"Prius Politics"

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ Jul 25 2007, 06:43 AM) [snapback]484597[/snapback]</div>

The reasons the writer claims people ( I assume he means most people and not all ) buy a prius is to make an environmental statement. That is the ONE thing I do not like about the car -- people make the assumption that I'm trying to make an environmental statement when I'm not at all -- in fact, I'm a fairly strong opponent of carbon trading and climate change politics. I guess we just have to accept the "bad" with the good.

I'll just express my respectful disagreement with many of the proposals in the article -- but interesting article nonetheless!

 

I resent Samuelson's assertion that driving a Prius is a "fashion statement" and a "delusional exercise in public relations." The visibility of the second-generation Prius has become a powerful symbol but it is backed by genuine technological superiority.

The environmental disaster of global warming cannot be fixed by painless measures alone, but there is much "low hanging fruit" in our heedless and wasteful culture. Certainly it is not helpful to sneer at people who make a sincere effort to make greener choices.



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ Jul 25 2007, 07:43 AM) [snapback]484597[/snapback]</div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ Jul 25 2007, 07:43 AM) [snapback]484597[/snapback]</div>

FWIW, I think Samuelson is just about the most confusing economist in print. Which, given how much economic blather is out there, is saying something. Most of his columns are like this -- there's no particular logical or factual basis for what's been said, and no particular logical order for how it is said, and no logical justification for what is said. It just sort of streams out.

After reading one of his columns (which I seldom do), I always have the urge to attempt to rewrite it in some logical fashion, like so:

"We should use the taxes and regulation to attempt to curb high-levels of fossil-fuel consumption. That means:
1) Increasing the CAFE standard by 15 mpg.
2) Increasing the federal gas tax by $1 or $2 per gallon. (NB, the current rate is $0.184/gallon for gas and $0.224/gal for diesel, just had to look that up for a client).
3) Modify those parts of the tax code that favor ever-larger houses. (NB, he mentions deductibility of mortgage interest, but I think that's not the prime mover here. The current explosion of Mcmega-houses coincided with the elimination of most capital gains on home sales.)"

So far, I understand what he's saying, it's the rest of it that's annoying and confusing.

Annoying point 1 is that the article talks about reducing GHGs, but he weasels on whether global warming is the issue or not. We ought to do these things "in any case", because .... something about importing oil being bad or maybe energy use is bad, or something. But the entire rest of the article is about GHGs. Probably, as a business writer, he'd alienate his client base if he outright said that global warming is the issue, though the column read as nonsense if it's not.

Annoying point 2 is that the article says, in effect, "the Prius is bad because it lets people believe that painless and voluntary measures will be enough". I find that neither logical nor accurate. It's illogical, from an economic perspective, because we ought to be taking the painless voluntary measures first, not the market-distorting ones (regulation, tax). So, that smart people are adopting the Prius before somebody drops the hammer with a big gas tax is ... the way it ought to work. Second, it makes the assumption that because some people chose to conserve, then we can believe that stronger, mandatory measures are unnecessary. If he had merely chosen to phrase that as an "if .. then" statement, "If people believe that all we need is voluntary measures, then that slows progress toward what we really need (3 numbered points above).", then I'd be all right with that. But instead, he chose to use the Prius essentially as a symbol for environmental stupidity, which seems more than a bit of a stretch to me.

If I had to rewrite the wrapping around the 3 points above it would be this:

"Reasonable predictions of population and economic growth suggest that voluntary measures alone are unlikely to be stringent enough to curb GHGs. (And, by inference, to slow or halt global warming. Also by inference, the predicted value of the costs of that warming exceed the costs of measures that might be take to slow or halt it, so it makes economic sense to take action.) Because the issue is one of an economic externality (you do not pay for the damage your C02 emissions will contribute to over the next couple of centuries), there is reasonable scope for stronger, coercive measures by the Federal government. In short, private voluntary action is not enough, and public mandatory measures appear justified. And for that reason, if the Prius is taken as a sign that private voluntary action is adequate, the Prius may actually delay the onset of the measures we need to take to address this problem."

I happen to disagree with the last line above, but at least it would have been a logical way to state the argument. Without, in effect, sneering at those who have chosen to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle.

 

Hybrid cars.

What, exactly, is the problem if some people choose to purchase low-polluting vehicles that have a low total cost of ownership and that also provide a pleasant driving experience. Are we harming the media writers or their audience in some way? Can someone explain this to me?

