Energy Independence

[VayaConDios]

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"Energy independence" is just a crazy way to say "poorer".
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Just think if you personally wanted to be "energy independent", and not rely on external energy sources. You'd be squatting in the dark freezing your ass off, or dismantling your chairs for firewood. After cabin fever set in you'd possibly be in the back yard digging for coal and oil.
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Now expand that to your household, your block, your city, your state. Few places are net energy producers. The point is that producing what you are good at and trading it with someone who is better at producing energy makes you both wealthier.
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Shifting resources away from more efficient, higher valued uses to less efficient, lower valued uses in the name of silly idea of "independence" doesn't just make everyone poorer, it is explicitly wasteful.
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I thought the left was all for coservation? "Energy independence" isn't conservation, it's waste.

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I understand (on a basic level, anyway) the theory of comparative advantage. If Country A can produce oil more cheaply than it can produce widgets, and if Country B can produce widgets more cheaply than it can produce oil, then Country A and Country B should exchange oil for widgets. Country B would be insane to try to become "energy independent."

However, I believe that in our current situation, there are extra-market (if that is a word) considerations that are causing the theoretically-optimal situation to actually be sub-optimal.

And I think I understand that, in your ideal world, there would be no such thing as "extra-market considerations," since everything would be subject to ownership. However, I believe that we're facing a near-term problem that can't practically be addressed by abolishing goverment, which is obviously a long-term solution.

[Borodog]

There are indeed "extramarket" considerations that are causing the optimal market situation to become distorted and suboptimal. Those are of course governmnt interventions in the market. The solution to the problem of government interventions in the market is not even more government interventions in the market.

[Brainwalter]

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4) I personally don't have faith that the market will provide a solution to this problem. Thus, government intervention is necessary.

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This is what you mean.