Gas Prices

[darius]

The republicans have some ideas to reduce gas prices:
The congress will send 100dollar to american families to compensate for the gas price, they will force more money into ethanol (In the U.S you have to have some ethanol in the gas), and they will prosecute any gas dealer who tries to sell gas over a government approved price.

They are seriously contemplating putting in price controll even though they've done it before and it was a miserbale failure (Nixon did it during the energy crisis). How can the people who make the decisions be so oblivious of basic economics. Price controlls will lead to decresed quality of the distrubution as the demand will be much higher than the supply this will probably lead to bad service and long lines at the gas stations.

How can politicians who claim to be pro market propose something so laughably stupid?

[David Deas]

Something needs to be done.

[Tostig]

What's the price over there? Here in Britain it's currently around 93.7p per litre, as it has been for a long time.

[darius]

Something needs to be done.

No that's the point they don't know anything about economics and belieive something has to be done instead of letting the makret fixing it or perhaps they just want to trick gullible voters that they're doing something.

BTW A Funny side effect of this is that it will retard the development of alternative fuels when they keep the prices articficially low.

[David Deas]

Here in North Carolina its around about $3.00 a gallon.

[Last Roman]

they're saying that here in Minnesota (where it is usually cheaper than the national average), by July 4th, prices will be almost $4.00 a gallon or about 2.2 British lbs.

[Denny Crane!]

I love it when Americans complain about gas prices, not because they shouldn't complain I just find it ironic that the Brits tend to be pretty silent despite the fact we pay probably more than double and don't complain.

We must be so damn apathetic, come on all you brits lets start the petrol strike again!

Peter

[Tom Paine]

I love it when Americans complain about gas prices, not because they shouldn't complain I just find it ironic that the Brits tend to be pretty silent despite the fact we pay probably more than double and don't complain.

We must be so damn apathetic, come on all you brits lets start the petrol strike again!

Why bother? We pay more per visit to the pump but take far less fewer visits to the pump and put less in at each visit than the average American... quite funny, given that we have so much higher prices, that we still spend less overall on petrol.

[Last Roman]

Why bother? We pay more per visit to the pump but take far less fewer visits to the pump and put less in at each visit than the average American... quite funny, given that we have so much higher prices, that we still spend less overall on petrol.

That's because our cars get an average of 20 mpg (even though they [car companies] could easily make it much higher). What do British cars get on average?

[Red Harvest]

That's because our cars get an average of 20 mpg (even though they [car companies] could easily make it much higher).

This is a perfect example of what is wrong with American thinking: blaming it on the car company. The problem is the CONSUMER. There are cars out there that get higher mileage, but consumers have instead gone for big, heavy SUV's, and for cars with bigger engines/better performance. Mileage has not been much of a buying factor. That's why the same model of vehicle has been becoming increasingly *inefficient.* It's customer demand at fault.

I was looking at stats 8+ years ago showing how the average vehicle weight was actually as high as in the 1970's peak. Why? Light trucks/SUV's made up a higher percentage of the annual number of vehicle sold.

The accomplice in this is of course an elected govt. that has worked hard to keep gas prices low, and to keep exemptions in from CAFE standards to favor low mileage SUV's. That's why we have all these suburbanites driving around in 4 wheel drive SUV's, that don't really need 4 wheel drive, or a truck like vehicle, to drop little Johnie off for soccer...and perhaps would do better to let him ride the bus to school.

[Last Roman]

This is a perfect example of what is wrong with American thinking: blaming it on the car company. The problem is the CONSUMER. There are cars out there that get higher mileage, but consumers have instead gone for big, heavy SUV's, and for cars with bigger engines/better performance. Mileage has not been much of a buying factor. That's why the same model of vehicle has been becoming increasingly *inefficient.* It's customer demand at fault.

I don't blame the car companies alone. As is with most things, there is no one person/thing at fault, there are usually multiple parties. I very much agree with you that the average American consumer has done a great share in creating this problem we have here before us.

[David Deas]

That's because our cars get an average of 20 mpg (even though they [car companies] could easily make it much higher).

Yeah. On a straight shot on the freeway they get that. But its not very realistic other than that. One of the problems in the United States here is the slow stop and go traffic. Everywhere you go you're stuck in traffic. Besides the sheer amount of driving an American must do, thats where you take the biggest hit on miles per gallon.

[Red Harvest]

Yeah. On a straight shot on the freeway they get that. But its not very realistic other than that. One of the problems in the United States here is the slow stop and go traffic. Everywhere you go you're stuck in traffic. Besides the sheer amount of driving an American must do, thats where you take the biggest hit on miles per gallon.

