Re: F**K!

On Feb 4, 12:18 am, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 3, 6:57 pm, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 3, 11:14 am, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 3, 9:41 am, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 2, 9:15 pm, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 2, 2:33 pm, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Bruce Richmond wrote:
On Feb 2, 11:50 am, Calgary
<actual.rider_remove_the_obvio...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 08:15:58 -0800 (PST), Bruce Richmond

<bsr3...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

'Consider reducing' ? What a terribly bad joke. Try 'be
forced into regressing to a lifestyle of the 19th
century
or
earlier'

Yeah, it's rough that some soccer moms might have to
give
up
their
Hummers, but we all need to do our part ;)

The actual numbers don't support that but it is a
terrific
sound
bite
that seems to make you and a few others more comfortable.

Real change, change that will have an impact, will be
extremely
expensive, painful to absorb and will alter the very way
we
live.

If you buy into the global warming theory and believe the
scientists
who are the IPCC, that is the price you will have to pay.
You
can't
have it any other way.

Now if you are skeptical of the doomsday predictions that
flow
from
the IPCC and their cheerleaders, and are willing to
examine,
with
an
open mind all sides of the issue, there are reasonable
alternatives
to be explored.

I wasn't saying that I buy into the whole global warming
thing.
But
there is no question that oil is getting harder to come by
and
we
need
to start finding other ways of getting the energy we need.
Artificially raising the price over a period of a few
years
and
encouraging the growth of the needed technologies would be
far
better
than having it hit hard all at once when the supplies get
really
tight.

Why would "the supplise get really tight" in a short period
of
time.

The cost will increase as extraction becomes more
difficult.
Eventually there will be a crossover point where some other
technology becomes cost-competitive.

When that new technology becomes cost cometitive it will be
because
the old tech can no longer keep up with demand or has become
more
expensive due to the oil that's left being harder to get at.
What
happens every time there is even a hint of a shortage?
Prices
rise
quickly even though the production costs haven't gone up.
IOW
we
get
gouged. If we are going to get gouged anyway, why not gouge
ourselves? Then the money is still ours to use for our
bennefit
rather than in the pockets of the suppliers.

If we're "gouging ourselves" that doesn't stop the oil
exporting
countries from gouging us further. Further, the taxes on gas
in
Europe are already far higher than in the US and I don't see
the
Europeans coming up with any marvelous new technology that is
going
to displace gasoline.

I just don't see more taxes as being a viable solution to
_any_
problem.

Right now we can be gouged because we can afford to pay more
than
we
do for fuel. Going from $2 to $3 a gallon hardly caused a blip
in
our
rate of useage. Right now a sudden rise to $4 would cause a
short
term slump in sales, but in the long run it wouldn't matter
much.
But
there is a price level out there somewhere that will cause
people
to
stop driving unless they really need to. If the tax get the
price
near that level then any gouging attempted by the exporting
countries
will cause huge reductions in sales volume.

Of course at some point large numbers of people will start
quitting
their jos, stealing cars with full tanks, shooting whoever has
pissed
them off the most recently and heading south to where they
don't
have
to worry about freezing. (If they already live in the south
they
will
start shooting those darn northerners coming down to live off
their
land. They'll have plenty of ammo since the Mexicans will have
stopped coming north ;)

So why tax it to that level now when it will get there on its
own
eventually?

Because if you tax it now the revenue stays here whereas if you
let
the price go up on its own the $ will go to the exporting
countries.

No, the $ that would go to the exporting countries still go to
the
exporting countries. The tax isn't in lieu of that you know, it's
on
top of that.

You weren't paying attention ;-) Yes, the basic price we are
paying
for every gallon of oil would still go to the exporting countries,
but
the new tax (which could be 4 or more times the basic price) would
stay here. The high price would be enough incentive for most to
reduce their usage, which would reduce what is being sent to the
exporting countries.

Has it worked that way in Europe?

The average vehicle in Europe gets considerably better fuel mileage
than those in the US, in a large part because of their taking the
high
cost of fuel into consideration when they buy their vehicles.  So
they
are using less fuel than they would otherwise, and less of their
money
goes to other countries.  So yes, I would say that it is working
even
with a tax rate lower than being suggested here.

How much would you, personally, be paying a month if gas was 12
bucks
a gallon like you want it to be?

