Chacun pour soi: Déception

30.8.05

Déception

Comme quoi, même une publication libérale de qualité peut parfois se mettre à raconter des bêtises: la nouvelle édition de The Economist semblait pourtant prometteuse, au vu de la problématique traitée, la consommation mondiale de pétrole (voir ce fil de discussion sur Liberaux.org).

Voici un extrait du dossier, trouvé via The Big Picture (l'article n'est pas en consultation libre sur le site de The Economist, mais on peut en lire certains extraits sur le site de EnergyBulletin.net)

"The best long-term solution—for America as well as the world economy—would be higher petrol taxes in the United States. Alas, there is little prospect of that happening. America, unlike Europe, has preferred fuel-economy regulations to petrol taxes. But even with those it has failed abysmally. These regulations have been so abused that the oil efficiency of its vehicles has fallen to a 20-year low. This week, the Bush administration announced proposals for changing the fuel-economy rules governing trucks and sport-utility vehicles, but failed to close loopholes that allow these gas guzzlers to use more petrol than normal cars, a shameful concession to carmakers.
America and China, in their different ways, are drunk on oil consumption. The longer they put off taking the steps needed to curb their habit, the worse the headache will be. George Bush once learned that lesson about alcohol. It is time for him to wean America off oiloholism too."

Des taxes pour réguler le marché, plus d'Etat pour réglementer l'automobile, ça faisait longtemps que l'Economist ne m'avait pas déçu.