RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

LindsayRichards wrote:
So you are OK with the unsubsidised ROI of the numerous wind and solar plants we have built?

I'm generally against all subsidies, especially subsidies to purely commercial companies. Some subsidies may be required for municipal functions like fresh water and waste water handling because such a profound common resource as the water cycle is involved.

Subsidies to commercial operations means that the government is picking winners and losers, which undermines enterprise competition, the sole justification for capitalism, thus presaging violent bloody revolution, nobodies favorite. Thus, everyone loses.

If we subsidize sea shipping we must subsidize rail shipping, and then trucking, etc. Maybe if subsidies were limited by duration or something, they would work better, and then lapse. But that's not what we do. Once a subsidy is created it lives on forever, like an automaton.

Subsidies have dreadful consequences, so it would be best to eliminate unfair subsidies, but instead we add new subsidies, believing that subsidising everyone will be as good as subsidising noone, but we're wrong.

Unfortunately, the system that allows Chevron to make $40billion in profits to shareholders without collecting a cent of taxes for corporate profits must also subsidize a potential competitor like solar or wind, else it risks getting it's "fair and balanced" certificate revoked.