“It Is Important For Us To Send Some Price Signals To Change Behavior” – Obama

Loading

Obama said in 2007:

“It is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior”

“It’s not going to be painless”

He said one of the goals of his Cap and Trade was to ensure no one could build a coal powered plant, or if they did, it would bankrupt them.

Now, we’re all going bankrupt on rising gas prices:

Gasoline prices are up again by double digits in all areas around the country compared to the week before. The national gasoline average is $.77 above the price this time last year.

77 cents in a year! And rising.

That’s changing behavior for you.

All the while Obama smiles down on all the little people from the Oval Office and he does nothing to help stabilize and/or lower the price of gas. Why? Well, we already know the answer to that.

“Send some price signals to change behavior.”

The liberals like Tom Friedman are loving it…in fact calling for the price to stay at 4 dollars a gallon. If it ever goes below that price? Raise taxes: (2:30 minute mark)

Transcript:

Gasoline is almost four dollars a gallon. We know that’s a red line where people really start to change their behavior. At a minimum, I’d be talking about a tax that basically says we’re going to keep it at four dollars a gallon. If it goes below, well true it up. If it goes above that we’re not going to touch it. May be say, we’re not going to implement it until 2012. So you signal people it’s going– be coming. You don’t change the– you don’t harm the economy today but you get people to change their behavior.

Oh, Friedman is sly about it.

It’s about not being dependent on the Middle East you see. If we change our behavior we wouldn’t be so beholden to them.

I know another way we wouldn’t be beholden to them.

DRILL OUR OWN FREAKING OIL!

We have a huge amount of oil in our own damn country but its liberals like Friedman and Obama that won’t let us get to it because in a Socialists wormy mind it is the role of government to fix prices as a measure of controlling consumer behavior.

Welcome to Obama’s America.

Exit quote:

Connecting Bush, Not Obama to High Prices: As gas prices rose in 2008, network reporters mentioned President Bush in 15 times as many stories, than they brought up President Obama in a similar period in 2011.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
38 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

It is really interesting to see how incompetent Obama really is because of his rigid ideological world view. That 77 cent increase over a year in the price of gas has some real economic impact that apparently neither Obama nor his yes-men have considered pursuing his green agenda.

Consider what the effect is: every $1 per barrel rise in oil decreases U.S. GDP by $100 billion per year and every 1 cent increase in gasoline decreases U.S. consumer disposable income by about $600 million per year.

So if this is generally true, then the effect of 77 cent increase in gasoline is $46,200,000,000 or $46.2 billion this year slash in consumer spending on all NON gasoline purchases. Since the writing of that article in December 2010 the price of oil went up from less than $90/barrel to $105/barrel. That $15/barrel increase if maintained will slice $1.5 trillion out of our GDP, that’s more than 10% of our current GDP. In other words, if the price of oil doesn’t come back down below $90/barrel by the end of the year, we will be back in full blown recession mode and no amount of spinning from Obama or the Fed is going to cover that up. Nor will products that GE sells be able to counteract the losses with jobs supposedly to be created by the green agenda. The corruption and incompetence of Obama’s green agenda is costing this nation literally 100s of billions of dollars to benefit his campaign contributors. This pretty much exposes the fallacy the liberals are operating under assuming there is a zero-sum dynamic between the price of energy and green jobs/green product sales. There is no dollar for dollar relationship between the rise in oil & gasoline prices versus the sales of green products and jobs that would be generated as a matter of course of those sales. This was Spain’s experience and the liberals like Obama are unable to accept that outcome. It’s time to drill domestically and more importantly stop giving lipservice to nuclear energy.

Reducing the deficit is dependant on an increasing GDP. Continuously rising prices of imported oil eliminates US Businesses and ultimately jobs as companies go out of business or move over seas. Those environmentalists who claim we are not using our domestic supplies of oil to preserve the environment are actually degrading the World environment by increasing over seas oil production where there are few if any environmental regulations.

Yes, more taxes on gas will cause an artificial movement towards solar and other high priced alternative energy sources. What Obama is doing to oil is similar to what the Hunt brothers did to silver back in the 80s. They faced criminal charges.

Hmm, didn’t President Obama study the whole Gasoline crisis that happened under Carter? If he wants to change the Behavior of people, it’ll be a behavior that makes sure he’ll be a one term president in the Urban developments of the United States.

As I noted in a previous post, were we to adhere to every single word of the new EPA reg’s, world temperature would be restrained by .006 degree C.

Alternatives to oil are NOT CHEAP. And the effect on the world is penny ante.

