Without a doubt. The more that people expect to benefit, the more they would disagree, as a rule.

From the next part of your posting there is the essence of what you were trying to say:

“a lot of people make WRONG choices–which is the reason we provide a safety net.”

Actually, the most-supported basis for the safety net concept is that people can experience misfortune that is not their fault necessarily at all.

(Separate issue — regulation, rather than the safety net)

“To paraphrase, just because I'm for regulation, it does not follow that I'm for dumb regulation.”

Good to know. My concern is that many are in favor of dumb regulation (for dumb reasons) or it becomes that way even with good intentions.

Note that regulation, as opposed to welfare-state entitlements, brings government back to being government rather than a provider of services, which is good. (It becomes more than that when regulation is used to force “progress” on something that business won't do on its own because — as I once told Pete Abel — the first businesses to do things that cost more only lose. Regulation can force all business to do X, for example provide safety glass in automobiles, that wouldn't pay for anyone to be a pioneer, even in today's “enlightened” post-1960s era. Businesses can all wink at each other while publicly decrying the Big, Bad Government while they're relieved that everyone else has to play by the same rules. (Of course, this is to the advantage of bigger business who can best afford the regulations' effects, so be warned. It's no surprise that the big trucking companies support 68-mph limiters for trucks while smaller independent firms do not, for example.)

That's not exactly it. Then again, maybe it is. The fact is, most people don't have the financial acumen that people employed by lending institutions are presumed to have. Thus, they present themselves in good faith (more or less anyway), expecting the lending institution to judge them according to their established criteria. Many of said people should not have qualified. Yet amazingly, the lending institution went along with it. Why is that?

More importantly, what are the ramifications for the lendee and the lendor? Motivations and ramifications are both important, don't you think?

Personally, I would never have gotten myself in that situation. My RE transactions set me up for life, but I never got suckered into a situation I didn't think I could handle. Heaven knows the offers were there though. And if I took them up on them I didn't have to be dishonest about anything — just stupid. But the fact is, had I been stupid it would have ruined me. The lending institution could either fold up and walk away (assuming they were sufficiently small), or have the government bail them out (if they were sufficiently large).

Looking back over the last several decades, I'd say shady lending practices have accounted for most of the major economic melt-downs. The current mortgage crisis is the most recent incarnation. But similar mechanisms explain the dot com bubble in the early 00s, the FSL fiasco in the early 90s, and Black Monday in the mid 80s. If I were old enough, perhaps I could walk it back further, lol!

No one is advocating disbanding and removing safety nets. The problem is that the safety nets in place are never enough and the left/liberals continue to want more and more and more…………until its a Nanny state socialism experiment.

No longer do they issue doom and gloom. Now the new talking point is that we make mistakes and we should be picked up when we fall. But now its going beyond that to we must regulate the banks, we must save the people from evil banks who lent them money to buy a house.

Nothing is more evident then the first thing the democratic congress does when the energy crisis becomes a problem. Yep they try to legislate fear out of commodities traders. With REGULATIONS.

Lord have mercy.

To paraphrase, just because I'm for regulation, it does not follow that I'm for dumb regulation.

And yet somehow many people got loans like that. Go figure.

They want to tell others what to do — beginning with regulation, as you went on to note.

Hype.

Just as with our unsustainable federal retirement programs, the “disaster” will unfold in slow motion.

Spending has certainly helped ethanol progress, too!

(General rule — spending helps its “targets” sometimes, although often in unforeseen ways; the taxation is a burden.)

The late economist Julian Simon was libertarianism's great optimist. Classical liberals are naturally cynical about government and, as Jefferson famously put it, its natural tendency to grow and for liberty to lose ground. The “upside” of libertarianism, however, has always been the philosophy's ability to see the potential in individuals and in people's proclivity to make good decisions about their own well-being and, in the process, better the plight of humankind.

