Fossil Fuels and a True Market Economy
Frequent commentor Dan Conine writes:
… Make the actual cost of everything available at the point of purchase, rather than burying costs through incentives and subsidies. People buy gas to go to jobs to buy cars because they think it is cheaper than staying home. If they had to pay for the wars and the subsidized drilling and the tax writeoffs for corporations when they bought the gas or electricity, they would be more likely to resist the urge to waste it, and the costs of renewables would look more viable.
ALL government should be financed by sales taxes, and there should be no favoritism for ‘job creation’ or ‘business’. Most of the things in the economy that are being defended are simply not necessary to the existence of our species. You can’t have everything: where would you put it?
That’s exactly correct, as usual, Dan. It’s amusing to hear the rhetoric surrounding the midterm elections. Virtually every campaign platform is a statement of how this person or proposition aligns with the Constitution and the first principles of democracy. But is anyone talking about stripping away all the bureaucratic contrivances, leaving in place only a pure market economy in which we are free to make our purchases, based on the complete and unaltered costs of the goods we’re buying? Nope.
Re: 
I had the first in a series of interviews with Dr. Robert Pollin from UMass Amherst’s Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute this morning, in an effort to triangulate on a central issue:
I happened to be driving across the Los Angeles basin yesterday to see a local client when I heard the radio commentary of Robert Reich (Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton) on the 
A few months ago, I ran across a human dynamo by the name of Mary Jo Shaub, and I am now busily adding her creds to the website as an associate, in order to address a need that I’ve long wanted to fill. Mary Jo has 20+ years’ experience in helping agricultural businesses explore their renewable energy potential, especially biomass — utilization of farm waste. And she makes it happen, by writing grant proposals and assisting with loan applications. 