Barack Obama does not care about the pain he’s inflicting on this country. He cares about himself.

Obama (or his puppetmasters) knew exactly what would happen.
Except for the fact that the recovery was so much slower than his prediction, Obama is on course to put enough Americans into government work (doling out the dole) or on the dole to create a permanent majority of leeches and their enablers.

There are disputes about who first said this, but it has truth to it:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

BTW, now you’re thinking like someone who is compiling clips for use in a political campaign!

Thumb’s up!

A while back there was study done that showed that libs had a poor grasp on economics especially when compared to Republicans. They prove how valid the study was at every turn.

And we’re being told by the “experts” that the rise in fuel prices and food is not really anything to worry about! 7 businesses closed their doors on the route I take to work each day here in Vegas in a week (something I indicated in an earlier post). Yet these clowns say “what, Me Worry?” Sad part is I feel bad using that quote as it’s an insult to Alfred E. Newman to even remotely identify him with the current occupant of the White House!

Seriously, how is one supposed to even remotely believe these clowns. As indicated above, our moron in chief more than once said he felt gas prices should be 4 to 5 dollars a gallon as we were not paying enough and it would “save the planet” (more leftist Bull!). The electorate chose to ignore his socialist leanings. So be it! But now it’s gone beyond the absurd.

The President and his lackeys are pushing this country into third world status! They refuse to allow development of our own resources. They continue to make us even more dependent on foreign resources than openly lie to us.
It’s bad enough they have decided to destroy us economically in deference to their ideology, but the lies and the backing from the MSM are beyond disgusting. But what the hell! They say not to worry and all of this is just a temporary rise!

As to our Moron in Chief. I’d like to believe in my President, but it’s awfully hard when the lies flow faster than the Colorado during a snow melt. After all, how could anyone take someone even remotely seriously who would stand in front of a roomful of Jews in Miami Beach and tell them not to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood or the changes in the Mideast? Hard to take anyone seriously who is that out of touch with reality.

If high fuel prices are the answer, then why are the streets in Europe not flooded with windmill driven vehicles?
” It is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior”
“It’s not going to be painless”
Hell no it’s not going to be painless, ask every working person that has to commute to work every day. Thank Obama and his merry band of socialists for costing every working family $50 to $100 extra in fuel cost per week. We have untapped resources that will last us the US for generations. We have been suckered by the likes of algore and the environmenta progs into believing we are running out of fossil fuels. When in fact the progs have placed them off limits, for reasons that make no rational sense.

Like a lot of people, Obama is changing my behavior. Most definitely.

At a minimum, I’d be talking about a tax that basically says we’re going to keep it at four dollars a gallon. If it goes below, well true it up.

Nice to see liberals borrowing economic terminology (‘price signal’) while clearly not understanding economics. First of all, if a policy such as is described were implemented, you’d basically be talking about the government enabling price-fixing on the part of gas stations without any need for collusion on their part.
Secondly, the flip side of the price signal (the signal that is sent to producers…) is getting ignored. You can make people use less by increasing taxes, but if you want the economy to grow you need producers to produce more – and for that, you need them to be able to collect those extra dollars from high prices, not the government.
In any case, things are starting to sort themselves out, thanks to production from the Bakken and other places, alongside changes in peoples’ driving habits. Our oil imports have been dropping for a few years. Probably going to be a rough transition economically, but unlike people in Mexico or Egypt we don’t appear to be totally screwed by oil resource exhaustion.

The special interests that are resisting alternative energy technology are the same special interests that have actively resisted the expansion of public transportation, high speed rail systems, increased fuel efficiency standards for conventional automobiles, the early introduction of electric cars and trucks in California, high efficiency home lighting, home weatherization programs, etc. Enormous quantities of special interest money have gone to fight each and every one of those initiatives–every one of which would be beneficial to the average American, and to the long-term future of the nation.

So you’re saying you’d gladdly pay two to three times the Kilowatt per hour rates that is connected to Green Energy operations? As it stands, the kWh for Green Energys rests at about 20 to 25 cents per hour or more pending taxations, that’s almost twice of what those damn dirty “special interest” groups are charging at 8 to 12 cents for kWh rates after taxes.

