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The other big "hidden" subsidy is publicly-funded maintenance of tons of auto infrastructure like 16 lane interstate highways, sewer and water service to far-fl

The other big "hidden" subsidy is publicly-funded maintenance of tons of auto infrastructure like 16 lane interstate highways, sewer and water service to far-flung exurbs, etc. The automotive sector (auto manufacturing, petroleum, trucking, etc.) would probably not turn a profit at current levels of production if they were forced to pay for the maintenance of roads to a standard necessary for auto traffic. They might still exist but presumably without this artificial juicing of demand, it wouldn't have made sense to dig up so much oil (and produce and run so many machines to burn it) so fast.

riazrizvi 4y ago
How would the economy function without infrastructure and affordable transportation?
- pas 4y ago
  denser residential (or godforbid! mixed use) areas would require less capex and opex, so they would require less public funding
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Indeed, basically the entire built environment is one giant fossil fuel subsidy. Almost all construction in the past ~200 years, certainly since WW2, has been malinvestment based on artificially cheap fossil energy. Really, you can say that the industrial revolution is defined by energy getting exponentially and artificially cheaper as we got better at digging up burnable stuff, burning it, and using the resulting energy to do stuff, including digging up more burnable stuff even faster.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  There wouldn't be no infrastructure, it would just have to be scaled back to a level where it could be paid for with real surpluses rather than the fake surplus created by pretending that only digging up oil and coal have a cost, while burning it is free.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  We should have infrasteucture, but uts about who is paying for it. As a non-user of cars, I still pay for highways. But a non-user of trains doesn't pay for railways. Buyers of electric cars get more cash subsidy than my ebike costs to build! Why don't we give out same subsidy to people who want yo buy a bike or to spend on railway tickets? I am a user of Cycles, and I don't get shit - I dont even get space to ride - there are almost no dedicated roads for bikes. For the ampunt we spend on fixing roads, we could give everyone a new ebike every two years. Airplabes are even worse. Ebikes, Cars and trains pay taxes on fuel and electricity, but airplanes don't. So why are subsidies distributed so unfairly? At least make them equal
  - riazrizvi 4y ago
    Everyone uses transport. Theoretically if you owned your own land and lived like a stone age person, making everything from scratch, using nothing in a modern economy then I guess yes the argument could be made you shouldn’t pay as much, but it’s such an unlikely situation it’s not worth legislating for. Actually even then, you need to be defended by your State from people who would take your land by force. So everyone uses transport whether they realize it or not.
    - munk-a 4y ago
      This statement does nothing to address the unevenness of how transportation is funded. Train service in America is a joke and at the same time we've decided this[1] highway was somehow worth building. America has been investing immense amounts of capital into highway construction for decades and that investment has come at the expense of mass transit that could actually handle the transportation of millions of people up and down the eastern seaboard. Cars are an extremely space and energy inefficient method of transportation, we definitely need them for some purposes - but the fact that they're the default option for people's daily commute is bonkers. Everyone may use transport, and everyone may benefit from transport - but that does very little to address the extreme imbalance in transport funding we've seen in America. 1. (The Katy Freeway) https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-32787160559c/IMG_6682.jpg/:/rs=w:1280 https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-327...
snapplebobapple 4y ago
Those are not hidden subsidies of o&g, they are services demanded by the tax payers. They may have started as a subsidy a very long time ago but haven't been for a very long time because the average person can recognize how useful they are and demand they be built. Demand is slowly changing as people realize infrastructure needs to be designed to be human centric with roads still being a vital but secondary part of the transportation infrastructure and as that changes politicians will start changing what they fund eventually or risk not being elected. It is not right to say it is a subsidy to car manufacturers that car manufacturers should be paying for.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Whoever is demanding them, they are still subsidies. You can be sure that if there were a bill introduced tomorrow that (with a chance of passing) significantly redirected highway spending, or even just tried to cover the whole bill (including the cost to use direct air capture to undo the climate damage and store the carbon indefinitely) with fuel taxes, the fossil fuel and auto manufacturing lobbies would be tripping over themselves to see it defeated at almost any cost.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    If that is your position then the word subsidy lacks all meaning because pretty much everything the government does with tax revenue is a subsidy by this definition. Also, it would not just be those lobbies calling their representatives to get that idea overturned, it would be a majority of the populace once they ran the numbers on their cost of living increase from that policy.

