reesescups posted:

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I'm a bit confused. Are you saying it's a bad thing to have vehicles that can run on either? IF so, why?

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paulg_68 posted:

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Why on earth would it need a tax incentive?

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reesescups posted:

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I'm glad congress/white house finally lifted the ban on them here.

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Grymlo posted:

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natural gas leaks are dangerous. I cant see how if we put hundreds of thousands of these on the roads how it wouldnt end badly for the drivers, potential 1st responders, ems and firefighters. Going to natural gas leaks are more dangerous for us than going to a structure fire.

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Koneg posted:

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reesescups posted:

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I'm glad congress/white house finally lifted the ban on them here.

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Uh - what ban??

State and city vehicle and bus fleets have been using natural gas vehicles for literally decades now. Hell even our garbage trucks here in Seattle run on natural gas.

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Blew_everyone posted:

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ineenia posted:

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paulg_68 posted:

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Why on earth would it need a tax incentive?

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They are competing against big oil and all the tax incentives and outright giveaways the republicans have given to big oil.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Why on earth would it need a tax incentive?

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paulg_68 posted:

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Then I dismiss your claim since you don't know anything about the subject.

/shrug

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Linked article posted:

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The measure is considered a long shot in Congress, given that Obama couldn't end the subsidies when Democrats controlled Congress earlier in his term.

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paulg_68 posted:

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ineenia posted:

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paulg_68 posted:

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Why on earth would it need a tax incentive?

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They are competing against big oil and all the tax incentives and outright giveaways the republicans have given to big oil.

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It's always the same. Fiscal liberals give away corporate welfare. Time goes by and fiscal liberals forget why they did it. Then fiscal liberals try to blame someone else for the corporate welfare.

I'm sure a portion of the corporate welfare for oil companies came from Republicans, but plenty of it came from Democrats too. In both cases though it came from fiscal liberals in the parties.

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paulg_68 posted:

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One or redkay's pet issues is externalized costs. For some reason though he never wants to touch the issue of externalized benefits. He thinks companies should be charged for for one but that they should never be rewarded for the other. That seems inconsistent.

It think it's pretty clear that the externalized benefits of oil usage far far outweigh the externalized costs.

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theredkay1 posted:

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What benefits are being realized for which gasoline producers are unable to realize a gain?

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theredkay1 posted:

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What is the mechanism that is stopping them from monetizing this and charging for it?

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theredkay1 posted:

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You are right that the consumption produces a lot of pollution. If you sell a product that imposes costs on others when used, those costs need to be included in the cost of production.

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Lyken-P posted:

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Koneg posted:

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reesescups posted:

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I'm glad congress/white house finally lifted the ban on them here.

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Uh - what ban??

State and city vehicle and bus fleets have been using natural gas vehicles for literally decades now. Hell even our garbage trucks here in Seattle run on natural gas.

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I'm pretty sure it was that super secret imaginary bill that Bush passed to help Big Oil

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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People pay for gas because it lets them drive their cars around. The benefits of driving a car around are included in the price you set for a gallon of gasoline. Nobody would pay anything for a gallon of gasoline if they couldn't do anything with it. Your argument is like saying hammers produce externalized benefits because people use them to hammer things.

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Grymlo posted:

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natural gas leaks are dangerous. I cant see how if we put hundreds of thousands of these on the roads how it wouldnt end badly for the drivers, potential 1st responders, ems and firefighters. Going to natural gas leaks are more dangerous for us than going to a structure fire. Those tanks they make for the vehicles better be damn solid.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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People pay for gas because it lets them drive their cars around. The benefits of driving a car around are included in the price you set for a gallon of gasoline. Nobody would pay anything for a gallon of gasoline if they couldn't do anything with it. Your argument is like saying hammers produce externalized benefits because people use them to hammer things.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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That's an externalized benefit (it'd be hard to put an economic value on it, though). You're getting a benefit for something two third parties did which you have nothing to do with.

