It's the Economy Stupid

jmayo

First off Jackz, if high end computer systems design etc is our future how come we are losing jobs with the likes of Motorola closing. Ok they are a telecomms company (they all have had bad times) but most of the 350 employees that lost their jobs were computer or engineering graduates.
Similarly when the likes of Lucent-Alcatel complete their worldwide downsize, where will the jobs go? Ireland.

As for the great pharmachem myth, if it so good why is Pfizer downsizing here and offloading or closing some of it's production capability.
Actually look at paypal and ebay, how many of the jobs are customer service related? How much real development is done here?
And we have lost the once prominant position of attracting data centre/customer centre jobs. They now head for India as in the case of Dell.

The usual claptrap trotted out is we will all be working in high end jobs.
Excuse me, but how many really good computer developers, engineers or top flight chemists can we produce?
What does everyone else do?

You have to be a total eejit or completely up the asre of certain political parties not to see what has happened to this economy over the last 5/6 years.
If it was not for cheap credit what would we have done over those years?

Look at it this way, our biggest economic growth sector was construction.
How many houses did we export?
How much foreign revenue did they bring into the economy?

Who bought the end product of this industry?
Oh it was ourselves.

How did we pay for these over priced products?
We paid for them with borrowed money, by getting up to 100% mortgages for the next 40 years.

It's a great little country isn't it.

is_that_so

If it's all about fiscal policy then let's just leave them there. And if all we want is to get houses built next to where we work with a motorway to take us there, then why change?

If that is all we want then we have become pretty shallow people.

IMO a lot of the problems are down to implementation. The current incumbents seem to be incapable of any action, unless it's reactionary.

I think that what we have is a few bright sparks and a collection of headless chickens following them around. Whatever your leanings you can't deny that some of the current batch of ministers are absolutely atrocious.

Yes it is the economy but the economy also includes spending sensibly with appropriate controls. And to my mind I've had enough of the current attempts at government.

jmayo

Sadly I think no matter who gets in, unless there is a major overhaul of the public sector the country is screwed.
But saying that I would at least believe and hope that FG would have some more scruples than FF. Lab I am not sure about since last time they made sure there were plenty of jobs for the boys. Also they are too tied to the unions.

The biggest difficulty is the inefficiencies of the public sector.
There appears to be no control over projects (PPARS, Luas, etc). Add to this the stupidy of this government since 1997 in persevering with projects such as e-voting (€40 odd million), and the failed national stadium (few hundred million and no stadium).
There is no responsibility in either government or in public sector.
Benchmarking is a joke and has provided no discernable benefits to the person outside the public sector i.e. the private sector tax payer.
The health service will not be solved by throwing more and more money at it, since most of the money is tied up in admin and the beauracrcy of the HSEs.
The percentage of the exchequer spend on health that goes on salaries is far higher than that of the UK.
But will anyone be a thatcher and really take on the unions ?

Maybe we do need a tallaght strategy on health, but will any of our politicians be brave enough to put the country first and risk the wrath of the huge proportion of public sector voters?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Jackz

As for the great pharmachem myth, if it so good why is Pfizer downsizing here and offloading or closing some of it's production capability.

Not the fault of the Irish Government (Wyeth Biotech last month announced a significant investment in R&D in Ireland, Construction continues at Grangecastle International Business Park as Takeda Project expands.):

Following the non-approval by America’s Food and Drug Administration of the company’s latest cholesterol drug, torcetrapib, Pfizer is now implementing the outcome of a major review of production facilities worldwide.

This drug was supposed to be the jewel in the Pfizer crown.

It is worth noting that Pfizer is shedding 10,000 of its employees worldwide. Pfizers has stated thats its plants in Cork and Dun Laoghaire remain pivotal to the company.

Actually look at paypal and ebay, how many of the jobs are customer service related? How much real development is done here?
And we have lost the once prominant position of attracting data centre/customer centre jobs. They now head for India as in the case of Dell.

The data center industry underwent a correction post dot bomb, I know as the company I worked for at the time was heavily dependant on the custom of Exodus communications every man and his dog was starting an "I.T." company. As my original post indicates I agree that lower level jobs in the ICT industry (Information and Communication Technology encompasses computer hardware, software and the telecommunications industry) have moved for cheaper labour. Here also you state on one hand that we are only attracting customer service jobs from the likes of ebay but are rapidly losing them from dell, thats a contradiction. What we are retaining is Support and Sales in English and other languages, high level technology suppport, implementation and project management roles basically companies have found that while those guys out in India may be able to put out great code quickly they fall down when communicating. As a business customer of Dell I have never spoken to anybody in India.

