make a conventional auto compared to those to make a hybrid are small in comparison to the energy required to build either of them. Changing the life cycle of an auto from a few years and under one hundred thousand miles to a few decades and closer to a million miles would have a much greater impact and is completely within the bounds of present possibility. However, except for the occasional Rolls or Bentley, people just don't want to be seen in older cars -- and to many 'older' means last year's model.
--Pete

I agree with your post Pete. I was on holiday in Argentina last month (talk about reaching my annual CO2 limit) and there you see more cars of around 30 years old than cars that are less than 3 years old. The cities are quit smelly because of the unfiltered exhaust fumes but anyway using your car as long as possible is environmentally and energetically seen the best thing to do (safety is another issue but people don't drive too crazy there).
I also always think about this when consumer electronics are concerned. In most western countries the job of repair man does not exist anymore. If a piece of electronic equipments breaks 95 % of the times the cheapest option is to throw the thing away and buy a new one. When a big energy crisis hits these small things will all be different (back to pre-ww2 ways).

[Quark]

Ok, how would you regulate my green house gas emissions, and my general environmental sensitivity without severely impinging on liberty?

How would you regulate me not killing someone without severely impinging on liberty? I mean, you're stopping me from doing something I want to do, right? In an abstract way, it's even the same thing. Instead of me walking up to someone, shooting them, and stealing their money, you don't mind making the environment less livable in the future if you get a little more light now.

With less snark:

1) Is it known?

2) Is it a significant problem?

3) Can you regulate it?

4) Will regulation help?

So in regards to your "let's burn gas for the hell of it" exercise, it doesn't pass check 2 because not enough people are doing it for it to be a significant problem. In regards to lightning, some parts hit a snag in check 3 - CFLs don't work in all environments. This is why the law isn't banning incandescents - it's banning inefficient incandescents and allowing some exceptions.

Biofuels would fail on check 1 as we didn't know enough about it before everyone went hyperactive and starting cutting down forests to raise corn.

[Quark]

Of course, this is too tough a nut for the politicians to handle, so when the resources run out, we'll reduce the world population the old fashioned way. We'll have a nice little war which, with the following plague, will wipe out all humanity and give a potentially intelligent species a chance. And, until then, we'll have weighty debates about what type of lamps to use and think we're addressing the issue.

You're being overly pessimistic (optimistic?). We won't get completely wiped out, only mostly. The longer we buck the trend of population curves, the harder the pushback will be though.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I agree with your post Pete.

A sure sign that the end is near :lol:

I also always think about this when consumer electronics are concerned. In most western countries the job of repair man does not exist anymore. If a piece of electronic equipments breaks 95 % of the times the cheapest option is to throw the thing away and buy a new one.

This is a bit more complicated than you imply. Recently, I was fixing my laptop, and that engendered a conversation with Magi on this very topic. To understand why many modern devices are 'unfixable', you need to consider how they are manufactured. Until quite recently, all the work done on an assembly line was done by people. Since the assembly processes where all steps a person could do (and had done), a repairman could use the same steps to disassemble and repair items. In fact, even the 'parts' were made by people, and a replacement could be machined by an individual (something I often had to do when I was playing with vintage cars).

Much of that has changed. Assembly lines are becoming more and more automated. I read recently of an automobile assembly plant where none of the work on the cars being assembled was done by people, it was all robotic. The only employees were there to maintain the robots. An assembly line of that kind invariably generates a better and cheaper product than did the older, human run, line. As an aside, I do not mean that mass production is the way to generate quality products in all cases. Many of the finest products in the world are the result of individual craftsmanship. The price and limited availability of these products is a testament to the rarity of true craftsmen.

Back on topic. An automated assembly line leads to manufacturing techniques that cannot be performed by people. Often these techniques save time, material, or both, contributing to the affordability and accessibility of these products. But if one of these devices fails, it is then near impossible (and, sometimes, without very expensive special tools, totally impossible) to repair the items. So, it is the very conditions that make these items widely affordable that make them unrepairable.

I doubt that we'll ever see a return to an earlier form of industrialization. We might do enough damage to knock ourselves back to a pre-industrial society, but if we do manage to maintain an industrial mode, then the techniques we are using now are, overall, the most efficient in terms of materials and of energy.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

How would you regulate me not killing someone without severely impinging on liberty? I mean, you're stopping me from doing something I want to do, right? In an abstract way, it's even the same thing. Instead of me walking up to someone, shooting them, and stealing their money, you don't mind making the environment less livable in the future if you get a little more light now.

