OT: Gasoline Cost in Europe

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Me, I just walk the several miles of trails on my property...very serene, and I don't have to drive to get there.

I think little roller skate vehicles are small ugly inefficient at carrying cargo, and dangerous to ride in. Their gas mileage per pound of cargo simply sucks. In hauling anything other than their owner's butt they are a bad deal.

It would be far better for a half dozen of you small car owners to get together and car pool in an SUV. You would easily get 120 passenger miles per gallon.

Nor will mine, John, but then we are among the wealthy. It will make a really big difference to the "little people," though.

It is in your belief that your values matter so much that you should be allowed to force my choice of vehicle... and yet you should be allowed to do whatever it is you want to do because you are you.

-Chuck

And milk cost 1/3 what it does now. Cars about 1/2.

OPEC in general, and the Saudis in particular, are wary of pushing prices to the point that we'd be willing to spend a heap on either conservation or alternate fuel sources.

I'd love to just double the price of everything on my price list. What's stopping me?

John

My wife's new car has a list price larger than the sum of all I have spent for cars in my whole life.

Luckily (?), she leased it.

would be

It will make a serious difference to middle-class people who live in suburbs and drive long distances to work and shop. $250 to tank up an SUV, $40 a day to commute to work, will affect a lot of people.

I have neither the power nor the intent to change the world or force you to drive anything you don't like. A couple of billion Indians and Chinese and Bangladeshis are going to buy cars, want gas, and change the world.

John

That figure to use your car seems rarther optimistic to me.

Graham

Check out the working conditions there for immigrant workers.

Graham

'Simple' case of supply/demand, eh?

But, before we get into that, we should note that your proposal has nothing whatsoever to do with the current complaint about prices as it's patently absurd to suggest that raising price, by taxation, is any kind of 'solution' to high prices.

The problem with your 'simple' supply/demand theory is that demand for oil, more appropriately energy, is largely inelastic and it takes draconian price increases to have even marginal effects, which is one reason why price spikes so dramatically on even slight disruptions: demand doesn't significantly drop so price is bid up as people strive to maintain their supply. Which is why barring refinery construction for 30 years so the ones left are perpetually operating at near full capacity leads to price shocks when upsets occur.

Long term the effects are also marginal and merely serve to slightly inhibit the increase in demand, not reduce it.

Nor does it make one any less 'vulnerable' to 'the foreigner', even if it worked to any significant degree, because it's impossible, short of economic collapse, to reduce demand down to anything even remotely close to current domestic production levels and, since the market is basically inelastic, foreign producers could still cause catastrophic supply shortages. (The key here is diversification of supply sources; reducing the impact any particular one has on the total. That still leaves cost vulnerable to world pricing but supply is available.)

There are a myriad of other factors but I'll just sum up this portion with a general comment that I object to the notion that government has any 'right' to manipulate and coerce the public into it's vision of what people 'should do' even if they had the slightest idea how to accomplish it and what the consequences would be.

No offense but, for that, I'm grateful.

Yes, that's the typical 'enviro' (which would be more appropriately called 'anti-technology', 'anti-mankind') approach: push all viable solutions off the table and then declare there aren't any solutions.

The fact of the matter is that everything requires energy, even if it's oxen pulling a plow, or you yourself. And while you can start a 'movement' to 'conserve oxen' but don't try to tell me it's 'painless'.

And the only viable way to do that is produce the energy yourself, or go back to pulling your plow.

Pure nonsense.

I see 'ads' with cars popping out little robot arms slicing open piggy banks and reproducing, not to mention the 'talking' car telling me what fuel he likes. You believe those too?

You need to get over that incredible urge to dictate to everyone else.

They don't have roads and traffic laws?

If you have your way.

Of course. So, as I mentioned above, let's not fool anyone by suggesting you're 'concerned' about high prices or that your proposals are intended to 'help'.

We might actually agree here, although for different reasons.

They'll likely ensure more "panic-inducing" disruptions by doing the same thing they've done for the past 40 years in creating this one: pander to the 'no new production of any kind regardless of the disastrous impact' anti-technology, 'poor is better', crowd.

Au contraire.

That's the great myth.

Inefficiency, environmental destruction, poverty, un safe conditions, and misery in general are almost directly proportional to the degree a country tries to implement a 'command economy' with the former Soviet Union being one of the more notorious examples.

The average businessman is infinitely more knowledgeable and motivated to reduce 'waste' than any government could ever be, even if they cared, and the great 'efficiency' myth derives from blindered 'single issue' advocates who measure everything by their 'one thing', to hell with all other costs, so they're perfectly happy to spend a thousand dollars to 'save a buck' because, after all, it's 'more efficient' that way.

Your "transient distress" argument is disingenuous for the same reason.