Excuse me, but how many really good computer developers, engineers or top flight chemists can we produce?

You have just written off the industies they would work in and now you want to know how many can we produce? We can preduce more than we are now domestically and it is also recommended to attract imigrants with qualifications relevant to these industries rather than unqualified people who ultimately become construction workers.

J.S. Pill

nesf wrote:

You don't actually understand what economic management is about, do you?

Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_policy and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy and then come back and argue the elements of Fiscal policy that FF have ****ed up in the past 10 years and try to remember with the ECB setting our interest rates it's not the same as pre-euro times.

Don't actually understand what economic management is about???

While I agree with a good few the points you made on this thread nesf, I think in this instance you've been forced into a corner and are lashing back by trying to blind someone with science (albeit social science...). Its very important of course to distinguish between fiscal and monetary policy, what is within the governments control and what isn't but I don't think stepbar misconstrued what economic management entails in any major way.

Apologies if I've overlooked anything you've said

jmayo

Jackx you conveniently forgot for instance Motorola where the jobs were high end not likes of Creative, NEC etc where jobs were more low end and manufacturing.
Yes we have attracted EBAY and Amazon and they have been creating customer support center roles but just look how we lost out on Dell notebook and consumer desktop support jobs that were moved to India.
Now watch Dell move these support staff into high end support over coming few years and then we lose server support as well.
You must not phone Dell much, or you must be in happy position where your custom is so valued, you never have to talk to anyone in India because as a business user I do talk to people in India both in support and in parts.
And I find them alright to communicate with.

Yes there are contradictions, we have got support jobs but are we losing more than gaining?
Could we be attracting even more support jobs but we aren't because we are just too damm expensive?

The reason I asked how many graduates we can put out is you and others spout out hw as a nation we can all work in very high end jobs.
My point was not everyone can be an engineer, biochemist, project manager or telecomms guru.
Does everyone else just build houses?

We are too expensive, our infrastructure is carp and our once favourable tax advantages are under threat both from US domestic policy and other European states.

Why do people persist in ignoring how fragile our current economy is?
How can you argue that an econmony built (pun intended) on residential housing construction is viable long term?
And then people on here state that either our economic luck is down to Bertie and the boys, but of course any possible future mess would be the fault of EU states for allowing us have cheap credit.

Ardent

Dalfiatach wrote:

Our exports have stalled since 2001, a whopping 90% of those exports are produced by multinationals, construction/property make up 20% of our economy, the public sector hasn't been reformed in decades, our private sector debt is the highest in the entire world, we have a rapidly unwinding property bubble with nothing to take up the slack in terms of indiginous industry, inflation is out of control, the balance of payments slipped into the red a few years back and is rapidly getting worse, we're back in budget deficit country, we have handed away all our oil & gas reserves for nothing, we have laughable development of renewable energy, we have zero energy security, we have pretty much zero companies indigenous or foreign in the industries of the future, high-end jobs are bleeding away because of our position as the most expensive country in the entire EU, our planning system is non-existant, traffic congestion is costing billions, our infrastructure is a joke, every Government project seems to come in 6 years late costing 8 times as much as they originally said....and then turns out to be broken anyway....tolls and fees and charges springing up every other day, health and education and justice systems in total utter shambolic chaos, in Galway and Ennis the tap water is full of human sh1te, we've just been landed with yet another multi-million euro fine by the EU for yet another breach of pollution directives...

Lads, cop on to yourselves. This has been an appalling Government. They've wrecked the economy, but managed to coast through the last 5 years on a wave of ultra-low interest rates post 9/11 fueling a massive credit binge. And now rates are rising and its time to pay for the party, and we've got nothing to pay the bills with. Because Bertie and the lads fcuked it up, gave it away, sat on their arses, and were generally lazy, complacent, incompetent and corrupt.

Worst. Government. Ever.

Only an economic illiterate would think this shower of gombeen chancers have done a good job on the economy. When I look back on all the great reforming visionary hardworking Governments of all stripes from 1987 to 1997 and compare them to the last 10 years of misleadership, ineptitude, cluelessness, petty corruption, bare faced lies and crass cute-hoor arrogance I could cry.