riazrizvi 4y ago

How would the economy function without infrastructure and affordable transportation?

pas 4y ago
denser residential (or godforbid! mixed use) areas would require less capex and opex, so they would require less public funding
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Indeed, basically the entire built environment is one giant fossil fuel subsidy. Almost all construction in the past ~200 years, certainly since WW2, has been malinvestment based on artificially cheap fossil energy. Really, you can say that the industrial revolution is defined by energy getting exponentially and artificially cheaper as we got better at digging up burnable stuff, burning it, and using the resulting energy to do stuff, including digging up more burnable stuff even faster.
ElevenLathe 4y ago
There wouldn't be no infrastructure, it would just have to be scaled back to a level where it could be paid for with real surpluses rather than the fake surplus created by pretending that only digging up oil and coal have a cost, while burning it is free.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
We should have infrasteucture, but uts about who is paying for it. As a non-user of cars, I still pay for highways. But a non-user of trains doesn't pay for railways. Buyers of electric cars get more cash subsidy than my ebike costs to build! Why don't we give out same subsidy to people who want yo buy a bike or to spend on railway tickets? I am a user of Cycles, and I don't get shit - I dont even get space to ride - there are almost no dedicated roads for bikes. For the ampunt we spend on fixing roads, we could give everyone a new ebike every two years. Airplabes are even worse. Ebikes, Cars and trains pay taxes on fuel and electricity, but airplanes don't. So why are subsidies distributed so unfairly? At least make them equal
- riazrizvi 4y ago
  Everyone uses transport. Theoretically if you owned your own land and lived like a stone age person, making everything from scratch, using nothing in a modern economy then I guess yes the argument could be made you shouldn’t pay as much, but it’s such an unlikely situation it’s not worth legislating for. Actually even then, you need to be defended by your State from people who would take your land by force. So everyone uses transport whether they realize it or not.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    This statement does nothing to address the unevenness of how transportation is funded. Train service in America is a joke and at the same time we've decided this[1] highway was somehow worth building. America has been investing immense amounts of capital into highway construction for decades and that investment has come at the expense of mass transit that could actually handle the transportation of millions of people up and down the eastern seaboard. Cars are an extremely space and energy inefficient method of transportation, we definitely need them for some purposes - but the fact that they're the default option for people's daily commute is bonkers. Everyone may use transport, and everyone may benefit from transport - but that does very little to address the extreme imbalance in transport funding we've seen in America. 1. (The Katy Freeway) https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-32787160559c/IMG_6682.jpg/:/rs=w:1280 https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/b856accd-c3e3-4d97-8365-327...

snapplebobapple 4y ago

Those are not hidden subsidies of o&g, they are services demanded by the tax payers. They may have started as a subsidy a very long time ago but haven't been for a very long time because the average person can recognize how useful they are and demand they be built. Demand is slowly changing as people realize infrastructure needs to be designed to be human centric with roads still being a vital but secondary part of the transportation infrastructure and as that changes politicians will start changing what they fund eventually or risk not being elected. It is not right to say it is a subsidy to car manufacturers that car manufacturers should be paying for.

ElevenLathe 4y ago
Whoever is demanding them, they are still subsidies. You can be sure that if there were a bill introduced tomorrow that (with a chance of passing) significantly redirected highway spending, or even just tried to cover the whole bill (including the cost to use direct air capture to undo the climate damage and store the carbon indefinitely) with fuel taxes, the fossil fuel and auto manufacturing lobbies would be tripping over themselves to see it defeated at almost any cost.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  If that is your position then the word subsidy lacks all meaning because pretty much everything the government does with tax revenue is a subsidy by this definition. Also, it would not just be those lobbies calling their representatives to get that idea overturned, it would be a majority of the populace once they ran the numbers on their cost of living increase from that policy.