Baffled.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tochatihu @ Jul 25 2007, 10:20 AM) [snapback]484669[/snapback]</div>

I don't think the media people have a "problem" with it...I think their purpose is to prod people to do more and not think that just because they drive a Prius everything is A-OK. It seems they believe, as people who subscribe to global warming politics, that there needs to be real sacrifice made by most people to tackle the "problem" of climate change/global warming which -- to me -- translates into smaller houses, more taxes, and more guilt for living life by being party to "destroying" the planet.

 

Hi All,

His point may be correct, but his name is back-aXX-wards. If he called this the PRECEPT Politics, the car and the comment would match.

The PRECEPT was a car that GM developed but never brought to market. GM in effect said they were going to help enviormental issues, put some money into, kinda like an add campaign, got some government funds for the effort, then did not produce the car. Net result, good advertizing, and NEGATIVE impact on the green house and noxious emissions.

Calling a do-nothing ad stunt Prius Politics is backwards, because even those people who bought the Prius to look good, ARE saving emissions, and helping reduce petroleum balance of trade.

 

I don't like Samuelson's writing. He's not anywhere near succinct enough for me. Perhaps that makes him feel like he's smarter than the rest of us? I don't know.

Anyway, one thing I think he's wrong about (in the main, because I have seen some of you talk about liking the Prius because it looks different - shame on you! ) is the Prius as a fashion statement.

I think many of us like the Prius because, unlike the 'mild-hybrids' out there, it's the real deal. Not only that, it has potential to become more than it started out to be (PEHV). I don't know about you guys, but that's the appeal of the Prius over the other current offerings to me.

 

HTTP 404 Not Found

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ Jul 25 2007, 06:43 AM) [snapback]484597[/snapback]</div>

I find the fourth paragraph of the article very interesting if not troubling. It says the Gov. Scwartz (for short) wants to cut Calf. green house gases by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. Schwartz is leaving that task to the same people who were partially if not TOTALLY responable for killing GM's EV-1. Those people are the Calif. Air Resources Board (CARB).

For those of you who did not see the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car", CARB helped eliminate GM's EV-1 which was the first totally emissions free electric car that had ever been massed produced in the modern era. If I am not mistaken, that occurred in either 2003 or 2004. Trusting these same people to help California's enviroment I feel is truly questionable at the very best.

Brad
Tampa Bay Florida

 

Ok if Prius owners are making a statement with a cleaner car, what kind of fashion statement are drivers of Hummers, Yukons, etc. making? And why aren't they writing about that? Instead of worrying about a midsize car that gets excellent gas mileage?

There are tons of people buying a huge vehicle for mostly going to shopping centers and picking kids up at school and going to work in an office. They then shell out $60-80 to fill it up. The ads show these vehicles on top of snow drifts, on top of cliffs, etc and other places 99% of the drivers will never go. So what's the statement here?? This is a much more worrisome and serious phenomena given how the big 3 are basically going under to some extent because of the decision to build these. Each of these vehicles is highly wasteful. So what's up with that??


--des

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brad34695 @ Jul 25 2007, 09:57 PM) [snapback]485222[/snapback]</div>

It would depend on the makeup of the CARB board.

Are the same people that killed the EV1 on it?

Aren't these appointees? So who the governator du jour appoints is going to oversee this. So ultimately it's up to whatever governor California has to see if this mandate succeeds or not, based on whether the appointees get the job done or not.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tochatihu @ Jul 25 2007, 11:20 AM) [snapback]484669[/snapback]</div>

Interestingly enough, the editorial is very similar to the one last week that was inspired by "research" from CNW.

Personally, I don't see it as a problem with the people who choose to buy a low-polluting, high MPG vehicle. It may more be a problem with people who simply "see" a low-polluting, high MPG vehicle next to them in traffic. Perhaps it results from at least some people wanting to do the right thing. All of a sudden they find themselves sitting in traffic in the < 25 MPG vehicle and a high-mileage, low-polluting vehicle pulls up next to them. They have an awareness of what that vehicle is and the MPG it gets and think, "I should be driving one of those. How come I did not buy one instead of this "gas guzzler?"

Then guilt sets in, and in order to maintain their own self-esteem they tell themselves stories of why the person in the high MPG vehicle next to them bought their car. Then they decide that that person is snooty and smug without ever talking to them, and it all gets blown out of proportion that then results in "uninformed" editorials like this.

So, in one word as to why we get articles like this "guilt" unless they are inspired by research by CNW, then the words are "destroy Prius at any cost because our previous research was proven totally false."

When an SUV driver backed into my Prius and caused nearly $2K in damage to my Prius at a Delta Sonic, he thanked me for being polite to him. I thought that his reaction was interesting, but I have to wonder if part of his reaction was because I was driving a Prius and he was driving a gas-guzzling SUV, and he knew just what the Prius was capable of.

All the best!