I have to applaud this post. A spot on assessment of where we're at and why FF will not get re-elected later this month.

And the scary thing is you've only scratched the surface there...

Jackz

jmayo wrote:

Jackx you conveniently forgot for instance Motorola where the jobs were high end not likes of Creative, NEC etc where jobs were more low end and manufacturing.
Yes we have attracted EBAY and Amazon and they have been creating customer support center roles but just look how we lost out on Dell notebook and consumer desktop support jobs that were moved to India.
Now watch Dell move these support staff in high end support over coming few years and then we lose server support.
You must not phone Dell much or you must be in happy position where your custom is so valued you never have to talk to anyone in India because as a business user I do talk to people in India both in support and in parts.
And I find them alright to communicate with.

Yes there are contradictions, we have got support jobs but are we losing more than gaining?
Could we be attracting even more support jobs but we aren't because we are just too damm expensive?

The reason I asked how many graduates we can put out is you and others spout out hw as a nation we can all work in very high end jobs.
My point was not everyone can be an engineer, biochemist, telecomms guru.
Does everyone else just build houses?

We are too expensive, our infrastructure is carp and our once favourable tax advantages are under threat both from US domestic policy and other European states.

Why do people persist in ignoring how fragile our current economy is?
How can you argue that an econmony build (pun intended) on residential housing construction is viable long term?

You just made too many points for me to respond to them all at the moment.

Im sorry I don't know very much about the specifics of Motorola but wanted to make my points about Pfizer downsizing being a global issue and related to FDA not approving the drug. Perhaps the Motorola job loses were a result of international down-sizing as a result of competition or the industry being over-valued.

What I was saying in a round about way and this is my personal experience; international companies realise that quality of work, dedication and communication skills of the Irish people are an asset to them. In manufacturing the product will be the same no matter where it is made. In the industires and job types I have noted it is not the same.

By your estimation the government has driven the companies that have moved for cheaper labour from these shores. What standard of living would we have here if we were to continue to compete with those countries for these jobs? It was only a matter of when these companies moved.

You are correct in saying that the same level of employment in construction can not be sustained. I am sure the government are aware of how many people work in each sector. The infrastructure of the country needs improving over the coming years (roads, hospitals, schools, renewable energy projects, (3 friends of mine 2 plumbers and an electrician are exclusively working on renewable energy projects at the moment e.g. UCC)) houses will continue to be built albeit not at the level of the past few years. I also know quite few univeristy graduates working with the family construction company or their uncle the electrician because the money is there at the moment.

On an island with our population services delivered in part by the internet and other communication methods is the only way that we will make progress. Not everybody has to be and engineer, biochemist or telecomms guru but excluding the jobs that are of the internal type (retails, public sector) first world countiries internationally do not expect growth in the manufacture of physical goods, so more people will have to work in one of type of international service.

Ireland has had to play catch up in terms of infrastructure yet we still constantly compare it to other countries that were not in the doldrums 20 years ago (Germany has x etc.)

nesf

J.S. Pill wrote:

Don't actually understand what economic management is about???

While I agree with a good few the points you made on this thread nesf, I think in this instance you've been forced into a corner and are lashing back by trying to blind someone with science (albeit social science...). Its very important of course to distinguish between fiscal and monetary policy, what is within the governments control and what isn't but I don't think stepbar misconstrued what economic management entails in any major way.

Apologies if I've overlooked anything you've said

My point was that if this thread is specifically about managing the economy then it is specifically about the Government's fiscal policy for the past 10 years. It is pointless to go on the standard rant over FF/PD messed this up and didn't do this and so on if you are talking about individual policy mistakes.

Arguing the fiscal policy differences between the parties is about the only relevant detail if you want to talk about how they will manage the economy. The micro-management of projects is valid in other topics but not really this one. What I said in that post didn't say that we should only be concerned with fiscal policy or only concerned with the way the economy has been. I only said that if you want to argue economic management you have to argue fiscal policy and that pre and post Euro Governments were in a different position due to the ECB taking over. I also pointed out that if he wanted to attack the Government's fiscal policy over the past few years he need only look at McCreevy if he wants a raft of material to attack with.

Individual policy ****-ups are a bad thing and I don't deny that at all however the real problem is that it is the overall policy decisions on Government spending and taxation (i.e. whether or not to run a surplus or deficit or macro-economic policy like the NDP or stamp duty reform) that is of interest when discussing the economy and only the economy.

