I think Bush, along with damn near 80% of the rest of influential politicians, have received quite a bit of political funding from Oil companies. I don't think Bush is taking personal profit from it.
It's hard to say, realistically. I mean, there's so much deception in politics and in the oil industry. Combining the two propogates a lot of skepticism in those of us that don't trust powerful people. Money and power are the biggest corruptors. The whole thing is just one very dirty game, and I've never expected anyone significant to know the truth. Even if neither of them is directly profiting right now, you know they're still knee-deep in ties. And what to politicians do? Help out their powerful friends, friends that are commonly key contributors to their campaigns and interests. One hand washes the other, ya know?
But industrial hydrogen is made from fossil fuels that are depleting and will be expensive. A giant breakthrough has to come to manufacturing hydrogen in a manner that doesn't consume more energy than it yields. There is not a straightforward solution to this.
is bush opposed to giant breakthroughs? are you saying you oppose bush investing in hydrogen as a fuel source? he didnt say he was a scientist and he had figured it out. what is your solution? as i stated earlier, my solution is the free market, allow people their own decisions and they will seek solutions to their problems. the government should have nothing to do with it, unless you want progress slowed. without a profit motive, the government doesnt efficiently allocate its resources. private investors and private interests will provide us with alternatives when they are needed. private inestors know better what is working and what isnt. they get behind what is possible, not what the science-illiterate public and their similarly science-ignorant elected officials thinks they want. you may be right about hydrogen in that it isnt so wonderful. you may know more than bush. and i am sure private citizens and VCs and entreprenuers who put their money behind alternatives know this too. and why wouldnt investors be lining up to find alternatives, given the enourmous profits you can make in a worls starved for energy. in fact the only way we will be able to stifle the solutions from happening is by intervening and pushing our big stupid collective hand around and fooling with the wonderful machinery of capitalism. if it turns out hydrogen isnt feasible, then private companies will ditch it and put money where the good science is. and they make that decision quicker and better than any govement agency can. bush is wrong about this issue, but most people are more wrong than he is. people want a cause, something to worry about, something to involve the government in. something to occupy their minds. so they overextend the role of government at every opportunity, lessing the efficiency of the economy, to the detriment of everyone. it made me laugh to myself to type that goofy sentence about the wonderful machinery of capitalism.
Research into new technolgies is great! But betting on a new technology before it is feasible is unwise. At present there is no replacement for oil and natural gas. Long term planning is fine, but it does not alleviate short-term problems. of course they are not mutually exclusive. A president needs two approaches: 1. Planning for the long term technologies that will help in the future. 2. Dealing with reality, right now, with practical solutions.
Even IF there IS a tax incentive towards the generation and rollout of new energy technologies DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN that it will happen the way that we are told that it will be.. Check out what the phone companies did: http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/02/the_united_stat.html Do you think that Big Oil will do America better than Ma Bell did? WE SURE AS HELL BETTER HOPE SO!!!!!!!!
and how is the president not doing this? do you suggest we not do research on hydrogen power because you know that it isnt feasible? how is the president not doing exactly what you suggest?
how are incentives different than subsidies ? shouldnt everyone pay the same share of the national bills? why should company a pay full taxes, but company b doesnt because some jerkasses in washington decided to hate fairness? should the lost revenue from the tax incentives be made up by raising taxes on everyone else or should the deficit increase? or should we divert funds from somewhere else to cover the lost money? is there really a big difference between paying an industry a subsidy and telling them they get an "incentive"? if they get no tax breaks, then they have the money given back, and we call that a "subsidy", then how is that different? if you think that politicians tend to be easily corrupted and are largely in bed with the oil industry, then why would you want to create another sector of the energy industry with ties to government? the lobbysists would be be going nuts to bribe poltiticians to get their particular company the "incentive". and the government is in no position to figure where these incentives should go. they would form expensive commissions and hire attention-whore scientists to sit on their panels discussing whether "incentives" should go to hydrogen or fusion or biodiesel or whatever. and it would be a huge expensive mess. and some technologies may be viable, and others impractical. and the government wouldnr care, they would reward whomever had the most political pull, or the company with a headquarters in the state of the powerful senator. and eventually we would return to the point in the cycle where people would cry about monopolies, and not realize that these situations were created by the government favoring one business over another. we pay money to build industry up, then pay again to break them down. most of the problems the government is trying to solve were created by the government. the solution is to let free individuals make decisions.
Ideally, but since the oil industry already has their political connections, a tax incentive to other energy sectors wouldn't exactly be favoring them. Again, ideally. But we already know what we are dealing with. A government which doesn't operate in such a manner.
i dont see how it wouldnt. give a subsidy or incentive or break to any industry and you are doing it at the expense of another. help out alternative energy X, and that means you are screwing over alternative energy Y. and for all we know, energy Y may be the one with the potential to change the world. i guess, but unless we want to further ourselves down the road to ruin and restrict ourselves from an amazing standard of living, we should be vigilant and always try to keep governemnt and industry as far apart as possible.