Hey if you can live with a shortened budget for your personal life to fund the electricity to allow you internet access and power to your computer to access, FA… have at it. But a large portion of American citizens, or even businesses for that matter, will not be very pleased by Politicans telling them they’ll have to deal with increased Utilities bills because it’s good for them while relying on a highly unstable energy output system. Businesses will be crippled in basic trading/data communication between clients/creditors if they directly lose power or their ISP provider has power disconnection, Warehouses reliant on Controlled Climate systems suffering from brownouts could see stocks damaged (aka spoiled foods, ruined composite materials for Electronic fabrications), and Urban housing/apartments will become literal ovens if Climate Control systems fail leading to citizens being prone to heat stroke and dehydration during the Summer and Fall sessons… Winter will be a whole new stink of problems with the oh so unstable proformance of Green energy supplies.

@Greg: I guess I am one of those special interests who are resisting alternative energy sources. The free market is also one of those special interests who is resisting alternative energies. The main reason is that it costs too much! A company that uses alternative energy sources that are far from the least expensive while competitors are using cheaper energy sources cannot be competitive and they fail. It is simple economics. When the government makes those companies use expensive energy sources, they fail. The government makes companies use expensive energy sources by taxing (cap and Trade) and over regulation of those cheaper energy sources. It is not a right wing conspiracy, just plain economics Greg. Here is a little article from Forbes that lays out the silliness of mandating the use of expensive energy sources and the effect on economics. http://www.forbes.com/2011/02/23/china-carbon-dioxide-emissions-opinions-contributors-james-taylor.html
It is just common sense. I think it was Mark Twain that said, “Common sense is not common!”

What I really love is Greg’s advocation of imposing higher taxes on the Citizens and Businesses of the United States and then having things like Energy also increase in prices while decline in stablity and yet somehow expect the Economic recovery of the United States to climb upward…

Not only are wind and solar power intermittent and undependable, they are more expensive than coal and natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that for new power-generating facilities entering service in 2016, onshore wind power will be 49% more expensive than conventional coal over the lifetime of the respective facilities, offshore wind will be 90% more expensive than coal, solar thermal will be 155% more expensive than coal, and solar photovoltaic will be 295% more expensive than coal.

A fitting little biddy from the Article you supplied Randy.

@Mr. Irons: I just read today in the Denver Post that Xcell, the major enegry provider in Colorado is going to sell alternative energy credits to California with 80% of the proceeds going to reduce customers energy bills. Colorado finally found a sucker! This amounts to over $30 million!

Yeah, I heard about that on the News and was laughing about that and how Colorado’s Eastern border was fighting tooth and nail to get Kansas State Law makers to approve the Holcomb Coal Fired Power Plant complex…

http://kansas.sierraclub.org/Wind/WhoGetsHolcombPower.htm

Kansas would only get 8 percent of that power, but will have to be punished by EPA rules for having that plant in our Borders. Colorado State Law Makers, jerks. Colorado citizens, good folks.

@Mr. Irons, #13:

Alternative energy technology vs. fossil fuel technology isn’t a select one of the above choice.

Why do you suppose China is developing and expanding renewable energy technology as rapidly as possible? They’re pulling ahead of everybody in renewable energy, while simultaneously building coal-fired plants and nuclear power plants.

They’ve already got a rapidly expanding high-speed rail network in service. We’ve got a seriously deteriorating, petroleum-dependent transport infrastructure with bridges that are in danger of falling down.

You’ve got to pay to play.

Bawhahahaha, China… renewable?

Are you even alive? China has been doubling their construction of Coal plants to supply their power needs, not alternate energy. Did you even read Randy’s supplied article? China has no political or economical incentive to go Green, period.

And guess what a High-Speed rail system is supplied by? It sure as hell will never be Solar energies because the kH needed to supply the locomotion of such a train would need at bare minimal a Natural Gas burning Power Plant. Solar could not supply the constant stream of power for it, nor will wind. Those two come in short, and very erratic bursts of comparebly low kW’s (a reason why the fee is higher, as supply is more limited).

On an an edited note:

“Bam! Said the Lady” ->

The things China is doing is creating new streamlined Coal fire plants that decrease emissions in comparison to the United States new Coal Firing plants.

From the NY Times: China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy

From the Washington Post: China is pulling ahead in worldwide race for high-speed rail transportation

China has multiple high-speed trains already in regular service, some capable of speeds reaching 300 mph. We’ve got one, from Boston to DC, running at 68 mph.

High speed rail… what a joke for the Zero’s suggestions. Tampa to Orlando doesn’t want it. That’s my backyard for growing up and current family. There’s no commuting going on between Tampa and Orlando for work, which relegates riders who would rather take rail than drive I-4 to DisneyWorld on the rare occasions they go. Same with Portland, OR to Seattle, WA. Amtrak already services that route… to a loss. So a high speed version, built on the backs of the nation’s taxpayers, is going to change those statistics?

