DescentBB

Will Robinson wrote:I wonder how much manufacturing and other jobs you could retain and return to our shores if electricity was free?

You could still pay a utility a small fee to deliver it ie; maintain the grid but the power itself becomes the governments to provide at no cost to the homes and businesses. Apparently the cost of electricity is the biggest expense we all have in common and a major expense for most businesses and if you suddenly stopped paying for it how much per month would you save just at home and how much would businesses save if they also stopped paying for it? It might be that the government can charge businesses a small fee relative to the current cost and the saving would still represent a huge incentive to manufacture here.

To pay for this you could eliminate a lot of the subsidies that are really just corporate welfare and build more nuclear power plants. I'd like to tie this to the implementation of the Fair Tax as a broader way to really boost the economy but that aside the electricity cost alone is a big number to remove from the expense column in anyones budget.
The transition to this system would create all those shovel ready jobs we heard about and a much better use of tax revenue than all those corporate handouts we never really benefit from.

Maybe the first "alternate energy" we need is to think of an alternate way to manage produce and market electricity instead of replacing oil/gas...and once the power on the grid is free to citizens the electric car would be very interesting with charging stations popping up in parking lots everywhere that you pay only a small fee for use to keep your car charged up.

callmeslick wrote:this from the small, less intrusive government camp.......it's ok to let the government control your access to electrical power? Hmmmm. I think I'll pass.

Spidey wrote:Nice try, but this is totally Will’s idea.

WTF…I posted after Slick…

callmeslick wrote:this from the small, less intrusive government camp.......it's ok to let the government control your access to electrical power? Hmmmm. I think I'll pass.

Krom wrote:...unless the government can magically ignore the first law of thermodynamics (which given the amount of hot air they spew might be worth researching).

tunnelcat wrote:
And I said in some other post that the oil commodity manipulation bubble would probably pop too. I doubt that prices will return to previous levels though, since Americans will keep demand up and go right back to their insatiable oil cravings once the price at the pump drops a little again.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookou ... gas-follow

tunnelcat wrote:What did I tell you dissent? I guess enough money on the sly will keep that public funded corporate welfare going in perpetuity, even if it is miniscule. But hey, we've got deep pockets.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/e ... its-payday

Robert Rapier wrote:The biggest ‘oil company subsidy’ — amounting to $1.7 billion per year for the oil industry — is a manufacturer’s tax deduction that is explained in Section 199 of the IRS code. This is a tax credit designed to keep manufacturing in the U.S., but it isn’t limited to oil companies. It is a tax credit enjoyed by ethanol companies (have you ever heard anyone call it an ethanol subsidy?), computer companies (we are subsidizing Microsoft and Google!) and foreign companies that operate factories in the U.S.

One never hears of proposals to entirely do away with Section 199. Apparently, since this tax credit was designed as an incentive to keep manufacturing in the U.S., many would feel that eliminating it for all companies would provide less incentive for them to keep their factories in the U.S. Some of the same people apparently don’t believe this reasoning will apply with the oil industry. ...
... In a nutshell, a large chunk of Big Oil’s ’subsidies’ are the same as those of Big Ethanol (which also has direct per gallon subsidies), Big Computer (Microsoft, Google, etc.), Big Auto, Big Pharmaceutical, and all the other industries large and small. They are not like their subsidies, they are in most cases the exact same tax deductions from the same tax code. The oil industry already pays an estimated $36 billion per year in U.S. taxes, and they have a higher tax rate than that of Microsoft or Google — both companies with higher profit margins than those of the oil industry. But those who argue that we preferentially eliminate, for instance, Section 199 and the foreign tax credit for the oil companies are in effect saying they have no problems subsidizing industries that are more profitable than the oil industry.

Robert Rapier wrote:... and $4 billion works out to be 1.8 cents per gallon of crude oil processed through those refineries. Is that going to reduce the price you pay at the pump? Of course not. Will it cut into the profits of the oil companies, “punishing” them as we hope to do? Perhaps. Will it treat the oil industry differently than other industries, some of which enjoy higher profit margins? Definitely. Will it provide an incentive for oil companies to shift manufacturing out of the U.S.? Will it shift some competitive advantage to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, both of which we are already highly dependent upon for our oil? Yes and yes.

callmeslick wrote:Will,
FWIW, I am not disagreeing with your idea, merely surprised by the source. Oh, and I posted before Spidey. I'm sure of it.

Will Robinson wrote:

callmeslick wrote:Will,
FWIW, I am not disagreeing with your idea, merely surprised by the source. Oh, and I posted before Spidey. I'm sure of it.

You fooled me then with the "Hmmmm. I think I'll pass" comment...