The recent tragic deaths of coal miners offshore oil rig workers and the growing environmental disaster have everyone from Credo Mobile/Working Assets to the President talking about knee-jerk reactions.
Let me present an alternative view. We demand cheap energy, and then go nuts when this produces death and destruction in the production of that cheap energy. Suppose that when the cost of gasoline was so high a couple of years ago, the federal and state policy makers had enacted new tax policy, something along the lines of gasoline will never sell for less than $3.90 per gallon, with the federal tax floating up and down to keep the gas at that price. Extra taxes would have been collected to help pay for our deficits, safety features in mines and oil rigs, damage repair for energy disasters like the one in the Gulf, mine disasters, etc. At the very same time, we would have reduced our demand, as happened when the price was so high. The high price helps incorporate the true cost of energy, and makes alternative energy forms more competitive price-wise. It also reduces the pressure to build new oil rigs, dig out more coal, and build new nuclear power plants.
Of course, higher costs of energy and the resulting reduction in demand will also decrease the need for war abroad.
Our problem is an addiction to cheap energy, pure and simple. When the true cost of energy is built into the price, we will all make better judgements, from demand to increasing supply of then cost-effective alternative energy. This is the message that we need to shout from the rooftops, continuously, instead of knee-jerk reactions to once-in-25-year catastrophic events.
That's my observation, what's yours?
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