The ambulance example is not. The ambulance carrying you to the hospital is not a third party. The ambulance provider buys the gas so it can provide that service to you and charge you for it (or charge the taxpayer, if it's publically funded). Either way it's not an externalized benefit. It's all worked into the gasoline transaction. The ambulance driver pays for the gasoline so he can go do a service. The recipient of that service isn't getting an externalized benefit from the gasoline producer any more than he's getting an externalized benefit from the ambulance itself.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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Says the guy who just admitted his example wasn't an example of what he thought it was.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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And now you are getting into third level + externalized benefits. The benefit to the wife of the guy who uses an ambulance that uses gasoline. When you get to that level of abstraction monetization is no longer economically efficient or even possible. And when you get to that level of abstraction there's a whole new set of externalized costs too. If you can find a way to do all that math at an economically efficient cost you'd get very rich.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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On the other hand, the costs of pollution from burning gasoline are pretty easy to assess against the gasoline producer or retailer. It doesn't really matter which you choose.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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You could levy them against the consumer too but that'd be really inefficient. Levying these costs improves economic incentives because it includes a very real and direct cost of using gasoline.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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You just admitted the only externalized benefits you can identify as so marginal they arn't capable of being calculated. How you think this incalculably remote externalized benefits outweight the very reasonably calculable and substantial externalized costs is a bit perplexing.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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You also arn't considering possible remote externalized costs, which also exist and are not capable of real calculation, just like your supposedly huge remote externalized benefits.

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Yukishiro1 posted:

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You are basically saying we shouldn't attempt to monetize externalized costs we can easily monetize because there might be some unmonetizable externalized benefits (while ignoring similarly speculative costs). That's pretty silly.

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paulg_68 posted:

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theredkay1 posted:

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You are right that the consumption produces a lot of pollution. If you sell a product that imposes costs on others when used, those costs need to be included in the cost of production.

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It's the consumption that imposes the cost, not the production.

Why would you charge the producer? That doesn't make any sense. Well, it you are biased against corporations it might make sense to you.

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paulg_68 posted:

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theredkay1 posted:

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What benefits are being realized for which gasoline producers are unable to realize a gain?

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An ambulance using gasoline rushes someone to the hospital and saves their life. If they'd been transported with a horse and cart they would have died.

There are externalized benefits and externalized costs in this scenario. We as a society choose not to charge for the externalized costs and we also choose not to reward for the externalized benefits.

theredkay1 posted:

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What is the mechanism that is stopping them from monetizing this and charging for it?

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Why would they charge for it? A hammer costs the same price whether you use it for anything good or not.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Linked article posted:

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The measure is considered a long shot in Congress, given that Obama couldn't end the subsidies when Democrats controlled Congress earlier in his term.

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Like I said, it's not just the Republicans.

Isn't it funny that I proved you wrong and myself right using a link you provided in a post where you called me an idiot.

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theredkay1 posted:

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The ambulance company pays for that gas becuase it gives them the ability to get to the scene faster. People already pay money for gasoline because it lets them do things easier/better. There are no price controls on gasoline, the producer can charge anything he wants. If he charges more than the value received by the ambulance company, no sale occurs. The benefit is already 'internalized' into the price people are willing to pay for gas. I dont think you understand the concept.

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ineenia posted:

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You really are a idiot if you think that proves what you're saying it does.

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paulg_68 posted:

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theredkay1 posted:

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The ambulance company pays for that gas becuase it gives them the ability to get to the scene faster. People already pay money for gasoline because it lets them do things easier/better. There are no price controls on gasoline, the producer can charge anything he wants. If he charges more than the value received by the ambulance company, no sale occurs. The benefit is already 'internalized' into the price people are willing to pay for gas. I dont think you understand the concept.

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Really? You love to mention externalized costs and now I'm starting to suspect you don't understand them.

Answer me this. If externalized benefits are already included in the price then why aren't externalized costs?

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