Global Warming Bill=$9/gallon gas

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by madanthonywayne, May 16, 2008.

  1. clusteringflux Version 1. OH! Valued Senior Member

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    At the risk of going off topic, these are all inventions of government and subjects in need of reform do to their inefficiencies. Way to prove my point.
     
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  3. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    Only if you accept that there are only 2 choices - continue with ridiculously cheap american petrol - or increase the tax and pump it into some bloated inefficient central government body.

    look back at some of the earlier posts.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    That good service you describe was created by government takeover of the mail.

    The bad service you don't like has been a consequence of spinning the Post Office off from the government proper, demanding that it operate in the black, and creating government supported opportunities for private mail delivery in competition with it.

    I've never had any trouble with the mail, actually. Never lost anything, never had any damage or undue delays. But I do think we'd be better off paying less for storage.

    Government takeover has improved roads, bridges, ferries, navigational waterways, fire departments, police, old age pensions, emergency response services, agricultural and medical research, and any number of other services that have in common community benefit greater than the sum of the direct recipient services received.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2008
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  7. The Devil Inside Banned Banned

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    i constantly wonder why belgium's economy isnt flagging.... equivalent of $6.50 a gallon here right now (i have a tank station right across the street from me...my window is 20 yards from their price-sign.

    expensive gas relating to sagging american economy is a red herring.
     
  8. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    Well, in europe in general, people aren't quite so umbilically attached to they cars - european cities have great public transportation systems, and you can even walk around doing your shopping - instead of having to drive from stripmall to stripmall.
    Also the average european car doesn't resemble something that looks like a cross between a a ship continer and a tank, doesn't have an average engine size of about 4 litres.
     
  9. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    European cities are ancient. Originally designed for walking or horse and buggy. And, thanks to taxes, your economy is accustomed to high gas prices.

    But American cities are new. (The part of town I live in was cornfields just a few years ago). They were designed with the automobile in mind. You really can't walk anywhere

    Add to that, it's not been that long ago we were paying $1 per gallon. Now we're paying $4 per gallon. Every extra dollar spent on gas is a dollar not available for other things. Even worse, increased gas prices cause increases in the price of everything else due to increased transportation costs.

    So you take a society designed around the automobile and quadruple the price of fuel, and then say high gas prices are a red herring?
     
  10. CharonZ Registered Senior Member

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    I beg to differ. While it is true that most European cities are grown, recent developments have (at least in Germany) have resulted in the loss of many small groceries near the housing areas. The result is that many are dependent on either public transport and/or a car. In fact many cities maintain a rather good public transport system due to the high demand of the residents. Also regarding the gas prices:
    According to some charts I found on the net, the price of 1 USD per gallon was around the 90s (correct me if I am wrong). And today it is at around 4 USD.

    In the 90s the gas price was around 1.1 DM per liter in Germany. Considering the exchange rate in the 90s (~1.6 DM per USD) it would amount to 0.64 USD per litre or 2.4 USD per gallon. But today the price is at around 8.7 USD. In other words, the increase in Germany is overall (if not in detail) comparable to the increase in the US. Based on this I do not think that Germany (or a number of other European countries) had more time to adapt to such high prices.
    However, in Germany the demand for fuel efficient cars started in the late 90s resulting in the majority of cars now on the market being way more efficient than the US counterparts (also there is a trend in actually buying overall smaller cars, unless one got kids). I think that here in the US such a trend might only just now beginning.

    Edit: I forgot to mention that the rapid increase in gas price in Germany was singificantly caused by a so-called eco-tax sometime around 1999 which was also intended (among others) to reduce the use of fossil fuels
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2008
  11. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    The proponents of this should simply be taken out and shot dead. I might as well not even try to live when $100 of my weekly pay goes to pay for gasoline.
     
  12. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have a choice?

    Could you buy a more fuel efficient car?

    Can you use alternative fuels?

    Can you use public transport?

    The answer is probably no to be honest, and that's the problem with the US - its such a car centric place, and you are so umbilically attached to your cars as a result, that fuel prices hit you guys so hard.

    Which is why, provided the money goes towards offering you a genuine choice that allows you to leave your cars at home instead of on cops and bombs, this might not be such a bad idea.
     