Whether or not the economy is your main concern in this election is a different question. I'm not arguing that it should be or anything.

jmayo

Jackx, yes a lot of our job losses are due to internaional companies downsizing but when they look at costs Ireland does not come out very favourable.
Look at the costs encurred by business from public sector organisations. Electricity costs have climbed, so too have the costs involved in waste disposal. Look at our infrastructure and how that inhibits business. Our primary telecomms provider was sold off and where has there been the investment in our so called digital broadband infrastructure.
Costs regarding transport have increased.
There are higher wage demands from Irish employees because it's so damm expensive to live here and a big part of that is houses prices.

International companies may value staff but there is a bottom line and it is profit. They may value you today but they will learn to value the guy in Mumbai just as much over the next few years.
Remember we are all dispensable.

The government has been in the position where it has quiet happily given tax breaks to encourage the housing boom, section 50, section 23, no limitation on mulitple investment properties, no limitations on speculation.
They have been quiet happy to keep grabbing their slice of the pie, huge revenue from stamp duty, vat and some capital gains tax when developers and land owners don't actually find workarounds.
Counties like Roscommon and Leitrim are now awash with section 23 homes. What do they do for the communities long term survival when you have somebody that turns up for few weekends a year.

The old chestnut about when housing construction slows it will be taken up with roads, hospitals, schools etc is always trotted out.
How many plumbers, plasterers work on roads?
How many carpet supply showrooms will stay in business carpeting schools?
How many interior designers will be employed laying out in hospitals?

What are all these international services we keep hearing about?
The reason people do compare Ireland to other long standing economies like Germany or Sweden is because it is more expensive to live here, yet we do not have the infrastructure or level of services these other countries do have.
We have the cost but none of the advantages.
When the government do chose to invest they have no fiscal management or rresponsibility to their employers, the tax payers.
Look at Luas, Port Tunnel, National stadium fiasco, PPARS, e-voting and our beloved health service.

J.S. Pill

nesf wrote:

My point was that if this thread is specifically about managing the economy then it is specifically about the Government's fiscal policy for the past 10 years......Whether or not the economy is your main concern in this election is a different question. I'm not arguing that it should be or anything.

My beef was just with the way you made the point more than anything else.

On that though, I think separating fiscal policy and micro-management is a bit problematic, for the purposes of this thread anyway. If we are economists concerned only with macroeconomic fundamentals well then it may be a perfectly reasonable approach but we're talking about how the perceptions of economic management will affect people's votes and we therefore need to be a bit more holistic (within reason of course).

I think confining the discussion to fiscal policy is overly restrictive. Something like a party's approach to unions, certain aspects of 'green' initiatives and even something like decentralisation all have a huge bearing on the performance of the economy but wouldn't come under the rubric of fiscal policy. Now I totally accept your point that micro-management should be confined to other forums but I don't think these aspects should be classified as such. We can pigeonhole them under the regulatory function of government if we wish.

For instance we may want to discuss the government's (or prospective government's) approach to the idea partnership as a means for maintaining competitiveness but we should probably leave the 'micro-management' of the nurse's dispute to another thread.

Maybe we should start something on the much neglected economics board:rolleyes:

nesf

J.S. Pill wrote:

My beef was just with the way you made the point more than anything else.

Fair enough.

J.S. Pill wrote:

On that though, I think separating fiscal policy and micro-management is a bit problematic, for the purposes of this thread anyway. If we are economists concerned only with macroeconomic fundamentals well then it may be a perfectly reasonable approach but we're talking about how the perceptions of economic management will affect people's votes and we therefore need to be a bit more holistic (within reason of course).

Ah, see those are two completely different questions. The argument over who would better mind the economy is a macroeconomic issue, the argument over who the general non-economically educated public will perceive as being better to mind the economy is a wholly different question and while very interesting is not really so much related to macroeconomics and the health of the economy but how people interpret their experiences as being a measure of the economy. I'd happily argue about that but arguing that because this person would perceive FF as being bad at managing the economy does not mean that they are bad at managing the economy. The perception need not match reality yet it is the perception that is far more important (from an election point of view).

J.S. Pill wrote:

I think confining the discussion to fiscal policy is overly restrictive. Something like a party's approach to unions, certain aspects of 'green' initiatives and even something like decentralisation all have a huge bearing on the performance of the economy but wouldn't come under the rubric of fiscal policy. Now I totally accept your point that micro-management should be confined to other forums but I don't think these aspects should be classified as such. We can pigeonhole them under the regulatory function of government if we wish.

