Whats the highest level of entrepreneurial success you have obtained? I love those looking down from the perch of higher education that are so angry because they feel they're so much smarter, yet don't have the success or achivements or wealth. It burns them that they aren't simply given this wealth and success and they feel entitled to it. You seem to fit that mold my friend. Most business schools teach crap anyway. I defer to what Charlie Munger said in regards to your 'educational' misplaced snobbery: " I'd start with how the Harvard Business School used to teach, which is starting with the history of businesses. Show why GM rose to power and how it failed. Teach why the railroads rose, then failed, and why they're now good investments. They don't do this because it's hard to teach history over teaching things that are summarized in formulas. I have a friend here in Los Angeles whose father owned a little machine shop. He was accepted into the Harvard Business School, but he asked to defer his admittance for one year so he could help run his father's business. A year later, he asked if he could defer again. Harvard asked, "One year ago, how many employees did your dad's business have?" "Fifty," he said. "And how many does it have now?" they asked. "Nine hundred," he said. They told him he didn't need Harvard, and maybe he could just come back in a few years and endow the place. This type of thinking is no longer present at Harvard, which is too bad. Business school teaches from the perspective of a career in business, not as an investor in business. But there are great benefits to thinking like an investor."
So you fumble around looking like an economic nincompoop, posit silly theories about how gas taxes in the US only hurt US crude oil producers, respond to a pretty simple Freshman level-econ question about the effects of negative externalities with an nonsequitur about breadlines in the USSR, and when called out for acting like an idiot, you respond with some irrelevant (and probably fabricated, or at least embellished with a bunch of homespun BRK blahblahblah) parable about HBS. I think we're done here.
Nice response to the statement. Its typical of your mindset trying to bully people from an alleged 'intellectual' high ground and trying to distinguish yourself by what you've paid for as opposed to created. You don't know a thing about running a business. That is the biggest problem with people like you. Until you understand the workings of a business that actually creates something like jobs, wealth etc. you'll never understanding the true meanings of the theories you've read about in case studies. "I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education" Go back to bullying others in this forum and trying to put people down and enjoy being an insecure jerk.
I've never read a business school case study in my life - and we're not discussing anything that is remotely relevant to one. Therein lies your problem.
This is my point though that as a society we made choices in regard to our development pattern and we can make choices to change it. Are we really that much more productive than countries like Germany? As far as standard of living buying power isn't the only measure of standard of living. And I've always agreed that it will cause pain but that is really the only thing that will motivate major change. Pretty much everyone knows the problems with continuing our heavily fossil fuel dependent infrastructure but as a society we don't seem very willing to do a thing about it because we don't like the idea of the short term pain. This is exactly like a junkie refusing to get off heroin because of the withdrawl symptoms. With our oil addiction the pain will come sooner or later and it will be worse later.
Yes they do but you can learn to change with them. Have you looked into transit options, presumably shopping and other errands aren't 25 miles away from where you live so have you considered walking and biking to to do those? Have you talked to your employer about telecommunting?
Telecommuting is not an option. I actually do some work from home in my second job, which is actually my old job, just as side work now. I do live close to the store, but I don't bike or walk to the store. I buy too much stuff to carry. I do drive a Hybrid(Always wanted one, and bought it a month after finishing college).
It is unfair to compare America to European Nations though. We live in the 3rd largest Nation in the world. We are going to be more spread out.
Rather than making one big trip to the store you can make smaller trips to the store by incorporating shopping as part of other errands.
How can we change the fact that we have half the population density of Europe and even worse, there are vast sprawls of the U.S. that are empty and rural and some sections that are denser than the densest parts of Europe? Would you have people all move to the coastal areas and abandon the heartland? How would you fix L.A. - building a mass transit system in a sprawled city hasn't worked too well. It's not like going from Rotterdam to Amsterdam man. If you live in the outskirts of L.A. you don't have an efficient way to get to the city center and moving all the commerce to one location isn't practical for many reasons. Furthermore, Europe's high gas taxes have not help make it a green continent. It's lower fossil fuel use is primarily driven by higher adoption of Nuclear power and again, higher population density. It's why NYC is probably the most CO2 friendly city in America - because of it's density. And yes, our productivity is much much higher than Europes. If our standard of living / quality of life is lower...well that's depends on how much weight you put on vacation time and health care. Still, I think if you want to wean us off fossil fuel, than you have to do it not by penalizing people, but rather by investing in the technology that will appeal to people's self interests. If there was a car that could be 100% green and actually saved me money over a gasoline car without needing to be charged in an inconvenient manner then i'd do it.
I'd listen to anyone's suggestion for a different mechanism to effect a change in energy policy. But I think we can agree: 1. Oil is a limited if not finite commodity. It will need to be replaced as the energy source for human activity at some point. 2. Burning oil is a carbon releasing process that is probably a negative climate change factor with real implications for human civilization since most of the worlds population lives on the coastlines. 3. Current oil import policy is draining to the American net worth and probably funds interests contrary to US national security. 4. An' imported oil' economy is highly susceptible to catastrophic interruption. And, in the event that that happens, no disaster or event we have seen yet will come close to the magnitude of commerce essentially stopping. It would be penny wise and pound foolish to overemphasizing today's minor economic impact against the real possibilities and even inevitable future.
Our land size though doesn't mean that sprawl is destiny. I've studied the history of development and sprawl far from being some natural evolution, or even a process of the free market, was driven by government decisions. Europe is dense but its not like every square meter has someone standing on it. Even there specific development decisions have been made to restrict and limit development. Such a model could be used here.
See my response to Juicystream. Who said anything about moving everyone to the coastal areas? We can still have people living in the heartland but they don't need to live in sprawl. Also changing our development to more energy efficient doesn't mean everyone lives like NYC. We can still have single family houses with yards and be using far less energy than we currently do. As far changing our current cities that can take place with redevelopment and improvements in transit. For instance building LRT lines within sprawled cities can help spur redevelopment in the cities. Besides that there are lots of other models where even suburbs can be done more efficient such as with TOD's (Transit Oriented Developments) and POD's (Pedestrian Oriented Developments). See my response to Juicystream and above. Are you sure about that? My understanding is that countries like Germany are comparable to us in terms per hour worked and their per capita GDP is comparable or exceeds ours. We need both carrots and sticks. We need better technology in terms of transportation, energy efficiency but also communication too to reduce the need to travel for work.
"The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now,” he said. “Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.” With Call to Arms, Obama Seeks to Shift Arc of Oil Crisis
Try reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax I think everyone, especially voters, absolutely must understand the basic economics of externalities.