China’s rail, or even Europe’s rails systems have no bearing on the US rail systems, feasibility studies and profitability.

And, Epic Fail award for you good sir.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/China/Electricity.html

I really love this bit,

China is also actively promoting nuclear power as a clean and efficient source of electricity generation. Although nuclear capacity (around 9 GW) makes up only a small fraction of Chinas installed generating capacity, many of the major developments taking place in the Chinese electricity sector recently involve nuclear power. Chinas government forecasts that over 70 GW will be added by 2020. EIA forecasts that China will increase its nuclear generation to about 598 Bkwh by 2035, growing at an annual rate of 8.4 percent and increasing its share of total power generation from 2 percent in 2009 to 6 percent in 2035.

Oh wait, that’s what’s going to be a major factor of power supply to your High Rail speed trains… oh wait, what the hell does speed rails have to do a flying monkeywrench about Energy outputs? Not a damn thing. It’s a consumption product, not a producer of energy.

@Greg: Silly boy! China is making alternative energy products, not to use, but to sell to PC countries who are trashing their economies by mandating the installation of products China makes!

NY Times: The heroic legacy of Walter Duranty lives on.

The Chinese certainly have no obligation to tell us the truth about their real plans or policies. And so frequently, they don’t. Their main interest in green energy is selling equipment to suckers like us – that’s where a lot of our solar cells and wind mills are coming from, don’t you know. If the U.S. ends up weakened by an unreliable electricity supply, from their point of view, so much the better. The only green energy that they are seriously using over there is solar hot water heaters. Those things are all over the place in China.

The largest green energy source worldwide is hydroelectric. By far. It’s the only large-scale technology that actually works as promised. Solar cells make sense in niche markets like small scale power in remote areas – but that’s a pretty tiny market.

You will note that many of the politicians and activists pushing for ‘green energy’ subsidies stand to profit from the businesses being subsidized – a large conflict of interest the media have shown no real interest in investigating.

Windmills are a huge part of most Western nations’ plans for going green. The thing about wind power is, because it varies so widely on a short time scale, when you have more than a few percent wind power on your electrical grid, the grid becomes destabilized. That limits the percent of wind power that can be installed. Some kind of electic energy storage is needed to go any further, and that is a mighty expensive proposition.

These wind energy schemes are in fact crashing one after another due to grid destabilization and mechanical failure.

The government subsidies for ‘alternative energy’ are justified on the basis of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Lip service is paid occasionally to reducing dependence on Middle East oil, but the policy monster is driven by the claim of the urgent need for man-made-global-warming remediation. If human carbon dioxide emissions are not dangerous, then the whole thing falls apart.

Republicans are going to “feasibility” and “profitability” us right back into the 19th Century.

Maybe they could put windmills on high speed trains to generate electricity – and use the electricty to power the trains.

Greg, the people who want to send us (not them, us) back to the 19th century are your progressive heroes.

Does anybody else get the feeling that Greg is just going through the motions at this point, and doesn’t even believe his own crap?

@Greg:

So says the man who thinks higher taxation and higher ultilies fees on Citizens is good to spur economic growth… Give me a break, you’re now just grasping for straw… men.

I gotta say, that Solydra investment of 500 million to produce solar panels has really worked out well…..

If company’s are doing well financially, they regularly produce better products. If the government supports them they have no need to produce a better product because the share holders stay happy. How many chevy volts have sold so far?… It really is that simple.

Now I do think we need different/better fuel than what we use now and I’m convinced we are not as far away as some would think. let someone with a keen spirit and a lot of resourcefulness take on the task instead of throwing money away.

Its funny how Greg hates the war on the middle class yet he advocates giving corporate welfare checks to the same companys he feels are waging that war. Those organizations have no reason to produce anything. It the same as giving welfare checks to people, why would they get a job if they get paid anyway. My grandfather used to say he liked communism because when you work it doesn’t matter weather you sit or stand, ironic how soviet logic has become a cornerstone for business in north America…

For Alternate fuels, I can agree to that with you Zac. There’s research projects in the works seeing if Methane gas collection systems can be developed related to crop byproduct decay, solid wastes from sewage decay rates, and organic landfill decay. Then there’s the whole Algae Co2 tank scubber systems using a genetically altered Algae to be used as a Coal or Natural Gas power plants to assist in lowering Co2 levels and promoting the growth of the plant which in turn will be turned into a series of products ranging from Bio-disel, paper mulch, and fertilizers for argiculture/growth of more Algae. But hey I guess that since Algae is in turn used as a burnable fuel that it isn’t an applicale green tech for the hardcore solicalists since those damn dirty evil, “special interest” groups of which Greg only alludes to is investing in such research.

