Electric Cars And Oil Prices

MJ,seen one at an airshow,that seemed flyable slower then that,that thing would fly sideways at low speed(it was a comic routine about a simple grounds keeper)

Without flaps, about the only way to “brake” a Cub is to sideslip it. If you are approaching a landing field and you are too high, diving to the runway makes the plane pick up speed and then the speed makes it hard to land, so you scrub off excess speed by kicking the rudder over to one side but giving it opposite aileron to keep it from rolling. This cross controlled situation increases the drag and slows the plane down or allows a steep approach without picking up excess speed.
High wing planes like the Cub have a lot of yaw-roll-pitch coupling, the rudder makes the plane bank and dive as well as turn.

^ Start looking for a farmer's field, a golf course, or a straight stretch of highway. A cub stalls at 40 or so...get a 10 mph headwind and that drops to 30 across the ground. A whole lotta places to set her down at that speed.

Just be aware that power lines are nearly invisible from the air.

Some years back a farmer from SW OK flew a 1937 Aeronca in for a local airshow. No doors on it and his wife wasn’t exactly petite.
This was the plane (Chief I think) that had a 30 something horse 2 cylinder engine with a stall speed of something like 35 MPH and resembles a guppy.

From his farm to the airport here it’s about 180 miles as the crow flies and he said it took 7 hours of flight time due to headwind with the plane at times drifting backwards.
He also said it took him the entire pasture to get airborne; barely clearing the fence at the end.

Seen “off road diesel”@$1.89 yesterday.

The reason “off road” diesel is cheap is because it’s un-taxed, that’s also why using it for road vehicles is illegal. The red dye in the fuel makes it easy for authorities to catch truckers that try to use it to save money, if caught, they face tax evasion charges.

On Road Diesel around here is $2.60

Baltimore averages are $2.33 for regular unleaded and $2.55 for diesel.

@BLE,i think the fine around can be as high as 10K,plus economic gain(which is PURE BS!) but that is the Common poorth,(whoops Commonwealth) called VA.

I have a gallon of ethanol free 4-stroke fuel for lawn mower use, and on the can it states “not legal for highway use”. I assume it’s mostly because it’s un-taxed. However, no one is going to use this high priced fuel in a car to save money. The retail price makes it sort of self enforcing.
By the way, this fuel doesn’t even smell like gasoline, it sort of smells like Coleman lantern fuel.

Electric cars do run on un-taxed energy, for the time being, the small percentage of cars on the road that run on electric power is not going to be an issue. But if EVs really catch on and become the norm, this issue is going to come to a head. Roads don’t build themselves you know. Even the unprecedented good gas mileage of modern cars is putting a strain on road funding and there has been legislative talk in our state about taxing vehicles per mile driven, essentially turning every road into a toll road. I don’t think the idea went anywhere but it is an issue that states are going to have to face in the future.

the same mountainbike: During the “gas shortage” of 1973 in Oregon we suffered 10 gallon limits and stations with no fuel and no jobs. My buddy and I got job offers in California and went for it. We spent the night in Coos Bay getting our 1973 Pinto in “pole position” at the gas station before dawn. The station owner pointed out the low riding tanker ships in the harbor that could not unload their gasoline due to the holding tanks being full. We crossed the California border and they had no knowledge of a gasoline shortage! Lies! Lies! and more Lies! It is only worse today!

I pay taxes on my electric utility bill. They aren’t as high as my gasoline taxes, and I see no reason to increase my utility taxes to subsidize electric cars. We do need to increase taxes for highway construction and repairs. The money has to come from somewhere. It might be tolls (user taxes) or fuel taxes, but we have to pay our way as we use the money and not pass the bill on to our children.

Jt, the money exists already. Only it’s being used for other purposes, like “green initiatives” to impoverished countries, multimillion dollar research grants to study bovine flatulence, and other pandering to special interest groups. There is no revenue problem. There’s a spending problem.

It’s a fallacy to say that we have to keep praising taxes for everything. It’s like getting caught in a giant whirlpool… that’s funneling into a porcelain bowl. It looks only at the cost of the “goal” without considering how current tax revenues are being used.

The Federal Highway Department budget was over $40billion in 2008. Add that to all the billions (trillions?) of dollars in taxes collected by the states as gas taxes etc. for the purpose of highway funding, and the portion of the property taxes taken by the towns for local roadways, and I’m not convinced we need to pay more taxes to support our roads and highways. However, I do know that huge amounts of that money is routinely diverted for special interest projects (billions will go into a totally unnecessary and unwanted rail system here in NH that nobody will use; we ha done years ago and nobody used it, so it shut down) and the problem becomes obvious.

If all federal expenditures but DoD, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid were eliminated, we would still have a huge shortfall. Those all seem untouchable. We are paying the lowest taxes since the Eisenhower administration, and still we can’t make ends meet. Cutting a few programs here and there and becoming more efficient won’t do the trick. Balancing the budget requires (absolutely requires) increased revenues, AKA taxes. The problem is so sever that it requires significantly increased taxes.

@jt6sanders I agree! On my last holiday in France I paid $2.50 per LITER! for gas, or about $9.50 per US gallon. These high prices are the norm in most of Europe and Japan.

US tax (except for business taxes) levels are simply too low compared to the rest of the developed world. Balancing a budget always involves looking at the expense side as well as the revenue side. George Bush Jr. financed the 2 trillion Iraq war with a…tax CUT!

I know a personal finance (credit) counsellor who helps people whose spending is out of control. We could use someone like that at the federal level. A never mentioned deed of Napoleon was his reigning in the Royal Extravagance and balancing France’s books in a matter of just over two months!

Trouble is the higher taxes will fall almost entirely on the middle class. The wealthy won’t pay because they pay for lobbyists & lawyers to loophole their way out of paying. The poor won’t pay because they don’t have it to pay (blood from a turnip rule). Clever people will just go work “under the table”, freelancing in lawncare, home improvement, etc.

I personally wouldn’t mind paying more IF I believed everyone else were paying their fair share and it were clear what we were getting in RETURN for our tax dollars. It always seems that I made too much money to qualify for the tax credits, benefits, and incentives I hear / read about, and of course I don’t make enough money to benefit from the strategies that benefit the wealthy (would cost more in legal fees than what I would save in taxes).

@EdFrugal Yes, closing loopholes is part of a sound tax system. That goes for individuals as well as companies.

Keep in mind the rich DO pay for more than their "fair share"in taxes. The top 20 % of earners pay 84% of federal income tax. That includes corporations.

Well B.L.E.,I could be wrong,but I always figured that tax by the mile would be a fair way to do it,it would do away with that crazy dyed fuel business for example and the trucks that spent as many miles on the job as on the road would automatically get a tax break,I know there would be a few issues,but the technology exists to do it now(might cost a few jobs,with less bureaucracy)but it might require every vehicle to have a system like OnStar,but its doable(gps would take care of the off road miles-ezpass would take care of the rest,it might actually encourage people to drive less,seeing the direct correlation between taxes and miles driven)who knows?May work.

The only excuse for a by the mile tax is the fear of raising gas taxes. I see no good coming from creating a whole new agency to track my miles. And the gas tax is the exact right thing to encourage better mpgs - better mpgs = less tax paid.