Saturday, August 09, 2008

Ignoring the elephant in the room - The Boston Globe has an editorial today lamenting that rising oil prices will put a squeeze on people who use heating oil this winter. Their proposed solutions: Massachusetts government subsidies, federal government subsidies, and a federal program to update oil burners.

That's it? There are no other conceivable options? If the Globe wanted to be honest about heating oil shortages, it would at least address the supply issue. Apparently that option is completely off the table.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in Mass and work at a high tech company. A surprising number of well educated, technical minded, people believe in the conspiracy theory of economics.

The stocks are down because it is time for "them" to take their profits. Oil is up because Bush's friends are raking in the money and have arranged to have higher prices. And so on ad infinitum.

For people who believe this sort of thing, opening up drilling areas will just give "them" what they want. That would be wrong.

There is a kind of masochism in this. It is acceptable to keep yourself miserable so long as your enemy (them) suffers.

I think that most people who think that you can actively change things, and solve problems, have made their own change by moving somewhere else.

I can't wait to do the same.

Anonymous said...

Social Security = about to run dry.
Oil-based energy = just drill holes, there's always more!