That’s right Mr Irons! And for the record I think that “ethanol” may be the cause of mental impairment among green movement types.

I am a big believer in preserving the natural environment. However I think the socialist MSM and the current regime is going to try to hijack any progress we make that does not conform to the “agenda” which says that taxing oil and gas solves the worlds problems..

What we have here is what we might refer to as the “Step Three Profit” fallacy (can’t take credit for coming up with this title). If any of you watch South Park, you might remember the episode with the underpants gnomes. Said gnomes had a business model that went step 1: collect underpants, step 2: ?, step 3: profit.

Obama and company have something along these lines, step 1: raise gas prices, step 2: ?, step: thriving green economy. Like the underpants gnomes, they don’t have the slightest clue about how to get from step 1 to step 3. I’m sorry to say, but our step 2 is likely to be a long term economic depression, if they stick to their step 1…

Now, in the real, real world, here’s a better plan to achieve the laudable goals of energy independence, and move towards a “greener” (though probably not to the level that Obama and his underpants gnomes would like) future without the whole nasty economic depression part. If these folks would bother to study the logistics of how thing get transported around our fine land, and how the electricity is generated that turns on all the lights in our houses with just the flick of a switch, they’d know that petroleum products are integral to our economy. No amount of wishing and magical thinking is suddenly going to render all of those things to be powered by alternative energy; sorry. So, for the moment, we’re going to have to drill, and I mean aggressively (though not sloppily like those BP fools); the critters up in ANWAR are just going to have to cope for a while, as are those with ocean views on the CA and Gulf Coasts. Now, do we have enough petroleum reserves to permanently power our petroleum based economy; no. But, we do have enough to grant us greater energy independence while we gradually transition to other, more forward looking energy sources. The prime candidate here being nuclear energy. Unlike petroleum which seems to mostly be found in lands that don’t like us very much, the world’s largest uranium deposits are right here in the USA, Canada, and Australia (nice friendly places, at least relatively so). Once we’ve got enough nuclear plants up and running, and perhaps have electric cars that don’t suck, we can take out the eye-sore oil rigs, and shut down and disassemble the operations up in ANWAR. Having a plan like this also has the benefit of allowing our domestic petroleum sector to gradually be phased out, minimizing the number of displaced workers. I for one will relish the day we can turn to all the OPEC despots and tell them where they can stick their oil.

Unfortunately, at the bare minimum Obama and others are too dedicated to their ideology to accept this kind of temporary compromise to achieve greater ends. As some previous poster mentioned, liberals seem to have no grasp of economics. Honestly, isn’t the ongoing tragedy of Spain’s “green” economy not example enough for these people? The “Step Three Profit” method is just a guaranteed way to weaken the United States on the global stage.

@Greg: You said:

Why do you suppose China is developing and expanding renewable energy technology as rapidly as possible?

Sure you want the answer to that question?

China produces half of the world’s wind turbines, supplies half the world’s hydropower projects and fabricates three-quarters of the world’s compact fluorescent light bulbs.
——————
The difference between the US and China in clean energy race is the fact that China plays to win at any cost. As some energy experts point out China is even breaking the trade rules that the rest of the world follows in order to continue its supremacy in production of clean energy.
——————
And of top of it all China sells its renewable gear and other products overseas at artificially low prices. Some calculations point out that Chinese government spends $1 billion a day on currency in order to make Chinese products more affordable to the rest of the world. – Source

Got that Greggie? China is leading the world in green energy products to SELL them at ARTIFICIALLY LOW PRICES to the rest of the world.

If you even bother to read the article I pulled that from, you will see that China also denies access to the raw materials needed to manufacture the green products. They want to win this race at all costs and funny, but that is the attitude that America used to have. Maybe you remember that attitude, don’t you? We used it to reach the moon first and also to defeat the Soviet Union.

Those compact fluorescent light bulbs made in China are crap. They do not last as long as they should. Try to find one not made in China.

I hear ya’ HR. I lucked out when I first bought some. I have track lighting above my fireplace and got tired of regular bulbs burning out after only a month or so. I put CFB’s in there and haven’t had to replace any (knock on wood) in over 3 years.

——

Good think I wasn’t holding my breath waiting on Greggie to respond to my comment #34. lol