The Dangers of 'Modest Proposals'

Here's a sample from the comment thread from an earlier post

Icepick said...

More importantly, it wouldn't affect behavior that much. People would just fuel up with light vehicles and then pump the gas into their heavier vehicles. Duh.

6:21 PM

XWL said...

That's why I put in the line about redesigning gas tanks to make them siphon proof.

But the real point was the LATimes shouldn't call any old suggestion a 'modest proposal'.

8:24 PM

Icepick said...

Sorry, missed that line.

Still, people would just fix the tanks when they bought them, or would buy tanks from old cars and install them in newer models. Just like undoing the catalytic converters, no big deal.

Thinking about all of this, it almost makes me want to campaign for such a price structure. The black market opportunities would be HUGE if the incentive pricing could be rigged to be sufficiently stupid. All I'd need is to find a particularly stupid Senator to write the legislation.....

Excuse me, I have to go look up my Senator's phone number....

OK, that's just a little scary to think about, and really, it's just crazy enough to be embraced by politicians. I will now distance myself from any future legislation that might be adopted following one of my 'modest proposals'. If our representatives wonder why they sometimes sound comical when they say what they say it's cause some of their ideas were inspired by folks just going for the funny.

So when you see the crews with their jackhammers tearing up your local filling station, don't look at me, I didn't do it, honest.

So let's see what future policies will be discussed in congress, terminal limits, vote-buying, and now variable pricing for gas stations. If any of those pass, I'll retire from blogging (or run for Congress, whichever).