<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>SamBam</author><text>At least some of that was, in fact, hard cash subsidies.&lt;p&gt;The US spends around $35 billion&amp;#x2F;year in actual subsidies on fossil fuels.[1] (About $20 billion to producers, and about $15 billion to consumers.&lt;p&gt;Further more, the cost of not charging the fossil fuel industry for carbon emissions should absolutely be counted as a real subsidy, although its value is harder to calculate. But we force industries to clean up other pollutants, or we otherwise regulate their environmental impact, which costs them. If we gave one industry a pass on those regulations, that would be uncontroversially a subsidy.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;climate-consensus-97-per-cent&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;jul&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;america-spends-over-20bn-per-year-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-abolish-them&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;climate-consensus-97...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>makomk</author><text>That big headline $5.2 trillion figure isn&amp;#x27;t money that was spent on anything. They&amp;#x27;re counting the difference between the actual market price of fossil fuels and what they think should be charged for them due to air pollution etc as a subsidy.</text></item><item><author>tito</author><text>USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imf.org&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;Publications&amp;#x2F;WP&amp;#x2F;Issues&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imf.org&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;Publications&amp;#x2F;WP&amp;#x2F;Issues&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;Glo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;hey fossil fuels, let&amp;#x27;s 1v1&amp;quot;
sincerely, solar&lt;p&gt;(From Forbes: United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-19/solar-and-wind-power-so-cheap-they-re-outgrowing-subsidies</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>darksaints</author><text>Accounting isn&amp;#x27;t just lying with numbers. Those are real costs whether they&amp;#x27;re paid for in cash or otherwise. They may be hard to estimate, but they&amp;#x27;re real costs.&lt;p&gt;For example, if you build roads and don&amp;#x27;t charge users to use them, they are going to use those roads more than if you charged users the costs that they incur for construction and maintenance. Building roads but not charging for their use is a subsidy to vehicle use, which is also a subsidy to &lt;i&gt;all of the inputs of vehicle use&lt;/i&gt;, including mining, manufacturing, and yes, fossil fuel consumption.&lt;p&gt;The same goes for environmental costs. You either pay for them with cash or you pay for them with a destroyed environment. And even with a destroyed environment, you&amp;#x27;re probably still paying in cash, just indirectly, deferred substantially, and with significant interest.</text><parent_chain><item><author>makomk</author><text>That big headline $5.2 trillion figure isn&amp;#x27;t money that was spent on anything. They&amp;#x27;re counting the difference between the actual market price of fossil fuels and what they think should be charged for them due to air pollution etc as a subsidy.</text></item><item><author>tito</author><text>USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imf.org&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;Publications&amp;#x2F;WP&amp;#x2F;Issues&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imf.org&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;Publications&amp;#x2F;WP&amp;#x2F;Issues&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;Glo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;hey fossil fuels, let&amp;#x27;s 1v1&amp;quot;
sincerely, solar&lt;p&gt;(From Forbes: United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They’re Outgrowing Subsidies</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-19/solar-and-wind-power-so-cheap-they-re-outgrowing-subsidies</url></story>