  13. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Stop whingeing and re-design your society around the horse and buggy. In the meantime you might try manufacturing cars which are more gas-efficient.
    You are beginning to pay the price of a wasteful lifestyle and you ain't seen nothin' yet.
     
  14. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    Environmentalism has become a giant powered by junk science and bull feces. All that it's good for is beating people up for being human.
     
  15. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    I'll agree that certain environmental lobby groups are motivated more by an anti-capitalist political viewpoint than they are by good environmental science.
    (watch Pen & Teller's Bullsh!t episode on environmentalism - its hilarious - "lets Ban Di-Hydrogen Oxide" )

    But to confuse that with junk science just makes you equally politicised and deluded on the issue - albeit from the opposition camp.
    There is a certain degree of brainwashing on both sides that somehow capitalism and prosperity are incompatible with environmentalism - which is the direst for of bullshit imaginable and built on the same kind of fear mongering that both sides of the debate use.

    There is no necessary contradiction between capitalism and environmentalism - how would putting tax dollars/pounds into the private sector develop and build new fuels, new transportation and distribution systems be bad for business for example?
    Its very good for business in the defence sector afterall.

    How would retaining and supporting old technologies to keep a few select industries that rely on those old technologies to in business, be good for business in the long term?
    That sounds more like anti free market communism to me.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2008
  16. Mickmeister Registered Senior Member

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    Yep! The US is now paying for its ignorance, or should I say arrogance over the last century.
     
  17. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think it was arrogance, but the influence of the powers that rule this country in the back offices. In the seventies and eights a special government corporation was set up to promote the proliferation of alternative fuels of which there are several. The oil lobby nixed the corporation. I wonder why.

    Special interests exercise less control over the governments of Europe, Japan, and Australia than they do here in the United States, that is probably why you are much better at using energy than we are here in the United States.
     
  18. 15ofthe19 35 year old virgin Registered Senior Member

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    You know who else was a big fan of nationalizing...

    Seriously though, nobody is going to carry the torch for big oil, but why can't they be profitable? Is it ok for one industry to be profitable, but not another? If you own stock in a company through your pension plan, don't you want them to be profitable?

    I'll be the first to say that the profits being made by the big oil companies are shocking, but that industry has always been a roller coaster, and they've had their tough times as well. I don't see how the federal government would do a better job of manufacturing and distributing petroleum products than the private sector. Federal agencies aren't typically recognized for their logistical prowess.
     
  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Because the industry is too important, like national defense.
     
  20. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    No need to distinguish; arrogance is born of ignorance.
     
  21. sly1 Heartless Registered Senior Member

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    This is greedy though process on the behalf of the government. Instead of penalizing these companies that are producing the gas using Machines we have little to no choice of using......they penalize the consumer.

    When the consumer has virtually no pratical alternative given to them by the companies they have no choice but to bite the bullet.

    The hybrid cars are a great start and those companies producing such vehicles should be given insentives to improve and further develop those technologies. Those companies who do not offer hybrids and are still producing the gas guzzlers should be penalized for the extra costs in gas.

    The people should be give insentives to use the more efficient vehicles, considering the significant price of a vehicle in a the average person's budget they shouldn't be penalized but given great insentives to switch. Why? well if such is the case, the old gas guzzleing vehicles will be almost worthless. They will have no re-sale or trade in value and the price of gas alone will be enough penalization for the average person to switch vehicles. So in switching from gas guzzler to hybrid, alternative fuels, etc....they are at an immediate loss but over the "long run" will benefit their budget.

    From my perspective the average person is a consumer and their only chance at realisticly helping the situation is to "consume" more efficient products......but when the companies producing the products have no insentive to create alt fuel technology they consumers can only "consume" what is there. Currently the consumers are being hit the hardest for the gas guzzlers they had no choice but to consume in the first place. Mean while the rich keep raking in the money and we keep dishing it out?

    No wonder the situation isn't being solved. Its far more profitable to keep and old technology that costs more for the consumer than develop a new more efficient technology that costs less for the consumer. Its obvious, and.....we cant really do much about it.
     
  22. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Sure. Energy is too important to allow the private sector to run it. So is health care. So is education. So is . ......................Pretty soon you're living in a dictatorship.
     
  23. sly1 Heartless Registered Senior Member

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    pretty soon? been that way for a while people are just now starting to notice it if at all. Ron Paul was the best canidate. Would've loved to see him and Jesse Ventura run together
     

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