You're laboring under the impression that, because human beings live in both places, they are fundamentally the same and that what worked for one should work for both. I suppose that's not a completely unreasonable thing to think though it is very simplistic and it discounts a whole host of factors
OK Just Some Zombie, I gather living beings in the US are different from the Uk. :biggrin1:
With regard to simplification, capitalism is generally described pretty simply. Make something expensive and people use less.
The thing you're leaving out, however, is that drivers aren't the only consumers of gasoline.
The discussion so far has been mostly about private individuals, yes. But I think the case is weaker with regard to goods. The price of transporting goods is automatically passed on to whoever buys them, and indeed we are seeing rises in lots of commodity prices. Someone getting their groceries cannot pass on the cost to anyone.
As mentioned, farmers already get subsidies, sometimes so much that insane things happen. Farming may use more subsidised fuel or fertiliser to grow a crop than the crop is actually worth. You are arguing that to make US goods more competitive fuel prices should be kept down. I am arguing that taxes will be placed on the manufacture of goods in the US to raise money to run the country. Republicans notwithstanding, this will happen. It is just a question where you choose to place the tax. I say better to tax the fuel than to tax the driver. What you want is for the company to economise on fuel it uses, not to economise on the number of lorry drivers it employs. In the UK diesel fuel for off road use (eg farm tractors) is taxed much lower than that used by road vehicles.
The UK doesn't have this sort of concern. It just doesn't. Untold millions count on the US being able to (reasonably cheaply) grow and export food.
Now you are talking about the cost of bulk transport around the world. This is not like commuting, which is pretty aimless constant travelling. Each item being delivered somewhere only makes the journey once so the cost is still relatively small.
What happens when the farmers at the beginning of the chain are hit with a sudden 300% gas tax?
As I said, farmers (at least in the UK) generally have machinery which runs on diesel and they get it largely tax free. But I am not suggesting a sudden 300% gas tax. I am suggesting a steady increase year on year allowing time to adjust.
In the last ten years gas prices in the US have tripled. We even went to war to secure the supply and bring stability to the part of the world we get it from.
Fat lot of good that did. To date it has only reduced net supplies. At least Sadam was smuggling out oil. The figures on
Petrol Prices for the Uk curiously say that the real inflation adjusted cost of petrol in 2001 was exactly the same as in 1983 (their earliest figure). in 2011 it had risen by 25%.but in 2009 it was actually below the 1983 price again. So apart from the last couple of years, on average the real price including tax has been pretty constant. I am left wondering if the real cost of gas in the US over this same period, with less added tax, might actually have fallen?
But if the price of gasoline doubled tomorrow, the US still wouldn't be paying as much per gallon as the UK. Think about that.
I did. That is why I believe the US is able to adjust to much higher prices so long as it is encouraged to get on with it. I say to you that european economies are doing better BECAUSE they have high gas taxes.
And gradually, it has, and will continue to do so. Most people here understand that it isn't 1950 and driving a smaller car, less often, saves money and makes life easier
Yet total number of cars has maybe doubled since 1950? So the main difference between then and now is that a lot more people are driving, probably much longer distances?
you are talking about changing a way of life that has permeated the last sixty years and generations of Americans. You've suggested it as though it was something that could be done over night and should be regardless of consequence.
I am suggesting it is not a question of 'should'. It is a question of 'must'. What choice have you got?
you're under the impression we're all pulling on the same ore regarding this issue... and we aren't.
No, I wasnt. That is exactly my point. The US collectively does not understand that it must change.
There is still a portion of the population in the United States (a portion large enough to roadblock legislation to address this problem more expeditiously) that think global warming is a myth, that peak oil production and the bell curve related to it are only theories at best, and that alternative energies are a ploy Al Gore came up with to legalize gay marriage
Ah yes, solar power is the way to get married. Well ok. I admit the US does have a choice. It can choose to go down the route of subsidisng fuel, driving gas guzzlers and using energy generally like there is no tomorrow. However the result of this can only be an accelerating collapse of US competitiveness compared to the rest of the world. I know the US car industry has problems with workplace practices and unions, but the reason the US car companies are bust is they have too long built cars for the US market which have been inefficient and unfit for the rest of the world where fuel economy has been taken seriously for decades.
We're fighting against willful ignorance in this country at the same time we're trying to come up with a solution, yet another thing you've left out of your proposition.
Again I admit I have learnt from these debates with americans some of the disadvantages of the style of government in the US. It was designed to prevent dictators, and it works.
It can't move forward if you can't appreciate that the US and UK are two different places.
The wealth and power of the US has been based on unlimited resources. A fair share of brilliance too, but it was resources which swung it. These are fast running out. Time was, the world ran on coal exported from Britain. Now we import coal. Caused a lot of disruption changing over. The UK too would be in a lot worse position if it had not discovered oil in the north sea.