Heck, Mr. President - Why don't we see if we can make things worse...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28846202/wid=18298287

 

How exactly is this making things worse?

Every automaker that wants to sell cars in the 13 states that follow the CA
regulations must operate under the same regulations. No one automaker
is being singled out. So, what is your supposition here - that domestic
automakers
cannot meet this but the Japanese can? Fine, then I'll take back that
automaker
bailout money right now - that's my tax dollars that those automakers are
using, they
damn well better be using that to design cleaner cars.

The fact of the matter is that there's plenty of passenger car designs out
there
that can meet the standard, and there HAVE been in the past - like the GM
EV1.
The fact of the matter is that those designs haven't been profitable because
they
are radically different, and thus do not have the economies of manufacturing
scale
to be able to crank out parts a mile a minute - which would make the parts
cheap.
The fact of the matter is that a technological switch to electric vehicles
will not
happen until the EV is manufactured in the same quantities as the gasoline
vehicle -
thus putting it's purchase price comparable to gas vehicles.

The situation is the same as that with computer storage medium. Today
there's
storage medium - optical - that for the same volume can store 100 times that
of magnetic media. But the computer business isn't switching to it because
mag
media has such a history that it can be manufactured more cheaply - because
the assembly lines already exist, the infrastructure already exists. It
doesen't matter
that the techniques to cram data onto mag media are unbelievably esoteric
while
the techniques to cram data onto optical are basic.

If optical and mag media had to start at the same time from square one,
optical
would win hands down. But we have mag media due to industry inertia.

The auto industry has huge industry inertia. Obviously the CEO's and such
of the
current automakers would rather go with gasoline designs they have now that
are
proven sellers, that they can predict in advance the profit on. So in an
open market
they are going to do what is best for them - not what is best for the
country.

The situation is the same as that of Social Security. Every citizen who has
paid
20-odd years of payroll taxes is expecting to see that money back and will
fight
to the death any attempt to abolish SS - even though it's bankrupting the
US -
because it's in their own self-interest to do it, NOT in the country's
interest. The
country's interest would be to not have SS at all and to have something else
instead
of it. That was what Bush was driving at with his privatization of SS
initative. But
of course that got shot down.

The situation is also the same with digital TV. There is a huge expensive
hump to
get consumers over to transition from analog to digital. That is why the
industry
would never have voluntarily done it, and why the transition had to be
forced by
the federal government. But once we get over that hump in the long run it
will
be cheaper, and much better for the country.

Granted, your still burning fuel to create electricity. But, your doing it
in a
stationary power plant and you can extract every bit of usable heat from the
fuel,
instead of dumping half your fuel energy out the radiator like a car does.
You can
also sequester the CO2 from a power plant by running it into an algae field
which
uses solar energy and the CO2 from the power plant which can then create
fuel.
That isn't practical in a vehicle.

Ted

 

The key thing that made the American economy so great (or, at least, so
big....) is the fact that it is a large single market.

Setting up internal trade barriers is truly idiotic. When I heard about
this plan a few days ago (yes, even reported in the UK) my first thought was
that it was daft.

The EU is painfully working its way to a true single market by the
harmonisation of, among other things, technical standards. Of course there
is also mutual recognition of (old) national standards to accelerate the
process of free movements of goods, but it would be very foolish to create
an uncoordinated plethora of new standards.

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"
---
[...]

[...]

 

Yes. Much better to agree on a single standard for the acceptable
degree of curvature of a cucumber. )

 

Hah! I heard the news story a couple of months ago about the small
farmer whose entire harvest of - what was it - avacado's? - was
destroyed because some of them were 2 mm under the minimum required size
for sale for human consumption according to the EU specs.?

Laws like that are ridiculous whether coming from some wannabe
centralized world government or a single state. The problem with
centralized stuff like the EU and the UN is that everything becomes one
size fits all, and there's just too much to be gained by corruption by
otherwise meaningless, counterproductive, and plain damaging to the
human condition laws (similar to communism). It's bad enough in single
countries as we are finding out for the 10,000th time.

 

A lot of the stuff you read about the EU is nonsense. British papers are
full of it as they love to bash "Brussels" without actually comprehending
it.

The questions of definitions are tricky, as quality has to be defined. Easy
to mock when not thinking about it.

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"
---

 

I don't accept that an entire harvest of whatever vegetable it was has
to be destroyed (they refused to allow it to be used for anything -
bureaucrats had to make a point). Aren't there at least some starving
people somewhere that could have used them. Besides - if I wanted to
buy some smallish samples of whatever it was, I should have the right to
do so. I find this kind of crap more than grossly absurd.

Not to worry, Dori. It is clear that the U.S. is now on an accelerated
schedule to the same fate as Europe.

--
Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Nothing to stop the manufacturers from building to the highest spec......