 

http://delong.typepad.com/delong_economics...n-emission.html

Economists believe that things work well when the incentives individuals face--the good or ill that their actions cause for themselves--match up to the good or ill of the impact that their actions have on society as a whole. Thus our liking for energy taxes as the best way to start controlling global warming: individuals don't feel the harm that their greenhouse gas emissions do to other people via their effect on the climate, but a tax on carbon makes them feel that harm in their pocketbook and so matches up individual incentives with social outcomes. That's what the Gore BTU tax proposal was trying to do.

There are in general two ways that you can match private incentives with social outcomes. The first is to take individuals' preferences over material goods as given, and use taxes and subsidies to raise the prices of goods that have negative and lower the prices of goods that have positive "externalities," as economists call them. The second is to try to shift individuals' preferences: appeal to altruism, or to the moral sense, or to the mirror neurons to get people to feel good about doing deeds that have positive externalities, and rearrange social markers of status and approval to shift people's preferences over goods without changing their material characteristics or prices. Economists generally prefer to work on the tax-and-subsidy side rather than on the preferences side, out of a disciplinary commitment to the idea that cash-on-the-barrelhead is strong and pats-on-the-back are weak. But we do what we can: if we cannot pass a BTU tax, telling people who fund carbon offsets or drive fuel-efficient cars that they are good, responsible, moral people is a perfectly orthodox and constructive thing to do.

But somehow Robert Samuelson doesn't think so today. Attempts to work on the preferences side by saying "good for you!" to Prius drivers get him really, really angry.

Robert Samuelson is a bad person: when a carbon tax was on the agenda and we had a real window of opportunity, he fought it; now when the only things on the agenda are preference-shaping tools that I regard as very weak compared to a carbon tax, he's against them as well on the grounds that "hippie... Prius politics is... showing off" and that a carbon tax would be good. A little intellectual three-card-monte here, doncha think?

 

I too drive a Prius for reasons other than being a "Greenie". I drive a Prius to reduce my gas costs, thereby screwing the Oil Companies and the government as much as I can. By reducing my gas comsumption I don't put quite as much money in the pockets of Big Oil nor does the greedy goverment get quite as much from me in out ragious gas taxes. If there was an affordable EV with a decent milage range I would be driving that vehical. I would like nothing more than to reduce my payments to Big Oil and to the government to nearly zero with an EV. I hope after warrentee refits to create a high milage mode EV come into being.

One big reason that the EV1 was killed in California was because of loss of gas tax money. What would government do if everyone was driving an EV ? The potentional loss of this gas tax revenue was one of the factors that caused California officials to drop support of EV vehicles. Goverment officials may give lip service to EV's but they will work behind the scene to kill them.

If you ever want to know why things in government happen.... follow the money. It always comes down to money! And you never hear greater moning and nashing of teeth than what comes from government officials when you try and take tax money away from them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ Jul 25 2007, 07:43 AM) [snapback]484597[/snapback]</div>

A lot of these pieces are beginning to echo. I am reading essays/articles/reviews that sound the same, using the same reasoning and actually the same phrases over and over in regards to the Prius. I am suspicious of underlaying motives with all the commonalities in these editorials/articles. Is it simply laziness and plagiarism on the part of the authors or is something more going on?

SUV/gas guzzlers are taking their turn at being made fun of in editorials and cartoons along with the Prius. A few years ago that was unheard of, everyone was buying an SUV. One political cartoon or joke about SUV's or the Prius and many other writers/cartoonists join in.
One writer puts out an original thought or phrase and it gets picked up by all the untalented but very resourceful writers/hacks who are more than happy to pass it on with their byline attached to it. This is one example of recycling gone bad.

Extremes will always get the attention and become easy targets for lazy individuals. No one is asked to defend the middle of the road automobiles, no one cares about them one way or the other. I had no idea buying a Prius would give people permission to tell me what my political or environmental stances are. Obviously I had no idea and needed to be educated on what they were.

I can almost predict what these articles/links will say about the Prius or even SUV's. It's sad when so many misconceptions get passed on as the truth and believed just because of repetition. I hope people reading these articles have critical thinking skills to form their own opinions about the subject, the piece and the authors.

 

Blah, blah, blah. Who cares why they think we buy our Prius's and how smart we are for buying them. When I was racing, knowone micro analyzed my money expenditures. When I had SUV's, knowone did the math for me. What about the pool and the dog. Whether it makes sense to everyone else, I don't care. Let them eat cake. I'm doing what I feel is right and the handwritting is on the wall Clem. We better all get off our butts and start moving in the right direction and evolve or we're done. This is the first step. Prius, fashion statement? Cool, whatever, bring it on.