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Automotive News & Views Is a Higher Gasoline Tax Good Or Bad For America?
849 messages, Last post on Nov 19, 2009 at 2:22 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: larsb (Jun 01, 2009 10:35 am) First if you do a little research you will find that ARCO has probably spent more on Solar Cell research than any other company. You seem to think it is in the oil companies interest to make the oil last longer. The more gas you burn in the TCH the better the oil companies like it. Why would they want US to use less gas and oil? The reason they spend million on lobbyist is to counter act the millions people like Greenpeace spend on lobbying Congress. Did your article mention how much they have spent trying to put the coal companies out of business. I really cannot believe anyone is so naive as to think that there is an honest person in our Congress. Find me one that does not take contributions from all these different special interest groups. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 01, 2009 1:28 pm) They SHOULD want to make it last longer, thus make the revenue stream continue. Why sell $300 billion worth of oil for ten years then run out, when you can sell $30 billion worth for a hundred years and at the same time be working on and selling alternatives for when the oil runs out? (Mind you, I'm just using the 10 years and 100 years figures to make the math easier. I know we have more years than that left, yada yada.) I did not start this thread from an "article" it was a TV interview BTW. (Don't know how the "lying, cheating Congress" even got into the thread, so I will ignore it since it has no bearing on what I was and am talking about.) If we tax it more, it will make it last longer because people will use less of it. In the meanwhile, figure out what are suitable alternatives you can develop and sell. That's why GM is in so much trouble - no vision for the future.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 01, 2009 1:28 pm) ARCO is now a BP subsidiary. BP is big into solar. |
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Replying to: larsb (Jun 01, 2009 1:40 pm) You brought it in with the crying about the coal and oil people lobbying Congress with $80 million this year. If I am a business man and have the option to sell $300 Billion widgets in 10 years or over 100 years. Only a fool would go for the long haul. Too many things can happen to do what you are saying. I don't think you realize how involved oil companies are in battery development and alternatives. They still have to lobby Congress to protect their businesses from the unscrupulous wannabe outfits that would destroy their business with NO alternatives. GreenPeace does not care if you have gas for your car. They would shut you down in a second if they could pull it off. That is the nature of the group. ZERO GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. I was in Prudhoe when they hauled a bunch of them off the ice half frozen and arrested them for trespassing. They turned their trucks off for a couple hours to block a project. When they decided to leave their trucks would not start. They were U-haul rental trucks. The BP security took mercy on them and hauled them in before they froze to death. That is the mentality of Greenpeace. Dumber than a box of rocks.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 01, 2009 1:51 pm) ( I wish lobbying tactics were outlawed. Didn't the Messiah promise something like that and then renege? ) How the individual Congress members HANDLE those lobbyists is another issue all together. Once again, you are living and walking around with an incorrect, "past tense" impression of an organization in your 25-year-old story about GreenPeace. Regardless of WHO is doing it, anyone trying to lobby Congress (while it's allowed by law) to reduce fossil fuel waste is doing a good thing for you and your grandkids. Tax it more, use less of it I say. |
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Replying to: larsb (Jun 01, 2009 12:01 pm) The U.S. uses about 25% of the world's oil. So do the math. If the U.S. raises the tax to $1,000/gal and we use no oil at all, 100 years of oil then would ONLY last 133 years! But what would happen if the U.S. used no more oil is that the world price would plummet for oil. What does that mean? Oil and gasoline become much more affordable around the world, and people can afford to buy more oil, or people who formerly couldn't buy oil/gasoline now can buy a little. So oil consumption would never go down 25% just because the U.S. dropped demand 25%. I say let's become more productive as a people and continue to buy as much oil as we want, outbidding the other people of the world. I have no problem with the U.S. consuming 50% or 75% of the world's oil if we can. That's competition, just like a Monopoly game. |
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (May 30, 2009 6:24 am) Wow that's really magnanimous of you to volunteer giving everyone's else retirement away. I'm sure there might be 100M people or so over the age of 40 who might have a problem with having contributed for 20+ years and being told to expect nothing. You may have given me an idea for a book and film - "The 2nd American revolution, 2025".  And if Obama and future administrations continue to expand government and run us deeper into debt, with resultant higher and higher taxes, you may see unprecendented social unrest beyond anything in the 1960's. People are willing to pay for a service, but they're not willing to pay gas taxes to divert it to pay for other programs - like illegals using medical services, or supporting some foreign country.
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Replying to: kernick (Jun 01, 2009 5:03 pm) I've pretty much ruled social security out of my retirement plan. It'll be nice if it's still there when I retire, and when it most likely isn't, I'll be pretty pissed that I got screwed out of all that money, but what can you do to get it back, other than try to overthrow the gov't?  I don't turn 62 until 2032, so that's a ways off, anyway. I'd rather plan for the worst, and invest like it's not gonna be there. Then, if it still turns out that something is left of SS by the time I can collect, I'll look at it as a bonus. But I'm not gonna bet the farm on it.
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Replying to: kernick (Jun 01, 2009 5:03 pm) Is this based on some entitlement principle or a lack of proper planning on their part? And if Obama and future administrations continue to expand government and run us deeper into debt, with resultant higher and higher taxes, you may see unprecendented social unrest beyond anything in the 1960's I am somehow not worried. The younger generation was totally apathetic towards politics prior to this election, so heres to hoping we start to assume our roles as leaders. As far as "social unrest," I haven't heard any complaining from anyone under about 50-something, with the majority of the "nation of whiners" over 60. They have the AARP gostapo of they are really worried, but I somehow don't see them picking up arms. People are willing to pay for a service, but they're not willing to pay gas taxes to divert it to pay for other programs - like illegals using medical services, or supporting some foreign country. Yeah doing things like randomly attacking countries because we want their oil or we don't like their president or leader - I wonder how much we could do with the money wasted on the Iraq war.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 01, 2009 5:11 pm) Its quite a bit further out for me, but I am roughly in the same boat. Thats why they do things like IRAs and Roth IRAs and 401ks.
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