I’d look at it slightly differently. A party’s approach to unions, green initiatives will strongly influence their potential fiscal policy and general attitude to expenditure and taxation. I don’t think you exclude this kind of discussion when you are focussing on fiscal policy since you cannot (in my opinion) separate fully fiscal policy from the ideology driving the party and the rough position of the party on the left-right axis. The proposed FG/Lab coalition will be driven by a very different ethos than the present FF/PD coalition and this will strongly impact on their differing approaches to fiscal policy.

J.S. Pill wrote:

I For instance we may want to discuss the government's (or prospective government's) approach to the idea partnership as a means for maintaining competitiveness but we should probably leave the 'micro-management' of the nurse's dispute to another thread.

Maybe we should start something on the much neglected economics board:rolleyes:

Maybe. The issue is for me is that if people want to argue who would be best for the economy they should at least address the correct issues. It is not difficult to attack any of the parties on this but people don’t address the correct issues or at least argue for why the issues they’ve chosen are the correct ones to debate. If I’m being overly pedantic, fair enough, but I think I have a valid point here.

E92

Dalfiatach wrote:

Our exports have stalled since 2001, a whopping 90% of those exports are produced by multinationals, construction/property make up 20% of our economy, the public sector hasn't been reformed in decades, our private sector debt is the highest in the entire world, we have a rapidly unwinding property bubble with nothing to take up the slack in terms of indiginous industry, inflation is out of control, the balance of payments slipped into the red a few years back and is rapidly getting worse, we're back in budget deficit country, we have handed away all our oil & gas reserves for nothing, we have laughable development of renewable energy, we have zero energy security, we have pretty much zero companies indigenous or foreign in the industries of the future, high-end jobs are bleeding away because of our position as the most expensive country in the entire EU, our planning system is non-existant, traffic congestion is costing billions, our infrastructure is a joke, every Government project seems to come in 6 years late costing 8 times as much as they originally said....and then turns out to be broken anyway....tolls and fees and charges springing up every other day, health and education and justice systems in total utter shambolic chaos, in Galway and Ennis the tap water is full of human sh1te, we've just been landed with yet another multi-million euro fine by the EU for yet another breach of pollution directives...

Lads, cop on to yourselves. This has been an appalling Government. They've wrecked the economy, but managed to coast through the last 5 years on a wave of ultra-low interest rates post 9/11 fueling a massive credit binge. And now rates are rising and its time to pay for the party, and we've got nothing to pay the bills with. Because Bertie and the lads fcuked it up, gave it away, sat on their arses, and were generally lazy, complacent, incompetent and corrupt.

Worst. Government. Ever.

Only an economic illiterate would think this shower of gombeen chancers have done a good job on the economy. When I look back on all the great reforming visionary hardworking Governments of all stripes from 1987 to 1997 and compare them to the last 10 years of misleadership, ineptitude, cluelessness, petty corruption, bare faced lies and crass cute-hoor arrogance I could cry.

That is an excellent post, and pretty much sums up why FG and Labour would make a better choice when it comes to managig the economy IMO.

When we were last in we and Labour cut the Corporation tax rate from 26% to 12.5%. In true Feeland Fail style they claim that they achieved this goal, because the measure didnt come into effect until they got in. As my old signature used to say''anything good that was ever done in this country was done by Fianna Fáil, whether they were in or out of power''(according to them). But Ruairi Quinn announced the move in the 97 Budget, therefore the rainbow did it. When the rainbow were last in inflation was only 1.5%. Now its 5.1%. The government have introduced an unmitagated amount of stealth taxes, and the services they provide have gotten extremely expensive. In 2002 a bus cost €0.95 in Cork. Now its €1.35. Thats an increase of almost 30%. I know CIE isnt the government, but the government allowed them to put up the fares for the ''service'' they provide.

JupiterKid

The economy is starting to unravel but it won't be really apparent until the end of this year - Ireland has become uncompetitive and too expensive and yet despite 13 years of solid economic growth infrastructure and health services are still among the poorest in Europe. The economy is dangerously dependent on the housing construction sector and with the property market now slipping into a crash following the creation of a bubble of unbelievable proportions that benefited no-one except FF's friends the land speculators, property developers and millionaire investors. The job losses in the coming year in construction will be savage.