With less snark:

1) Is it known?

2) Is it a significant problem?

3) Can you regulate it?

4) Will regulation help?

So in regards to your "let's burn gas for the hell of it" exercise, it doesn't pass check 2 because not enough people are doing it for it to be a significant problem. In regards to lightning, some parts hit a snag in check 3 - CFLs don't work in all environments. This is why the law isn't banning incandescents - it's banning inefficient incandescents and allowing some exceptions.

Biofuels would fail on check 1 as we didn't know enough about it before everyone went hyperactive and starting cutting down forests to raise corn.

Ah, but I don't see where you address liberty at all. If I buy a 10 square mile forest, is this not my land to do with as I would? If I purchase gasoline is it not mine (to drive inefficiently, to go to frivolous destinations, or even to burn uselessly)? If I buy the electricity and the electrical devices, cannot I be the one who chooses the efficiency of my electrical devices and the amount of my usage.

This is the crux of the freedom argument. I do try to make environmentally wise and frugal choices, but should the government restrict liberty to make people make wise choices? If you say, "we share an atmosphere", and "we share a water supply", and "we share an energy grid", then you can pretty much make any argument you want to regulate almost everything a person does as it relates to consumption, and waste.

[Jester]

This is the crux of the freedom argument. I do try to make environmentally wise and frugal choices, but should the government restrict liberty to make people make wise choices? If you say, "we share an atmosphere", and "we share a water supply", and "we share an energy grid", then you can pretty much make any argument you want to regulate almost everything a person does as it relates to consumption, and waste.

An energy grid is not comparable to the atmosphere or the water supply. The relevant point, especially for a libertarian, is that these are common resources that cannot be meaningfully enclosed into private property. This is not true of the energy supply.

And yes, once one acknowledges our interconnected reality, then some form of world governmenance that regulates consumption in some ways is a necessity for continued survival. Regulation here, even from the standpoint of liberty, is no more unreasonable than a police force to prevent crime.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

An energy grid is not comparable to the atmosphere or the water supply. The relevant point, especially for a libertarian, is that these are common resources that cannot be meaningfully enclosed into private property. This is not true of the energy supply.

And yes, once one acknowledges our interconnected reality, then some form of world governance that regulates consumption in some ways is a necessity for continued survival. Regulation here, even from the standpoint of liberty, is no more unreasonable than a police force to prevent crime.

-Jester

For energy, I meant it in the sense of non-renewable consumption. You could argue that the wasteful consumption deprives it (eventually) from those who use it wisely, or from future generations. So while the grid is regulated by the government, it generally acts like a private company. However, the coal which fuels the majority of the electricity is a non-renewable resource. By the way, I do agree that curbing air pollution and water pollution would be appropriate uses of government regulation when done fairly (globally). I support rain forest preservation, and I probably also would have advocated preservation of old growth forest in the USA in the mid to late 1800's when most the the US virgin timber was clear cut. I pine (:P) for the days when products were distributed in reusable containers, rather than all the excess packaging and waste we have now.

But, to be fair, I think that government at times wields regulations awkwardly as weapons resulting in destroying entire industries. Mining was all but shut down here until the Chinese got involved to buy into revitalizing the taconite plants to ship ore to Chinese steel mills. It is clear to me that since the 70's there has been a dramatic impact from domestic environmental regulatory policies on US international competitiveness. I love clean air and water, but I find we seem to be the only team playing by the strict rules.

I'm not sure I track on the police. I see the police force as an optional government service usually served from the local level. If people choose not to fund their local police to a great extent they are free to do that. In my State, the only State level law enforcement is the highway patrol, DNR officers, some vice and gambling enforcement units and the investigative units of the BCA.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Stay tuned next week, for Kandarthe fighting to bring back lead-based paint on children's toys, and 5MPG vehicles.

Ironic you should mention lead based paint when the topic is about lead based light bulbs.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Ironic you should mention lead based paint when the topic is about lead based light bulbs.

Puppet: "The amount of mercury present in a single CFL is so insignificant that it will have only a negligible impact on municipal waste streams..."
Me: "Yeah, until comes the day when every single building in the nation begins throwing the old ones out."

