What Kind Of Market Was That?

Ya know what I get a kick out of? I get a kick out of folks who swear by the free market system. They swear by the free market system and then turn around and expect that the energy they use and the products they buy be artificially reduced in price so they can enjoy these things. Say what? Well, take electricity. Not that it's all that cheap, we think, but is it really as expensive as it should be in order to reflect the actual costs? Most of our electricity is generated by burning coal. Coal is cheap. Ahhh, Well, Not really. Look at what it does. In order to get at coal, they cause untold costs in environmental damage and personal healthcare costs. But that isn't factored into the price of coal. The burning of coal causes even more pollution and healthcare costs, none of which is factored into the cost of coal. Then we have the ash that's left over after it's burned. It's filled with carcinogenic materials that cause more health costs. Or we could make clean coal. But making coal clean presupposes we can remove all the poisons, but if we could, what do we do with the poisons after they're removed. They don't just magically disappear, ya know. If we paid for energy and products at prices that actually reflected the costs, everyone would hit the ceiling. But don't we hit the ceiling when we see our healthcare costs or insurance premiums? Well yes, but not every single day. So it's more palatable this way than it would be to pay about $10 for a gallon of gas or an extra couple of thousand to aircondition your home next summer or heat your home this winter. And bananas would be two bucks each. Fresh fruit in the winter would be six times as expensive. So when people talk about the free market, remember, they're just talking hogwash.