No one put humanity's explosion of wealth and prosperity into better perspective than Simon. Simon's targets were the doom-and-gloom environmentalists and zero-population-growth activists who in the last half of the 20th century peddled dire predictions of the coming cataclysm they said would be wrought by free markets and American consumerism. Using a wealth of economic, demographic, health, and consumer data, Simon showed how capitalism has made us more prosperous, healthier, better educated, longer lived, and generally better off than we've ever been. Furthermore, he demonstrated how prosperity and technology tend to make scarce resources more abundant, not less.

Though Malthusian prophets still pop up from time to time, Simon seems to have largely won that debate. Today's critics of free markets don't invoke Armageddon as their predecessors did. Nor do they declare that prosperity will be our undoing. Rather, today they argue that we simply aren't equipped to handle our freedom and our success. Instead of invoking government to heavily regulate the economy and redistribute wealth, they now argue that we need government to make many of our personal decisions for us, because individual Americans can't be trusted to make them on their own.

Wow and I thought I was the only one who thought this.

Regulate. Dictate. Oh Puhlease tell us what to do. We are lost. We are incapable of making choices. No one ever told me that if I make 5000 dollara a month and I take on a 6000 dollar a month mortgage thats not good economics. The government should have warned me. They should have sent a personal representative to counsel me and to make decisions for me.

Wahhhh……..I want my Nanny State…………….wahhhh.

What? Gasoline prices caused your melt down? Well heck. Lets regulate that too. We will build you a wind generator and created a hydrogen car. Just hang in there and in another 25 years we will have you fixed back up.

Insulting? Hardly. I just disagree with your overwhelming need for everyone in America to be coddled and led around by the hand and Im making fun of it. If being made fun of in a post is insulting then perhaps you could find a way to regulate that too.

The truth is that us lib'uls don't want to be led by the hand by anyone, certainly not by ill-guided market forces or those stuck on repeating yesterday's foibles.

I look around and I make my own choices. I choose concentrating on alternate energy sources and energy conservation. Oil can contribute to but not dominate my choices.
Your family business will just have to compete for attention, like everyone else.

Being personally insulting, btw, is not good salesmanship.
Insults are used when legitimate ideas are lacking, and you have my sympathy for having run dry in the legitimate idea department..

Long live the Nanny Kingdom. Fear Not Obama will tell you what to do soon enough.

Come to that, what's worng with an expert making a profit from his ideas or creations? , That is the very foundation of capitalism and the markets so much deferred to, after all.
There is no logical thread holding all these disparate assertions together.
—————-
To those worried aout the snazziness of their fuel efficient cars:
you better hope gas prices stay high. There needs to be a dependable market for inelegant models for commoners before investment can be available for development of models for the aesthetically picky.
Europe is way ahead of us in dealing with energy because they know how to priotitize. They don't crave bling before they've paid their grocery bills, and they don't confuse a means of transportation with a tool for gauging their self worth.

Have you ever run the numbers on the issue you present above? If you were to seriously investigate it, I think you'll find the better question is… how often is it that “everyone else” have turned out to know better than the “experts”? As a corollary you ask, “How many people can accurately, consistently, reliably predict the future?” To which I reply, it's a loaded question. In other words, what are your required metrics for your “accurately”, “consistently”, and “reliably” qualifiers? Except for the “accurately” qualifier (which is always up in the air) it sounds to me like you're relying on a market whose dynamics will not appreciably change, in spite of the fact that every indication is that it will — big time, and rapidly. Considering that, all I can say is… prepare to be overrun by a tsunami.

In California, where I grew up, you can probably thank the California Air Resources Board (CARB) or the South Coast Air Quality Management District (the AQMD), too. For whatever reasons, to reduce air pollution at least one of the oil-fired power plants near Seal Beach was converted to gas. Gas conversion and new gas-fired peak load provision is the clean-air alternative of choice these days. Air pollution is a real, serious thing. Just don't let the activists run amok and arbitrarily impose goofy goals like impractically high minimum sales of zero-emission vehicles, et cetera.

