Re: Fuel duty

Mel Rowing wrote:
On Mar 14, 9:48 am, Steve Cooper <Steve.Coo...@xxxxxx> wrote:

Mel Rowing wrote:

On Mar 14, 9:22 am, Steve Cooper <Steve.Coo...@xxxxxx> wrote:

When money is used as your controlling mechanism it is
always about the rich vs the poor. Higher taxes will force
the poor off the roads, but have little if no effect on the
rich.

If you want a fair mechanism for controlling CO2, then you
need to ration the fuel, with high a higher ration given to
those who work in the countryside (Note: Not live, people
who choose to live in the country, but work in the town
should not be given extra support).

Say a starting point of 1500 litre of fuel per person, with
an extra 500 litre for country workers, with families being
allowed to pool their ration, and allowing people to sell
their excess ration on the open market. Then over the years
as cars get more efficient you reduce the fuel ration.

You still have some difference depending upon your income as
the rich/companies will still be able to buy the extra fuel
they want/need. But this way the money goes to the poor who
can't aford to run a car or the spend-thrift who do not use
all of their ration.

But it will never happen as this will reduce the governments
income.

It would do far more than that!

I agree it would, it would probably start a drive of town
workers back to the towns, bringing country property prices
down to a level that country workers might be able to afford.




Think of the impact on the tourists and leisure industries. Think of
the impact on the motor industry.

Judicious use of the rations could avoid most if not all of
these problems.


Hardly!

I live in a tourist area. A significant portion of the rural economy
round here is centred around the tourist and leisure industries.
People rent and run cottages, caravan parks, cabins, tea rooms,
restaraunts, pubs, theme parks, craft studios, shops. To do this they
hire labour primarily local labour. These are the occupations that
country people are engaged in these days. Long gone are the days when
a 200 acre farm would employ 2 or 3 labourers.

And how is this effected any more by rationing than ever as the original poster suggested putting punative duty on fuel.

I'm suggesting 1500 litre per person. Yes continue to run your gas guzzler doing 20-25 mpg and that only gives you 7,500 miles. But use an efficient car doing 50-60mpg and that's over 18,000 miles. Average distance to work I believe is around than 25 miles, thats an average communiting milage of around 12,000 miles. This still leaves 6,000 miles for leisure activities, that's enough for a monthly round trip of 500 miles.

If your a family you'll have two rations to work with you can have the small efficient 50-60mpg car as the main communiting car and a less efficient family car doing 40-50mpg as the second car (for which I belive the average commuting mileage is about 8,000 miles). The total leaves you around 12,000 miles of liesure use in the 2nd car, thats a thousand miles a month.


The point is that, it's all very well to drive out the present
residents of the countryside so that those with some nebulous right
of tenure can have cheap housing but there has to be something for
them to do. Todays yokels are no longer farm workers. They rely for
their livings on those who get in their cars and bring their families
into the countryside. Speaking personally, I wish fewer of them would
but there we are. If the cost of coming to the coutryside were to be
increased fewer would in fact come and those who did would spend less.

The only one who would not come would be those who are determined to keep their gas guzzlers.


The rural economy would suffer and people like me who live in the
countryside but do not and never have worked there would become more
entrenched than ever.

Steve C

.

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