Toyota: "No Financial Justification in US for Buying Hybrids"

[tylerdurden]

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Obviously. Pollution is acceptable. This is widely agreed upon in the regulatory world (EPA, OSHA, whatever). As it should be. For instance, suppose the manufacture of steel caused as a bioproduct, the production of dioxin, a major carcinogen. Should steel making be outlawed? No. Instead, what happens is that government regulations proscribe an acceptable level of pollution (although some pollutants can be deemed so toxic that a zero-level is the only acceptable level). Basically, sound regulation is all about cost-benefit analysis, not absolute prohibitions on pollutants, etc.

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Ah. The problem here is that the people doing the analysis (the regulators) are not the ones that bear the costs or reap the benefits (or suffer the downsides) of their regulations.

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Both create deadweight economic losses. The question is which creates a smaller loss. Bureaucracy, while definitely undesirable, is much more efficient than private litigation (which by the way, requires that the government pay for a separate bureaucracy known as the court system).

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What do you mean by "private litigation" - I got confused when you said it requires a government-funded bureaucracy.

I can't see how bureaucracy is more efficient than litigation - even litigation in state-run courts (of course, the efficiency of litigation can be further increased by moving out of state-run courts into true private arbitration). I'm interested in hearing more, though.

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But my basic point is, when trying to figure out how an injury should be avoided, you need to look at the lowest cost avoidance. Voluntary compliance by individuals (due to the threat of civil or criminal liability from regulation), can be a very cheap solution (provided the regulation does not grow too unweildy). Private enforcement of rights is very very expensive.

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Why doesn't the threat of "very very expensive" private enforcement of rights have the same deterrent effect of encouraging "voluntary compliance"?

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Furthermore, a regulatory bureaucracy has a financial incentive to not solve the problem. If the problem were solved the regulatory agency could not generate revenue nor justify its existence.

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This is actually erroneous. Bureaucracy does not have an incentive to not do its job--its the opposite. The incentive bureaucracy has is to do its job, and then some. This is why bureaucracy grows. When laws get passed, bureaucracy steps in an starts the supervision/enforcement cycle, thus justifying its existence. One of the biggest complaints about the "administrative state" is that bureaucracies, through the rulemaking process, can essentially make an end run around the democratic legislative process, and start creating more and more quasi-laws that cost an ever increasing amount to comply with. For example, the consumer product safety commission prescribed the distance that slats on a baby crib can be spaced. Why? Because once upon a time, some kid got his head stuck between slats spaced too widely apart, and he got killed. So now government has created (independent of the democratic legislative process), a rule that costs all purchasers of baby cribs more money. THIS is why people hate bureaucracy--not because they go around trying to NOT do their job.

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Aren't you agreeing with him here? You're saying that the constant drive to create new regulations sustains bureaucracy. He's saying bureaucracies have no incentive to "win the war" they are fighting. It's two sides of the same coin.

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Not to mention the inevitable corruption that arises from government regulation of private industries as competitors lobby to have the regulations written and interpreted in their favor and against the interests of their competition.

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The private lobbying function is merely an extention of the democratic process. It is the way in which legislatures (and rulemakers) are influenced. I much prefer this approach than a tyrranical government that cannot be influenced by its constituency.

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False dicotomy. Come on.

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A "low emission vehicle" still has emissions.

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Yes, chemistry is a bitch, isn't it. This is called combustion. There are byproducts. One byproduct is heat. Another byproduct is water. Another is CO2. Another are volatile organic compounds that turn into smog after they get hit by sunlight. What's your point? We should all walk? But walking creates byproducts. CO2 from increased respiration. Energy consumption in the form of food, which is turned into sewage, which is a pollutant? I dont understand your point.

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No, we shouldn't all walk. You're implicitly making an assumption that IF we could perfectly determine damages from small-scale polluters and issue judgements with little or no overhead, such that anyone damged from car pollution could and would pursue damages, that people would decide that internal combustion engines are not economically feasable (which is certainly possible) and, once that became evident, would simply give up and not use mechanical transportation, and never devise any other method.

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A road owner could not provide a road without admitting liability for pollution usless the vehicles were actually zero-emission.

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Im not sure you have a good idea of what zero-emissions is. No such car exists. When you have an electric car, you use batteries. Batteries get charged off the power grid. The majority of the power in this country is generated from coal and natural gas plants, which in turn create emissions. Just because you cant see tailpipe emissions, doesnt mean these cars are zero emissions. This is called the "mobile source" vs. "stationary source" problem.

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If the *car* is not generating emissions, but emissions are generated elsewhere (burning coal or whatever), what difference does this make to the road owner? Any damages claims would be directed against the producer of the emissions.

Additionally, we know there *are* zero emission power sources (solar, hydroelectric, geothermal). The fact that they aren't developed enough to provide all power we need *right now* is merely an artifact of the regulatory environment that encourages (or doesn't discourage) pollution-generating energy sources.