[--Pete]

Hi,

Puppet: "The amount of mercury present in a single CFL is so insignificant that it will have only a negligible impact on municipal waste streams..."
Me: "Yeah, until comes the day when every single building in the nation begins throwing the old ones out."

Ever heard of recycling?

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Ever heard of recycling?

I have. I agree for the building full of them if the person disposing of them is honorable.

Thread necromancy aside, this is a recycled topic which ironically is still relevant.

I have two beefs; the government determining that one thing is better for consumer than another with the mandate and control. Also, the mercury hazard.

Regulating based on pollution hazard would actually make fluorescent bulbs more dangerous than incandescent bulbs, which makes the desired direction odd. Odd in two ways; in the energy it takes to make the bulb, and in the danger to the local environment for a potential accidental break. If the bulb lasts long enough, then it will eventually pay for itself in eneergy saving. I do use some CFL's in my house, in places where the light is on for long periods of time or where clear bright light is needed. But, for most areas in my home, I use 20W to 40W incandescent bulbs.

Recycling is fine for the ones that burn out. But, it is hard to get mercury out of carpeting without replacing the carpet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

[Rhydderch Hael]

Hi,
Ever heard of recycling?

--Pete

Sturgeon's Law applies to human behavior as well, and the path of least resistance is that Rubbermaid bin in the kitchen.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Sturgeon's Law applies to human behavior as well, and the path of least resistance is that Rubbermaid bin in the kitchen.

Good point.

--Pete

[Chaerophon]

The latest energy bill (which does nothing to help us produce more energy or become more energy independent ) will outlaw incandescent light bulbs by 2012, replacing them with compact fluorescents, or leds. The government has decided that consumers are too stupid to make good choices, and so will now regulate what kind of light bulbs we have in our homes. Hey, how about tax credits for energy conservation?

Personally, for where I live it is nonsensical. 8 months of the year it is very cold here, so what excess energy is emitted from the bulb is converted to heat. This is heat I don't need to consume to otherwise heat my home. The other 4 months of the year we have sunlight 16 hours a day so we don't need the lights on.

Actually, they're solving a collective action problem. Most reasonable people recognize it is worthwhile to prevent energy wastage and most reasonable people recognize that these bulbs are a cost-effective means of helping us to reach that goal - every little bit counts. However, because the bulbs are marginally more expensive than incandescents (at the till - not over their lifetime) and each person recognizes that, taken alone, their own marginal contribution to the problem of energy wastage is inconsequential, they choose to save a dollar and free ride on the good intentions of others. Unfortunately, everybody else does the same thing. The government is only helping to realize a public good that everybody wants, but each person is willing to let others pay for on the understanding that the good will be realized without their contribution (a logic that leads to coordination failure).

Milton Friedman would support this legislation - not sure why you don't.

See: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/how_b...environment_can

[kandrathe]

Milton Friedman would support this legislation - not sure why you don't.

Thread necromancy aside... Succinctly, I support carrots rather than sticks. If the CFL bulbs are better, cheaper, and last longer, then they will naturally succeed in the marketplace. Another point would be that while conservation should be everyone's goal to reduce their personal costs of energy, the government should be promoting energy production through streamlining the process of building new plants, and perhaps giving incentives for capitalizing these projects to help assure that investors will get their ROI. Banning or heavily regulating certain products (cars, TV's, light bulbs) is a type of totalitarianism I don't support, and shows a lack of vision and leadership in moving our nation to a sustainable energy model.

I believe our combined (public + private) focus should be on moving the economy to a model of sustainable production and consumption.

[Delc]

If the CFL bulbs are better, cheaper, and last longer, then they will naturally succeed in the marketplace.

A significant number of people are too stupid to understand long term costs. See: credit card debt.

[--Pete]

Hi,

A significant number of people are too stupid to understand long term costs. See: credit card debt.

Haven't you heard? We're a nation of altruistic, responsible, logical, competent geniuses. We don't need no stinkin' government. We'll do right on our own. :whistling:

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Haven't you heard? We're a nation of altruistic, responsible, logical, competent geniuses. We don't need no stinkin' government. We'll do right on our own. :whistling:

How many geniuses does it take to shop for light bulbs?