The current government have been appalling. Since they got re-elected in 2002, they sat back and kept the country in "auto-pilot" mode whilst wasting astounding amounts of taxpayers money on whims like electronic voting machines and the like. They have truly been an incompetent shower.

Time for a change.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

wow sierra

Deleted User wrote:

It is.

Its the North too.

They're pretty on the money with both, though I think things are going so well with the North that not even FG could mess it up.

Absolutely agree - The Economy and the North. Probably safe enough with the North but the economy? They could mess that up - I hope we don't have to find out any time soon.

The government should get RTE to show the Reeling in the Years serious again to remind people with short memories what it used to be like on those two fronts!!!!

On the issue of honesty and ethics from Politicians - I don't think we would have time to worry about such niceties if we were following our new Polish friends to the Building sites of Germany, like the old days. Also I think the bad old days of Fianna Fail are well gone and its just nit picking now.

pjbrady1

The economy is the central point of election true, as it determines how well we can all live and especially how much we can provide for the least fortunate of society. Right now our economy is completely unsustainable right to its core.
Point 1: We import a large amount of energy and food.
Under FF this will be allowed to continue as usual, with a FG/Lab/Green government I think the Greens might start borrowing some ambitous ideas from the Germans. Under FF we will miss out on the latest "Green" industrial revolution which really started to ramp up in 2007. We still are burning peat to produce electricity.
FF also consistently mention and promote biofuels as well. I know the greens probably do as well, but it seems no one has the brains to look across the internet and find out the true facts of the unsustainability of biofuels.
We should be aiming to be a centre of excellence for green industries. ie. running graduate programmes for Honda engineers to research hydrogen. Green business parks linked to the universities. We did this for the IT boom why not the green boom. Under FF it aint going to happen. There far too closely linked to Bord Gais/ESB/Bord na mona.
Germany at last count had added 100,000 high paying jobs in the green sector. 100,000 jobs that are built on a solid foundation. Our "long term" vision politicians are accusing Greens of wanting to hurt the economy.

On the food area, wouldn't it be to our advantage to stop money flowing out of the economy on food products (half of which we don't need) that are in general produced by poverty labour on farms in Chile/South africa/Kenya ... The typical urban response "higher prices - bad value - hurt consumer" over the long term holds no water. Money flowing out of the economy has the potential to hit us hard over the next three years.

Rural Ireland (and I mean everywhere outside of the top 20 urban centres) is going to be hit like a train if the building level falls below 70,000 units as most of the 70,000 will be built in the cities/large towns. Our current response of throwing up shopping centres to create "new jobs" relies on their being a building boom to draw in cash.

Point 2: FF have failed on Property boom, public sector and public transport.
The big one should have been to really hit people hard who were going for their third/fourth property. We really have wasted time/energy/labour/land on an unsustainable/polluting/land using/inflation stoking building boom.
Unemployment at 4.5% is unrealistic. Isn't it better to have unemployment at 6% and not have this crazy situation of wage pressures and general inflation. The Public sector is extremely bloated and will push us massively into the red by the end of 2008. People earning 40k+ to rearrange folders in cabinets is daft. Friend works in civil service he tells me about his co-workers.

Public transport, okay we might all like to use our car, but again over a long period of time, public transport acts like a constant stable employer and industry. Yet again preventing money flowing out of the economy. This point of money going abroad we haven't been bothered about the last ten years, but essentially that is only because of the multinational wages and the mortgage money we've borrowed from the next thirty years.

nesf

pjbrady1 wrote:

FF also consistently mention and promote biofuels as well. I know the greens probably do as well, but it seems no one has the brains to look across the internet and find out the true facts of the unsustainability of biofuels.

From what I've read, and I admit that it's only been a few articles in the Economist and Scientific American, biofuels aren't that bad an idea. The problem is that in America there is protectionist legislature that makes biofuel made from sugar cane (I think) very expensive versus the home-grown stuff. The sugar cane stuff is much easier to reprocess and far more efficient (from what I remember there were efficient ways to get useful by-products out of the pulp left after getting the biofuel out, I can't remember exactly what the by-products were) roughly making it comparable to oil processing in cost (or at least close enough).

It could be that importing biofuel from equatorial countries could be relatively efficient, it would be if there was some protectionist measures brought in to put a heavy tariff on it and we'd use our own sugar beet or something to make it that we'd have problems.


I'll have a look around later and see if I can dig up some links on it.