Posted by
Andrews on Friday, August 08, 2008 6:23:50 PM
Since everyone has complained about high food prices recently, when they aren't complaining about oil, I have a simple solution to food costs: Waste less. Think about it, how many Americans eat chicken feet? Tripe? Chicken heads? Fish eyes? How often do you throw out the woody bits of vegetables? Do you throw out old potatoes rather than cutting out the eyes? Do you peel mold off hard cheese, or throw it out?
If all of us would simply stop our wasteful ways, we could doubtless cut food costs by a quarter at least. If we only ate every last bit of an animal, instead of just the choice parts, we could save a fortune.
Eat some oxtail and fish eyes for the good old U.S. of A.
Sound absurd? Of course it is. We don't eat every last bit because we can afford not to. We also know that we don't need to, we can always raise more food, there is land and there are farmers, and with enough demand for food we will have food. So, yes, we do waste food, but we do it for our convenience.
And that is true also of Obama's plan to tune cars and inflate tires. Yes, it is true that the plan would save gasoline, but it would do so by requiring a lot of inconvenience. For example, the savings depend on "proper inflation". Which sound simple, until you look at what that means. It means, put simply, that your tire is at the optimal pressure most of the time. Which means, if you do a lot of highway driving, and suddenly find you will be doing a lot of short trips, you need to add pressure, as your tires will be cooler. Or if you do a lot of city driving and want to take a long trip, time to bleed your tires. That is what it would take to get those incredible savings Obama touts.
Now some will say I am exaggerating, Obama never said that. No, he didn't, but that is the only way you will save 800,000 barrels of oil a day. Just checking with a gauge and making sure it says 36 psi cold won't do it. You will save some, but nowhere near the almost fantastic numbers Obama is touting. Those numbers are for ideal inflation, and, sorry kids, but ideal inflation varies with temperature, travel time, stop and start v. highway, and so on. In fact, if you have a variable number of passengers you should really check a well.
Nor is the "keep your car tuned" advice that simple. Again, to get the great results Obama claims, you need to keep it constantly in tune. That means, for a start, that you never buy that off-brand gas with a bit too much water, and that you check your engine daily to make sure you haven't let it get a bit out of sorts. In fact, if you want those truly fantastic numbers, best to change your fluids and filters daily.
Of course, this is absurd. By the time we do all it takes to save 800,000 barrels a day, the collective effort required would have allowed us to manually pump more oil than that from the ground. People keep their cars tuned and tires filled to the point that makes sense. If more effort results in inadequate savings, then they don't do it. That is economics.
But Democrats think there is nothing economic. They never think of costs. There is an "ideal" and everyone should do it, regardless of cost. That is how they approach the environment and how Obama approaches cars. If people do "the right thing" it saves oil, but he fails to look at the question of whether it is cheaper to use more oil and save the time we would spend keeping our cars up to his standards.
Fortunately, your average American looks at the world economically. For the same reason we don't normally try to squeeze every drop of nutrition out of a food item, we also are reluctant to spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to save a drop of gasoline. It makes sense to the average American to balance costs and benefits, it is troubling that your average Democrat does not think in those terms.
POSTSCRIPT
One other thought, the party that tells us that nothing we do will stop teens from having sex thinks that they will somehow convince every car owner across the US to properly tune their car and fill their tires with religious regularity? Am I the only one who find this a weak excuse for an actual energy policy?
Not that I think the government should have an "energy policy" anyway, other than "get out of the way". But as long as we have absurdities such as government energy policies, I think "If everyone behaves properly we can save some oil" is a pretty pathetic one.