“With regard to ethanol, the recent price spikes and the floods in the midwest make it clear that grain-based ethanol is hugely problematic. But the whole idea is to develop alternative stocks (please Lord, make it soon). “

Note that people cannot be surprised or upset that corn prices rise when demand for corn is raised because corn is used to produce ethanol. (What you do is try to make ethanol from other things like freely growing switchgrass on the Plains. Wind and switchgrass farms — what else would the drier parts of the windy Plains be really good for, anyway? And it's there that there likely is money to be made, not only from those incessent winds but from those weeds. T. Boone Pickens obviously is trying to sell his own stuff when he is on the air currently, but the Texas-accented, “I'm an oil man,” couldn't-be-different-than-Bush short commercial he has made that's on the lefty radio here — he sounds like Ross Perot, too — is a class act.)

[more on Pickens]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145851

* * *

“When it comes to emerging high tech, the whole notion that we should 'leave it to the market' drives me crazy.”

It shouldn't. Too often Experts who think they know better than everyone else, don't. And why should we be subjected to the need or the requirement to accept something inferior and economically unfit as alternative to what we prefer, just to make a few people happy? How many people can accurately, consistently, reliably predict the future?

There is no crisis [tm] and there are no magic solutions, just practical alternatives in some instances in our future.

I also admit that after that first attack you seemed mysteriously reluctant to provide information to back up what appeared to me to be the kernel of your POV except to suggest I look into Gull Island. That really set off alarm bells in my head. At that point I figured you might be one of the “Reverend's” disciples, and at that point it became imperative to smoke you out and make you go on record. You never did that exactly, but since then you've said more, and I've checked your previous comments. And in the process I understand much better where you're coming from. And I think you have a valid point, as far as it goes.

Concerning the nature of my support for Obama, which as you may recall was the subject of your original attack… I do believe Obama's energy plan is much, much better than McCain's. To me, the difference in that regard is stark, and heavily in favor of Obama (absent further pandering, lol!). However, Obama has other positions I don't like. Likewise, McCain has positions I do like much better (his approach to health care, for example). In short, I don't concentrate much on ideology. I try to concentrate on workable solutions to issues. I'm not saying my opinion is always right, always well-expressed (I'm sure you can appreciate that), or completely devoid of bias (that's impossible), but I try to base them on honest-to-goodness, objectively verifiable numbers, and defend them on that basis rather than whatever cobwebs have accumulated in my own mind. After all, extensive experience does not necessarily translate into good judgement.

That said, back to the subject at hand…

I'm afraid I have to work for a living, so I'm required to multitask. And I see that Amanda has made some of the points I was about to make by way of reiterating a comment I made on another site. But she didn't cover them all, others have subsequently added additional relevant points, and I don't have time to edit what I said to conform to the present discussion. So I hope it's okay if I just cut and paste. The items in parentheses are comments by others to which I was responding..

Meanwhile, still waiting for Pelosi/Reid “Common sense legislation for cheaper oil/gas” that was promised in 2006 for the election.

One could quibble about the “common sense” part, but the 2007 energy bill (the one that established new CAFE standards and a big expansion in the ethanol program) qualifies as legislation designed to reduce the price of oil/gas. With regard to ethanol, the recent price spikes and the floods in the midwest make it clear that grain-based ethanol is hugely problematic. But the whole idea is to develop alternative stocks (please Lord, make it soon). And the goal is to provide 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Even considering that ethanol is only about 2/3 as energy-dense as gasoline, that's a huge amount. It represents, per year, nearly the equivalent of the EIA's mid-level estimate of the total additional oil reserve in BOTH ANWR AND OCS. In fact, just the current 5 billion gallon/yr ethanol harvest is considerably larger than what the EIA estimates to be the per year contribution ANWR and OCS combined, assuming full, unfettered exploitation. Grain-based ethanol has all kinds of problems besides interfering with food production, but once you compare the numbers, I think you can appreciate what's really at stake.

Just so you know, unless you are talking about solar and wind powered cars, wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources are meant for power production, not vehicle fuel… and barely anyone burns oil for energy production in the US anymore (read–no effect on gas prices).

That's basically true. Oil accounts for a little more than 1% of electricity generation these days (we can thank the Arab oil embargo of the 70s for that). But oil is still heavily used for heating in much of the northeast. Apart from that though, as electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids become more popular, they will transfer the energy source burden from liquid fuels to the grid. So even though we're talking mostly about transportation alternatives, it is important to consider how electricity is generated.

