Economic Meltdown (seconda parte)

[kandrathe]

I don't know that solar panels on everyone's roof is the correct answer. I've done the math for my home, and it is not cost effective. It would cost me more money to keep my home outfitted with solar panels, than I would ever get back in savings from energy costs.

No, kandrathe, as I CLEARLY stated in my previous post I think the world can only be saved when everybody in Minnesota will start using solar panels. I even want to go further and find the US army needs to force all you minnesoteanians at gunpoint to install solar panels......today!!!!

I knew it! You commie dog! I will resist your Cuban manifesto, along with all the other castrati 3rd world dictators!

(you didn't answer/react on my statement, you reacted on a statement I didn't make.....I used solar panels as an example of subsidizing something without too much harm)

Ok, let's see... you said, "But when people are urged to buy solar panels for their roofs by giving them tax rebates, all kinds of companies (american and foreign) will start competing."

I believe a tax rebate is a subsidy, but paid once per year (or often as a reduction to energy bills). I'm not against solar panels, I'm against distorting a market (especially on the consumption side) to make something illogical, logical. If you help a producer (solar panel manufacturer) with some start up loans/grants it becomes a limited investment, but, when you intercede in the operational cost then you've created a dependency on the subsidy. The producer still needs to create a viable cost effective solution and market it to the consumer.

I'm just realistic to the idea that unless people SEE it or be harmed by it they won't change their behavior.

And I am realistic enough to see that that will never happen, and so I find that governments need to step in.
How do we see, or understand enough to care, that eg they are completely emptying the south china sea from everything living?
I mean people(roughly 50% of non experts) don't believe that the climate is changing. I don't want to get into a discussion about the greenhouse effect but is sure that public opinion on this is not given in my knowledge and intelligence but only by emotions.

People will only see the consequences of human impact if they e.g. build a road in your backyard, or if someone spills a truckload of oil in a small lake.

Even if people could see the impact of their behavior (say with the case of CO2.....which you cannot see) most of them would not have the capacity to appreciate and understand it.

Well, this is the crux of our disagreement. I am against communitarianism when it is enforced by governments.

I believe that leadership, and an informed electorate will make the correct decision, and the coercion of government force is not necessary. We shouldn't burden everyone (e.g. TSA grope) for the wrong actions of a few, and we need to ensure that "Law" is reserved for when the State actually really does need to defend the individual. Our republican liberty is based on the idea that people collectively are wiser than governments, otherwise we eventually succumb to be the sheep of the monarchies, dictatorships and other tyrannical governments. At some point we surrender citizenship, and return to that of subject or slave. You can make a case that YOU need to defend people by eliminating (by force of law) the bad choices they make, like eating meat, or driving a gas guzzling vehicle, consuming too much electricity or producing too much CO2. I believe everybody has the natural law right to "pursue happiness", or in other words, live their life as they wish as long as it does no harm. When you narrowly define harms as reckless consumption, you intrude into the realm of tyranny. Rather, I believe the approach should be to make the case, educate the electorate and lead them to making an informed decision.

I'm writing to you and looking at a reply card next to me from my local township asking my opinion on whether they should pass an ordinance prohibiting people from feeding the deer. You see, we periodically have a bumper crop of wild deer who eat expensive ornamental shrubs, and then they choose to hire people to go shoot them. But that's because, I live in a more suburban area that pretty much does not allow hunting. I said "no", of course, and I'll go attend the meeting and lend my voice to the idea that it is absurd to make feeding wild animals a crime. It's foolish to feed them, but it's not a crime and I don't want my government spending my money to run around catching and chiding fools.