Incentives work everytime they are tried

MyWay.com is running this today:

By GLEN JOHNSON
PHOENIX (AP) - Sen. John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting thinks the government should offer a $300 million prize to the person who can develop an automobile battery that leapfrogs existing technology.

The prize would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country.

In a speech being delivered Monday at Fresno State University in California, McCain is also proposing stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards and incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign ethanol.

Seems Lex proposed an even more generous prize incentive about three-and-a-half years ago for President Bush’s State of the Union Address – sans the dopey fuel efficiency standards BS and even dopeyer food into oil proposal. When things go to hell in a hand basket, I’d rather walk to the market and be able to buy food than be able to drive there and either not have any food or what food there is be so expensive that I can’t afford my daily arugula portion.


So here’s what we learned about this issue at Scout camp last week. On the last night in the woods we got a hard rain and all of the tents were soaked. We had to be out of camp by 11:00 a.m. So the decision was made to pack the tents wet and dry them out when we got back to the Scout Hut when we returned.

Everything was laid out and the drying process had begun. Boys being boys, they began to drift away from the job and it took as many boys to round up the wayward boys that the work force was cut by about half. Then dark clouds began to form in the west. Then low thunder was heard.

Word went out for all hands to report to the Scout field to sweep, fold and pack tents or we would have to start the whole process again inside one tent at a time. That would take forever. Soon, faced with the choice of getting the job done quickly and going home or screwing around and being there all day, the boys really turned to. They finished the job that looked as if it would take several hours with the boys avoiding work in about half-an-hour with everyone working together.

The same is true with alternative fuels. Once the incentives are in place - $ - innovation will follow. That is why I’ve been thinking $5 a gallon gas wouldn’t be so bad because at that high price it’d inspire innovation that $25 a barrel oil never could. It’d also force the green weenies under large rocks when the American people said to hell with the brown winged, orange throated, three toed, extended belly, retracted nose, common gnat – go get the oil.