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Automotive News & Views How does gas at $4 and higher impact you?
2183 messages, Last post on Nov 21, 2009 at 5:13 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 20, 2008 8:14 am) Tax fuel and you are putting a nail in our economy as was just demonstrated by higher fuel prices and the effect this year. If it hurt because of speculation it will hurt just as much through taxes. The only difference is taxes will never fall off as quick as the fuel prices have. How do I know? My property taxes didn't drop just because property values dropped over the last two years. And believe me property in southern California has dropped a lot. $4.00 gas is bad enough, adding extra taxes for no other reason than to tax us would be even worse.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 20, 2008 9:06 am) Tax fuel and you encourage us to wean ourselves off imported oil. Last year we did a road trip to NM for Thanksgiving and paid the $3.6x a gallon. This year we may head to Oregon and I'll try to cram the car full of Idaho gas. Filling up at $2 is nice - pumping it yourself is nicer, even if OR is a few cents cheaper.  The gas price makes it a bit easier to decide whether to go or not, but isn't the biggest factor. |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 20, 2008 8:09 am) But boaz, this is a false premise. Why did oil companies feel they could endlessly jack up prices, and speculators feel they could mine those prices for profits? Because oil producers know they could always count on gas consumption increasing. Because gas consumption "always" increases. But if you had a tax, one that went up incrementally every year, it wouldn't. It might stay flat, or even go down little by little. And guess what happened this year when gasoline consumption in the U.S. decreased little by little. The floor fell out of oil prices (I am talking about the period before the global economy went bust and oil prices fell so spectacularly). I know it's always tempting to take the cheapest route, and hope things will "work out" so that your choice of paths has no negative consequences down the line. Oil consumption is one of those times when the cheapest route won't work out. The last quarter century proves it conclusively. Luckily, there are choices, and one of them is that we can pay a little more now and ease into that more expensive future, avoiding fresh shocks like the $4.50 gas we had this summer. There will be those, of course, who feel that more expensive future is somehow avoidable by conducting business as usual. To them I say, you are in denial of the global nature of the oil economy (and every other facet of the economy), and the current state of oil extraction.
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| At a Delta Gas station, filled up my A6, regular was $1.79! Also getting 27mpg on my A6. The price of gas at 4.00 for me wasn't to bad, but I do notice I have more cash in my pocket at the end of the day. | |
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And gagrice too! Oil closed below $50 today! $49.62. Fiesta time?! 
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Replying to: boaz47 (Nov 19, 2008 10:41 pm) A little over a year ago I got a check from my city, seems that they had refinance some major debt and they didn't need a portion of the property tax to cover interest. The refund was over $300. Just recently received our current property tax. It has dropped an additional $200 due to increased revenue form some major retail developments opening in the town. 
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 1:50 pm) So yes gasoline consumption went down about 5% by the price of gas going over $4.00. The U.S. uses 25% of the world's oil, but not all of that is for gasoline. But let's say we are able to cut consumption 5% and keep consumption level - even though that's unlikely with an increasing population. So doing the math we could reduce global gasoline consumption about 1%. Exactly what great benefit do you see? If we have enough oil for 50 years, you're plan increases that to 50.5 years. A 1% drop in global gasoline consumption will make little difference in pollution or CO2 emissions, as economic growth over the years will increase pollution and emissions. I don't see what a 5% or 10% decrease in gasoline consumption, and the sacrifice of higher taxes would accomplish. Is someone in 2200 going to look in the history books and see that a 1% reduction in gasoline consumption made some big change in the world? I don't see it.
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Replying to: kernick (Nov 20, 2008 3:02 pm) A federal gas tax would make it clear the U.S. was determined from now on to reduce oil consumption. That's a game changer for all these "business as usual" suppliers (and extractors in the case of the places with nationalized oil companies).
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 20, 2008 8:14 am) you know whatever would replace it would end up costing the man on the street more. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 3:33 pm) You said you were glad prices went down so you could pay your fuel bill but at the same time you are suggesting we increase the price of gas at the pump? How will that effect the working poor? How will it effect people on a fixed income? How will it effect transportation? How will it effect car sales? In each case it will have a negative effect. Isn't that a bit like Marie Antonette saying if they have no bread let them eat cake? Higher fuel cost equal higher food cost and higher transportation cost. It will even increase the cost to operate local services as each service from police to fire will have to decide if they want to pay for fuel or personnel. It doesn't matter to the suppliers if we tax our fuel 8 bucks a gallon as long as someone somewhere will buy it from them. England is living proof of that. And the US is ten times more mobile than England. I don't like $4.00 fuel and I wouldn't like any politician that suggested it. In fact I would vote against any politician if they ran on a platform of increased fuel taxes. Our very lifestyle would be lowered to that of our less fortunate cousins in other parts of the world. No we have seen the effects of higher fuel prices and "none" of your suggested benefits came to pass.
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