 

I'd assume they could have used it as animal feed - or does the EU have
specs on that too?

Dori, Bill doesen't have any excuse for this and should know better, but you
are perhaps unaware that ever since the 60's that CA has had differing
emissions
requirements for automobiles than the rest of the United States. In short,
if you
wanted to sell cars in the US you either built your entire model to be
California
-compliant, or you did what most manufacturers did, and made a special CA
version of your model for sale in CA.

So the idea that the American economy is a large single market has never
been
true for automobiles. And the fact is that although a lot of car guys
sneered at
GM for making exactly the same vehicle and badging some of them Chevy and
some Buick, selling the different badges in different geographical markets,
this
is a strategy that worked - and it is further evidence that the American
market
isn't homogeneous.

What is going on now in the US is that as more and more states adopt the
CA emissions requirements, automakers will be forced to eventually adopt
those as the standard for ALL models sold in ALL states, even if that state
had
not adopted the standard.

Now, as for Bill, for shame, shame!!!! Let me remind you Bill that it is
YOUR
political party - the Republicans - who are die-hard states-rights
activists. Weak
and small central government, remember? Well, I guess it's just more
hypocracy -
your all for states rights when a state wants to turn the clock backwards on
abortion, but when a state wants to set tigher emissions standards, boy
watch
how quick you and your ilk will run crying to the feds to override that
state.
That is what your old bud the Chimp did when he was President after all -
override the CA States Rights on this issue. Accellerated schedule to the
same
fate as Europe, my ass!

Ted

 

You missed where I said "(they refused to allow it to be used for
anything - bureaucrats had to make a point)". The news story I heard
specifically mentioned that they would not allow it to be diverted even
to animal feed. Not that it couldn't have from a practical point. The
point of that was that they had to send the message that they were in
charge, not that any real good would come of that spec. That's what
bureaucrats do - operate to exercise their power for the sake of that
power. Acting for the common good is not in the equation.

And Californians paid for that in higher costs - like they do with
everything.

My philosophy would be that if California elected legislators that
exacted their own standards on cars that California then deserved what
it got in the form of paying more for their cars. Pure and simple.
Californian's have a way of shooting themselves in their collective foot
and then blaming everyone else.

There are too many examples of that to list them all, but I remember I
think it was in the early or mid 90's, California passed some ridiculous
restrictions on auto insurance companies - things that would make
staying in business impossible.

All of the insurance companies immediately pulled their business out of
California. Then California bitched about that. Imagine that - people
refusing to be forced to do business in a state where it would be
impossible to not go broke - oh those bastard insurance companies!!

And the answer to your future response to that is: Then let some wise
businessman start a new insurance company to operate in California under
those regs. There's a reason that no businessman - wise or otherwise
would have done so.

You're suggesting that those states *require* vehicles be made special
to looser standards, and therefore their people pay *more* for specially
built cars? Why would they do that. But they are *free* (key word) to
do that if they so desired as California was free to do so for what it
wanted, and its people ended up paying for it in the price of things in
many areas.

Yeah - let's make it illegal for people to clear brush from around their
houses to protect mother earth - oh I'm sorry - Mother Earth, and then
ask for sympathy and aid from everyone else when their houses burn down
because the fires spread like - umm - wildfire.

But - you are right - the rest of the country is becoming like
California and Europe. Like Dr. Phil would say "How's that working for
ya? What were you thinking!?" Only then it will be too late.

 

I am aware that California had its own car standards for a long time.

I wanted to write more but it's late and I have to go for a loooong drive
tomorrow, starting early. And it's snowed. And nobody has winter tyres in
southern England, me included...

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"
---

 

And for us, the Superbowl is starting.

 

Hmmm... The US has been doing something like this since 1971 at least:

http://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/FSHSP/FSHSP_VOL_84_PG_303-305_1971.pdf

"...When fruit are found that fail to meet these requirements the receiver
has the
option to recondition the fruit so that it does meet requirements or the
fruit is destroyed..."

Well keep in mind that CA got this special consideration because they
started emissions regulations BEFORE the federal government did. Is your
position that there should be no emissions regulations whatsoever, federal
or otherwise?

CA is somewhat of a special case, though. When you can land in LAX and
get off the plane and look straight up and the sky is orange, as I have
done,
you realize what real air pollution is.

Your thinking prop 103 that regulated insurance rates and cut all of them
20%

That never happened. Many large insurance companies experienced
losses for a few years after that - but CA then passed prop 213 which
prohibited uninsured drivers from suing for medical, etc. as a result of
accidents - this greatly encouraged the purchase of auto insurance, which
put those companies back in the black.

None of this happened and your story is a rediculous distortion of what
actually happened.

The current fight nowadays is over offering quake insurance - insurance
companies all over the country are dropping this coverage in states that
have fault lines. Some of this is due to regulations that prohibit them
from
discriminating against brick and mortar buildings or buildings built before
1960.

