More BushCo headaches - Gas shortages on East Coast; Plague of locusts to follow

Well, most of us who post here can see that the situation is a problem bigger than what the current administration has or has not done. The Great Unwashed. however, will be led like sheep to slaughter by one of the 2 parties. The Dems will claim it was a Bush failure and the Reeps will claim that it was a problem that needs 10 years or so to correct and they'll blame Clinton for the inaction (slyly making it into an endictment of Democrats in general). Both parties will spin it into "If you vote for them they won't take care of the problem" and act as if it's high on their list of priorities. Once elected, the next President will stuff it into the round file because they don't pay for gas, so they couldn't care less.

 

is that right? i can only assume you've studied these numbers then

last time i checked, the majority of people live in big cities where mass transit is available AND some people are actually smart enough to carpool as well

point being, it is often possible for someone to avoid driving a couple days a week if they so choose

 

Isn't this guy supposed to have a degree in business? Rising energy prices are absolutly nothing like taxes.

 

The analogy being rising fuel prices are like a tax, you've little choice but to pay them. And the pain is most acute among the poor. Does every innocuous statement need to be dissected to the nth degree?

 

Not sure if you have ever wondered where the rent is coming from, but I have been there. You do what you have to do.

My original point, which you apparently missed, is that earlier action might have had the effect of reducing demand and easing prices. The poor are going to be progressively worse off if we do nothing and prices rise to 5-6 bucks a gallon naturally.

If it makes you feel better, perhaps part of the gasoline tax to create an articial floor could actually go back as a low income subsidy for gas.

 

Yes, because they are totally and completly not alike. And by saying it, he is creating an incorrect belief about gas prices and espeically taxes.

 

You right, the poor aren’t in proportionally hurt by high fuel prices.

 

I'm sure he meant to say "I feel your pain."

But seriously, it is nothing like a tax. He was right in that it hits lower income folks and small business owners. Wonder how he figured that out?

 

1) Yea, that first time whipping out the food stamps is a bitch.

2) I'm all for it, and I think that is the root of the floor gas tax proposal. By artificially inflating the price, it will drive demand for more fuel efficiency. We have had threads on hybrid/plug-ins that get 200 to 250 mpg for a whopping increase of .25 cents a day on your electric bill. The possibilities are out there.

3) That is what I am advocating. Set a floor of $4.00 or $4.50 now, and use that money to increase our efficiency and reduce our dependancy. We are heading there anyway, we might as well do it, and be proactive in getting our collective willy out of the oil drum. I like the idea of turning some of that money around as a subsidy for low income.

 

Do taxes do that? Last I checked federal and state taxes were progressive percentage of income.

 

i'm sorry, i'm not just buying your claims on this one

if you have some material to back this all up, i'd be happy to look at it

 

Why did you omit sales taxes? Payroll taxes? Sin taxes? There are plenty of regressive taxes in this country. The analogy is a good one.

 

It rained today

Is BushCo to blame Revolt ?

 

Is food taxed in your state? Which segment of the population uses Medicare and Medicaid most? Individual lower class people might have a higher percent of their checks going to Social Security than rich people, but the lower class, as a whole, is not getting poorer because the money goes back to them.

Not, it just plain stinks. It creates a totally incorrect impression of the current situation.

First it serves to vilify taxes, as if it was a means of taking wealth from each person and then throwing it into a pit and burning it. It isn't. That money goes back to the people, so the wealth of the nation ends up being the same, give or take depending on the efficiency of the govermnent's handling of the money verses private uses. Most of the gas money is going overseas, which makes the overall wealth of America less in the future for the pleasure of using oil now. The effects on our economy is totally different.

Second, it imples that, like taxes, the price of oil might be modified to serve the common interest as seen by our representative govermnet. It can't. Poor people are screwed. There is no way to unscrew them. They are screwed beyond your and my comprehension of screwability.

 

Foggy....

Must be BushCo's fault

 

Everything seems to be zero-sum with you (i.e. your analysis of stock market investment), sorry but I disagree. Excessive taxes aren’t a zero sum gain. They represent an actual drag on the nation’s economy. And believe it or not there are regressive taxes, some mandatory others voluntary.

 

I've worked downtown and for those who work downtown that is true. Most all transit systems in the US are nothing more than downtown transportation systems. The problem is most jobs are not in the central cities, let alone located downtown. For example, Minneapolis and St. Paul have @467,000 jobs between the 2 of them. What the Met Counil calls developed suburbs have 685,000 jobs. What they call developing suburbs have another 400,000 jobs. There are over a million jobs there that for the most part are not transit accesible for most people. More so, the tranist does not runclose enough to their homes for them not to have to drive to catch it. And most cities in the US are going to reflect this. Even the larger metros like LA (18million; less than 4 million in LA proper), Dallas, Atlanta, DC, Houston and Detroit don't have what anyone would call extensive transit systems. And most of their jobs are not in the core cities but in the suburbs where it's even less likely that practical transit service is available.

There are several reasons why car pooling won't work. The main is how do you find out who lives close to each other and also works close to each other and then also has similar hours. Someone who lives on the west side of Savage and works in Bloomington near the the Mall of America may be in to work by 6:00am so they're by 3pm to make sure the kids aren't home alone after school for little if any time. Even if there happened to be someone near here working those hours, the issue becomes time. If the point of getting in early is to get home early, spending an extra 20 minutes in the afternoon car pooling probably doesn't sit well. It may seem like an usual situation but the average commute is the sum of all sorts of situations, many of which are unusual.

That's not to say that this situation can't change in the future. But it's hard to see that happening anytime in the next couple of decades. Even extensive transit projects like Denver's FasTracks still revolve around downtown. The only exception in the case of FasTracks is a line that runs along I-225.

 

My lunch was overcooked

BushCo is at it again !!

 

Yesterday, you said that "ignore" lists were childish. In the context of elimintating opinions that you don't agree with, I would agree with you. You ignored the other possible function, and that is to get rid of posts from people who add zero in either substance or humor. Kind of like setting up a bulk mail to eliminate the spam.

 

If I did that this forum would appear empty to me