I currently use about 60 gallons a month for about $180.  At $12 per
gallon that would cost $720.  I'm sure I could easily cut my usage
in
half without feeling deprived.  Being kind of a cheap bastid I would
probably get it down to 20 gallons for $240.  I could do that while
still driving my current car to work every day.  There was a time
when
I car pooled to work.  I might think about doing that again.  You
can
bet my next car would get better mileage than the one I have now.
Even with the gas prices as they are now I would like my next car to
be a plug in hybird.  If it could do 30 miles on a charge then mu
gasoline use would go to zero except for special trips, and the
bikes
of course.  I've even been kicking around the idea of converting one
of my old bikes into an electric just for fun.

And the exporting countries couldn't just jack
the price up since that would cause people to get even more
serious
about their conservation.

Of course they could. If their price was the tiny fraction of the
pump price that your law would make it then their rasing the price
would make little difference.

With the price higher to start off with you tend to be more
sensitive
about increases.  Combine that with the fact that people would know
that increase was not going to be coming back to them indirectly and
you would see people go further into conservation mode.

People would not go broke due to the high
prices because the gas tax would be used to reduce other taxes and
provide services free that you would have to pay for otherwise.

What other taxes would it reduce that would put that amount of
money
back into the pocket of someone who works for minimum wage? And
what
"services" would you "provide free" that a healthy person would
spend
so much for that that saving completely offsets your high gas tax?

If they are working for minimum wage I don't imagine they are using
a
whole lot of gasoline to start off with.

They have to get to work the same as everybody else.  Do you think
that people who work for minimum wage somehow teleport to work for
free?

Back when I worked for minimum wage I remember walking and bicycling.

Anyway, they would probably
end up paying no income tax and might get a refund even if they
didn't
pay anything in.

So your system would give people refunds equal to the amount of the
gas tax?  No?  Less than?  Greater than?

The average return and services would be about equal to the average
gas tax. Like I have said several times, the idea is to discourage
the use of oil, not to make you poor. If you find ways of cutting
your oil usage you could even come out ahead overall. But it's not
going to be that you get a dollar back for every dollar of gas tax you
pay because then you have no reason to cut back.

Don't laugh, it already happens.

Uh huh.  Sure it does.

Read the tax forms. There are people that qualify for refunds even
when they paid nothing in. I'm not making it up.

As for free
services, free health care would be pretty big.

So how much does your average young person pay for medical treatment?

I've known some that paid nothing despite have some very expensive
procedures done to them. Somebody had to pay for it.

Sure, its easy to say
you only need it if you are sick, but if you don't have it and get
in
a wreck somebody has to pay the bill.  The company I work for
currently pays over $1000 a month for my policy and I still have to
contribute to it.

Which suggests a problem with their provider or their negotiator.  Or
else it pays for a lot of services that don't rightly belong in the
domain of insurance.

20 years ago I had to make the full payments on my policy when I
switched employers. Letting it laps wasn't an option since my wife
was already lined up to have surgry. At that time it was $350 a
month. I don't keep close tabs on rates but talking with others I get
the impression that the $1000 a month is not a bad deal these days.
YMMV

What
you got back would depend on overall usage of the general
population,
the total gas tax taken in, not your own personal usage. So if you
reduce your consumption more than the average you will actually
come
out ahead on the deal.

One thing I don't think the tax should be used for is building
mass
transit. Reason being that such a system would allow those that
use
the system to avoid the fuel tax while not offering the same
oppourtunity to those not served by mass transit. Then again, with
transportation costs getting so high they might be able to charge
enough for the service to pay for its construction and then use
the
income it generates to expand it to more rural areas.

So not only are you raising taxes to a point where people have to
starve and freeze on order to get to work, but you're also
forbidding
the use of those taxes to pay for anything that might actually help
with the problem that you are trying to solve?

What part of what followed "Then again" did you not understand.  Go
ahead and build it but don't give anyone a relativly free ride at
the
expense of others.

If it costs as much to ride your mass transit as it does to drive then
why would anybody want to use it?

Or are you just trying to immobilize the populace for some reason?

I didn't say make it just as expensive. Of course you have to make it
worth their while to use the service. But you don't need to subsidise
it to the point where a quarter takes you anywhere you want to go
either. The service needs to make a profit to pay the system back for
its construction costs and for further expansion of the system.
Otherwise you will be taxing those that don't have the service to pay
for the system being used by those that no longer need to pay the tax
because of the system. That wouldn't hardly be fair would it?

Bruce
.

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