Not really any of your business and I'm tempted to say I drive a 'monster SUV' because my goal in life has always been to destroy as much of the environment as I possibly can. But the real reasons would be more like if I thought they looked cool and were a babe magnet, or were a good compromise between a conventional car and a truck, or that I thought they were safer in collisions, or any number of reasons. If I actually had one.

Amateurs. Our ferry system achieves far higher subsidy ratios, and they have on-board bars. The Golden Gate Bridge District, having paid off the bridge long ago, and having lots left over for maintanance, expanded into money-losing bus and ferry systems so that they'd have a reason to keep increasing the bridge tolls.

John

I'm using the same kind of accounting the mass transit nuts are using... operating costs only, not including capital expense payback, insurance, etc.

It's all proportionate... true automobile costs would be about $8.00, and true mass transit would be $25-$26

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

You misunderstand me. I approve of higher gasoline prices.

Draconian will do nicely.

Might makes right. Congress passes laws, and then they're, well, laws. Government regularly tells people what they should do (pay taxes, stop at red lights) and shouldn't (import cocaine, hold up liquor stores.) You don't approve?

I have neither the power nor the desire to dictate, and I haven't done so... I only speculate. I wonder how you can find speculation offensive; that's not good engineering.

John

How do you calculate your cost/mile for the car ? I reckon you're still on the optimistic side there.

Graham

~ 40¢/mile is what IRS allows for deductions rather than proving actual cost.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

The paragraph above, and further below, show that I do not 'misunderstand you'. I just wanted to make sure no one else did.

I appreciate you making your priorities clear.

No, it doesn't.

Only if they're Constitutional.

The argument is nonsense. That one, or more, laws may, or may not, be appropriate in no way implies just any old thing they might like to do is also appropriate.

Your own admission that you wish you "made the rules," and the brief foray into a few you'd make, indicate otherwise.

Not hardly. You advocate and only fall back on 'speculation' to claim what you want will happen anyway.

Society is not a collection of little 'cogs' to be 'engineered' and I would be offended if someone were to 'speculate' that murdering 2/3s of the world's population made for "good engineering."

However, I made no claim of being 'offended' but, rather, explained why, IMO, your 'plan' won't work and that I object to your 'central command' philosophy because, even placing ethical and moral issues aside, it won't, and can't, work either. I'd say "unless the plan is to recreate the dark ages" but, then, you probably wouldn't like them cutting down trees for homes and firewood.

...

Oh, and of course, what the IRS says is Gospel.

Jim, how can you be a conservative and a liberal at the same time? That must be very stressful.

The liberals are the ones who worship taxation, aren't they?

Please explain how you reconcile this dichotomy, in little words, since I'm a weenie.

Thanks, Rich

Sounds a bit cheap. Our IR allows 63p ( $1.13 ) for the first 4000 miles and

36p ( $0.65 ) thereafter for vehicles over 2 litres. Petrol's more expensive of course but that's a big difference.

I'd reckon you'd be lucky to beat $12 true cost minimum.

Graham

Keep in mind our "petrol" just did go over $3 per gallon.

But light rail doesn't run on air either.

Government sucks the life out of the citizenry ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

On Thu, 04 May 2006 16:11:23 -0700, John Larkin wrote: ...

... This attitude is the primary cause of all of the pain and suffering that there has ever been since the beginning of time:

-------------- "I have described the two devils, Ahriman and Lucifer, and mentioned a few of the differences between them. There are also some similarities, and I'd like to discuss them now. Both Ahriman and Lucifer are fighters, they are both warriors. Both of them are angry because they have been denied by me, and they have allowed their rage to drive their behaviors whenever they've felt safe in doing so. Both devils use denial and deceit as weapons, and of course they got these weapons originally from me. They both are my denials, and they both still have some degree of presence where I am present. "The superiority imprint is most alive in them. Their battles with each other are the most intense reflections of the superiority imprint in Creation. When they haven't been battling each other, Lucifer has been proving his superiority over the Mother by preying on her and dominating her. And Ahriman has generally been proving his superiority over me by using my powers against me. Lucifer abuses and denies the Mother and tries to turn her against me while Ahriman denies me and tries to rule the Spirit polarity from my position.

"Have I mentioned denial? Denial is how this all works against us. First I denied the Will, my true Desire, by objectifying and using her. Later I denied the parts of myself I thought the Mother didn't like, and they became Lucifer. In the process of creating Lucifer, I became Ahriman.

------------- -- God,

Good Luck! Rich

You just don't grasp the concept of "Freedom", do you? I'd rather ride a bicycle with a leaf blower motor (which would probably get about 120 MPG) than carpool with some SUV-owning yuppie.

But, that's been the problem all along - people just don't grasp the concept of "Freedom", or more importantly, "Free Will". )-;

Cheers! Rich

On the contrary, I understand freedom just fine. You, on the other hand seem to have trouble with reading comprehension.

-Chuck