That is a reflection of increasing number of miles driven...and less use of public transportation, including such mundane things as school buses. America has moved in the wrong direction in this regard, and it will take decades just to undo the effects of the previous trend.

One thing noticeable on work commutes is how many fewer cars there were on the road when summer break arrived. It went from 4 cycles of the light to 1. Some of this was teens, but a lot of it was mothers driving younger children to school in SUV's and minivans. I'm not saying that the parents were necessarily to blame. There were few sidewalks or options for walking/riding bikes to school safely. I've also noticed that buses don't pick up kids in a close enough radius--to make up for the lack of pedestrian walkways to school. That puts the parent into a pinch as well.

When I was in Texas I actually corresponded with the governor's office trying to combat some of the stupidity built into the system. I took aim at an obvious thing: the extra fees applied to internet/mail vehicle registration renewals--this in effect encouraged a person to actually drive to the county office rather than renew by mail/internet. I did some economic calcs showing that this was an unsound practice, and that the fee structure should be reversed to make in-person renewal more expensive than internet renewal. Of course, being that I was in rather regressive Texas, it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. They were quite happy to encourage an extra few million miles per year of needless driving, rather than encouraging desired behaviour with an appropriate fee structure. You can lead a horse to water...but you cannot make him think...I mean drink. It's a small thing, but it shows that elected officials just don't get it.

[orange slice]

there's a gas station here in california with a price of $3.79 a gallon.. this is getting WAY outa hand. something serious needs to be done.

[stop-3]

Troll-removed Garb.
Actually, I lie. The true problem is that you do not have enough grass-cutting machinery, nor enough grass to mow. If people were given more acres of grass to mow, with enough of those wonderful grass-cutting motors that you actually can drive around on (like little motor cars) then happiness is eternal!

[David Deas]

Would you honestly say that you spend as much on gas as the average American does? Do you fill up every third day?

[Denny Crane!]

Would you honestly say that you spend as much on gas as the average American does? Do you fill up every third day?

I personally don't but I can do 50MPG I fill up twice a week as I do a lot of driving.

My friend driving a turbo charged GTO fills up every other day he only gets 12mpg.

Peter

[Erik]

The congress will send 100dollar to american families to compensate for the gas price

I LOVE that idea.
Of course they wil also have to raise the taxes by $100 per family, 'cos that's where the money comes from.

Maybe next year they could tax everybody a million dollar...so they can hand out a million dollar to everybody! that would help so much

they will force more money into ethanol

Again: using tax money.

and they will prosecute any gas dealer who tries to sell gas over a government approved price.

They are seriously contemplating putting in price controll even though they've done it before and it was a miserbale failure (Nixon did it during the energy crisis). How can the people who make the decisions be so oblivious of basic economics. Price controlls will lead to decresed quality of the distrubution as the demand will be much higher than the supply this will probably lead to bad service and long lines at the gas stations.

You are right.
Price control wil actually REDUCE the supply, especially in the future because when people can make less money they wil also invest less.

How can politicians who claim to be pro market propose something so laughably stupid?

Because they only do what the voters want to hear.
The average American is only interested in what the price of gas is today, they don't care about the long-term effects and future prices.

[Red Harvest]

I LOVE that idea.
Of course they wil also have to raise the taxes by $100 per family, 'cos that's where the money comes from.

Maybe next year they could tax everybody a million dollar...so they can hand out a million dollar to everybody! that would help so much

You don't understand the way the game works. The beauty of it is they don't raise taxes to pay for things. Instead they run higher deficits and claim "economic growth" will pay for the extra expenditure. Of course, it doesn't (even Fed chairman Bernanke has admitted that tax cuts haven't paid for themselves) ...so the solution is to give away more money.

The idea is that someday our kids get to pay the bar tab for this decade of GOP Happy Hour. The old joke about "liberal" meaning a person was free spending with someone else's money apparently applies equally to conservatives.

[Erik]

The idea is that someday our kids get to pay the bar tab for this decade of GOP Happy Hour. The old joke about "liberal" meaning a person was free spending with someone else's money apparently applies equally to conservatives.

You mean the same kids who wil have to pay five times as much for energy as we do now?
Nice.

btw: "Liberal" originally ment somebody who wants less government spending, and that's still the way we use the word "Liberal" in Europe.
Maybe America wil finally re-reverse the meaning back to what it's supposed to be.