Perhaps it's time to get on my “wake up and smell the coffee” soapbox…

Yes, global warming probably is an important problem. And if that were the only concern, it might be a sufficient reason all by itself to seriously consider low-carbon/non-carbon energy alternatives. But it's not the only reason. It's not even the biggest reason. The biggest reason is that we have a serious energy problem. It is a problem that short term solutions won't address more than to provide convenient band-aids. We can try to kick the can down the road a ways, but sooner or later (most probably sooner) we'll come upon the can again. And our ability to kick it further will be further hampered. So that's one thing. The other thing is there are huge amounts of money in alternative energy right here, right now. Worldwide, new investment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries totalled $148 billion in 2007. That number is just going to get bigger. And it's not greenies that are providing it. It's people who see the handwriting on the wall and want to make money. Piles of it. Alternative energy not only addresses national/energy security and balance of trade concerns, it more importantly represents investment, intellectual capital, and domestic employment opportunities that dwarf the rise of PC computers and information techologies combined — or anything else we've seen in our lifetime. If we let this opportunity slide because of a narrow focus on dead-end fossil fuels (and the interests backing them), the “fossil” in fossil fuels will take on more than one, and more ominious connotations.

It constantly surprises me that we're even having this conversation. And it surprises me even more that I have to spend most of my time convincing conservatives, who are supposed to be the money-savvy types, of the obvious benefits. As I've already indicated, wind generation is going nuts. And the sad part is, we (the US) used to have a lock on that industry. We've lost 80% of the manufacturing market share in just the last 10 years or so. Now we have to buy most of our product from overseas. I find that unconscionable. But if we start now we can get some of that back. And the opportunities in other sectors (like solar thermal, solar PV, geothermal, maybe even waves) are even better.

When it comes to emerging high tech, the whole notion that we should “leave it to the market” drives me crazy. It appears few people appreciate how much our (publicly funded) defense industry has shouldered the burden. Between the DoD and NASA the government been responsible for financing the advent of so many new technologies it's impossible to mention them all. Rocketry (obviously), satellites (obviously again), fuel cells, solar PV, insulation materials, high tech plastics, carbon composites, silicon wafers, integrated circuits, robotics, biometrics, the internet. Even the freakin' interstate highway system was rationalized on national defense terms. Energy is much bigger than even that. Wake up and smell the coffee. Stop whining about the greenies and start following the money. If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure they'll end up hating you for it. Perhaps for some that's something to look forward to.

The car was almost totally silent to drive (when I was in Atlanta at the EV show) and of course accelerated like a rocket.

Maybe that's why they didn't have the electric sports car there that they had originally advertised. Too much temptation.

(Note on charging. Many electric companies want the female, or socket, connection that's hot, while having the vehicle manufacturers build their vehicles with cords and the male, or plug, connection. Vehicle makers would prefer to have the socket into which the electric companies, at charging stations, would supply a hot cord and plug. Both sides want the other to provide the more expensive cord and plug.)

Odds are it'll be longer than that, Amanda, for a serious plug-in electric car (must have a range of 300-400 miles and recharge fully in 5-10 minutes at most; you have to consider day trips and other long trips, not just puttering around town and recharging overnight at home or at employer-benefit “top-off” facilities where you park at work). But so much pollution in metro areas is due to motor vehicle use and converting to electric vehicles would vastly reduce (up to 90 per cent or more of some pollutants, I believe) urban-area pollution. Yes, some of it effectively is just shifted to power plants, but more nuclear and hydropower and alternatives such as you advocate would address this issue.

(Currently, even this decade, many new plants are coal-fired because coal is so cheap. Normally the change that is made is from coal or oil firing to gas firing to reduce pollution. This may well happen as well in places like the Northeast which still use heating oil extensively rather than the common gas heating used elsewhere. To get away from coal or oil and not go to gas — or to nuclear — the alternatives have to be economically competitive.)