tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555502.post113097962210083586..comments2023-10-30T08:12:13.060-07:00Comments on Thosethingswesay: Tax Windfall Profits?Mike M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14716539792698477275noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555502.post-1131088921134130292005-11-03T23:22:00.000-08:002005-11-03T23:22:00.000-08:00Jon pulled the exact text that I was going to refe...Jon pulled the exact text that I was going to refer to in my own comment. Those sentences were very elegantly put, Mike, and will be useful ammo in future discussions of the subject.Ideasculptorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08764951054242467347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555502.post-1131056351502495042005-11-03T14:19:00.000-08:002005-11-03T14:19:00.000-08:00I just want to highlight what Mike says above:"......I just want to highlight what Mike says above:<BR/>"... when you choose to let private interests handle the entire infrastructure, then your infrastructure will serve their needs, rather than yours. I'm not sure if the problem is that the oil companies aren't investing enough in building that infrastructure or if it's that we as a society shouldn't have expected them to serve our needs before their own."<BR/><BR/>My answer is the latter. The only real railroad system in Costa Rica, for example, is overgrown and disused. Why? Because it was built in large part by Minor Keith and the United Fruit Company in order to get bannana crops expeditiously to the coast. That's where the profits were for UFCo. It mades perfect sense for them to have wanted the railroad that way. But it doesn't help out anybody else very much for, say, public transportation or shipping along non-bannana routes. So nobody uses the damn thing anymore.<BR/><BR/>The same thing is true of oil refineries. At this point, I think we're better served to get away from oil entirely--for political and environmental reasons. But if you think that having oil is a national-security priority, then you should beleive that we through our government ought either to build some refineries of our own or to require the companies profiting from the importation and distribution of oil to put some of those profits into maintaining a more adequate refinery infrastructure.<BR/><BR/>But, you might protest, that's the government interfering in the market. My short answer: so what? The government interferes in the market by CREATING it in the first place. Without tax dollars spent on police, schools, armies, roads, technology infrastructure, blah blah, you couldn't have a market or market forces. Hell, without the government, you couldn't have tax dollars or dollars in the first place. If you buy into the promises and premises of democracy, we made our government in order to make our lives as social beings possible and our lives as social beings of a particular kind better. If you believe in democracy, you believe that we inherent and reinvent government every minute of every day. I always think people who say, "The government should stay out of the market" sound a lot like people saying, "The inventor shouldn't interfere with his invention." But if a robot starts frying people with laser death ray--or if it simply doesn't fetch them their slippers as programmed--of course its creators should interfere.Jon E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07879175378866305992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555502.post-1131055941774869322005-11-03T14:12:00.000-08:002005-11-03T14:12:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Jon E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07879175378866305992noreply@blogger.com