The economies of scale dictate that if enough states vote this in that the
incremental cost of adding the emissions controls will be very very small -
because all vehicles will be doing it.

Also, there are health costs the society has to bear as a result of
increased
air pollution. Sure, auto owners may save a few bucks if the auto companies
are allowed to produce more polluting vehicles - they end up paying far
more than they save years later in medical bills and increased medical
insurance
premiums as a result of dealing with more problems as a result of increased
pollution.

You also forget how elastic the car market really is. If new vehicle costs
are
increased as a result of more emissions regulations, then fewer will be
sold,
as a result used vehicle resale prices will go up since fewer newer vehicles
will
be passing into the used market - and as a result used vehicles will be more
likely
to be repaired to get more years of use out of them, rather than being
scrapped.

I've been in and out of wrecking yards enough to see that the vast, vast
majority of
vehicles are scrapped due to engine or transmission problems, NOT due to
crashes or worn out bodies. If fewer new cars are put into the pipeline,
then
in order to maintain the same population of cars on the road, then fewer
used
cars can be scrapped out - and ultimately the ones in the
pipeline will need to be kept on the road longer. This results in increased
economic
activity among repair businesses and decreased economic activity among the
new car automakers, so the net result is merely that your shifting jobs from
one
segment of the market to another.

The only downside is your making vehicles more expensive to all segments of
the population - so the very poorest people in the population are ultimately
unable to afford a car. However, from a public policy viewpoint this is a
good thing - because the poorest car owners are least likely to purchase
vehicle insurance, which causes all of the rest of us to pay for them when
they
get into accidents as a result of increases in our own insurance premiums.

Ted

 

No - I already said that they should be allowed, by states rights to
impose whatever requirements they want, but that they should be prepared
to bear the costs as well as the benefits of whatever peculiar
legislation they impose on themselves.

Yep - that is an argument against one-size-fits-all legislation.

Yes it did. We may be talking about two separate events. For a short
while, CA was in a crisis because people could not get insurance.

No argument from me - I'm an engineer. But again - if individual states
want to put additional requirements on themselves, that is between their
citizens and their elected legislators.

Oh really? I think more than a few people would disagree with you on that.

But the greenies are conflicted on that. They want to get older cars
off the road. Just as they oppose windmills because they kill birds.

See http://www.summitracing.com/streetandstrip/news.asp

As long as a new transfer of wealth scheme is not cooked up to "fix" the
problem.

 

Heh. There's many people with a vested interest in seeing large numbers of
car
sales who claim the market is inelastic. They have nothing to say in the
face of all
the automakers having the worst sales years in history. Even Lloyd fell
flat when
he claimed last week that Toyota stock was a good investment since it paid
dividends
(Toyota declared a loss and is not paying dividends now)

There are also many fools who claimed a few years ago that you would have to
pry their SUV from their cold dead fingers. Those have nothing to say as
well as
they tool around town in their econobox rice grinders and their SUV is
sitting with
500 of it's brethern on the local used car lot.

This actually started up under your old friend George Bush.

George Bush Senior, that is. In the early 90's. See here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/125471

You have to keep in mind
what is really going on with the stimulus package. Both the House and
Senate
members are basically tailoring the package into 2 completely different
bills,
by tacking all manner of pork on to the bill. This allows a congressman to
go back to their constituents and claim that they voted for a
special-interest
project that is dear to the constituents hearts. However, as you know only
a
unified bill may be sent to the President for signature. When congress
passes
differing versions of a bill the two versions are sent to a joint conference
committee
that works out a unified text. In the case of the stimulus package they
will simply
strip away everything that isn't in the other house's version.

The cash for clunkers package wasn't included in the House version of the
bill
so even if it does make it in to the Senate version, the committe will
simply
strip it out of the package sent to the President for signature. That
allows whatever
congressman that proposed this to go back to their constituents and claim
that
they voted for the clunker idea, so they must be a green congressman. In
the
meantime pay no attention to the fact that it was never passed - the
congressman
has his talking point that can be used in advertising, etc.

Obviously, anyone who is serious about the environment understands that the
emissions savings by retiring a SUV early and replacing it with an economy
car
does not make up for the emissions caused by manufacturing a new car. But,
your average dumb bunny doesen't, and so would probably believe the hype
that this program helps the environment.

I liked what the Sierra Club had to say about that.

As for the windmill thing, it is true that older wind farms kill some birds.
But
we are talking really old designs here. Todays mega-windmills (the 1.5mW
designs, particularly) have huge blades that turn slow (they couldn't turn
fast)
and are geared up to turn the generator fast. Any bird can fly around
these.
The older windmills had small blades that didn't have much gearing on the
generator
and those turned fast.

Ted