Cheap energy today: the best friend and salvation of the poor

Dr. Mark Perry at AEI has more:

”Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the US price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” ~Stephen Chu, US Secretary of Energy

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” ~President Barack Hussein Obama

Willis Eschenbach responds (emphasis mine) on Watts Up With That(the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change):

Here’s my problem with these brilliant plans. Regardless of whatever hypothetical possible future benefit they might or might not bring in fifty years, right here and now in the present they are absolutely devastating to the poor.

The difference between rich and poor, between developed and developing, is the availability of inexpensive energy. We’re rich because we have (or at least had) access to the hardworking servants of inexpensive energy. We have inexpensive electrical and mechanical slaves to do our work for us.

This is particularly important for the poor. The poorer you are, the larger a percentage of your budget goes to energy-intensive things like transportation and heat and electricity. If you double the price of energy, everyone is poorer, but the poor take it the hardest. Causing an increase in energy prices for any reason is the most regressive tax imaginable.