Nice discussing this with you.
Many of you know how much I like political cartoons. Here are some relevant to this topic.
It is a shade under $10 here (?1.54 a Litre) in Ireland. And our public transport is mostly very poor so we are very car dependent. So even driving mid sized cars here hurts. If you can afford a post 2008 Diesel you’ll get cheap road tax and around 50mpg, but you need to be able to afford our new car prices (Lots of tax, and tax on tax…)
$4 per gallon becomes less acceptable than the higher European price when you consider the following. We have greater traveling distances both for our selves and our goods. We have less available public transportation. We have less support by the govt. for higher mileage diesel alternatives. We have the added personal expense of health care costs. We have the longer work week to attain our higher productivity.
In general, I feel we are subject to higher costs in other areas which puts greater pressure on our transportation costs.
In my humble opinion, some of those issues sound like the results of choices we make, not conditions that are inflicted upon us. You don’t have to choose to live far from your job, or the nearest market. You don’t have to buy goods that are shipped from far away places. When is the last time you went to a farmers market for your produce? Everyone pays for healthcare, whether they do it through taxes or through health insurance premiums.
We get the government we deserve, and the great thing about the USA is that we have a large degree of local rule. If you want short commuting distances or decent public transportation, you can choose to live in a place that has those things. Many people live in places with adequate mass transit, but choose not to use it because it takes longer to get where you are going.
I believe everything we do, especially our lifestyle choices, are within our control. If Nixon could go to China, and Dallas can have light rail mass transit, why can’t people like you and me subsist on locally and regionally produced goods?
I will admit Whitey I haven’t read all posts to this thread.Most are extremely long and ramble on.
I don’t believe democracy will survive in the Middle East. We {the USA} attempted this before in Iran. The Ayatollah and his huge fanatical muslim base took over.
Would I like to see it happen? Sure. Saudi Arabia is flourishing with out a democratic or republic rule. Same for China.
The USA is pretty much split 50/50 politically. Is this good or bad? If a strong dictator emerged and had a strong following,it could even happen here.
In Iran, we installed a leader. In Libya, we are supporting rebels who started out on their own. In Tunisia and Egypt, they didn’t need out help at all. I hope you can see the differences. It’s a movement that is spreading on its own, whether we help or not.
I am against nation building myself, and I was against invading Iraq from the start for that reason, among others. I respect your belief, but based on what I’ve seen, it’s happening this time without our help.
hopefully for the better Whitey. I think the big change we are experiencing is a result of the internet .
When I lived overseas,I was amazed at how many people thought the western states in the USA was still the" Wildwest." The internet has opened everyones eyes.
Oh, Mark, you do a fine job of playing the martyr.
Since you don’t know, please allow me to explain how moderation works in this forum.
If one person flags your post as inappropriate, your post stays alive. It might lose all formatting, and I believe this is a software glitch. If a second person flags it, it is moved to the moderation queue, where it is eventually reviewed by someone who works for Car Talk. If it is deemed inoffensive, it gets restored. If there is something in it that is deemed offensive, it stays down.
I believe it is Car Talk’s goal to make the forum self-moderated, and that means some people do abuse the ability to flag posts as inappropriate, but the Car Talk lackeys have the power to prevent that from happening by restoring your posts, and they obviously choose not to. Perhaps reasonable people have determined your posts are offensive based on an objective perspective.
Although this forum is made up of more liberals than conservatives, you will find both groups are represented. As for your “Jew bashing” remark, I would like to know who in this forum has done such a thing. Can you please point to the specific posts in which this Jew bashing has occurred so I can flag these posts as inappropriate?
Accusing anyone of bashing Jews is a serious charge, so I sincerely hope you can back it up. I would hate to think you are using the accusation of antisemitism to leverage your position. I, for one, knew nothing of your religious views until now, and I doubt anyone else did either. I also had no inclination of your political views until now.
The cause of democracy seems to making progress now in Yemen.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/04/24/yemen.president.exit/index.html
Unless you can still home all day, never go on vacation, don’t need to shop for groceries etc. the question is mute. Bottom line is you pay what they charge, no matter how high.
Sell the house in the suburbs, or farm. Move to the city close enough for public transportation and sell the car(s). Until you can do that, you pay whatever you have to pay.
While the high prices hurt, the pain is much less severe if you have a car in the driveway that gets 30+ mpg. If you don’t have such a vehicle, you need to reconsider your “inventory” of vehicles available for you to drive. We are heading for $5.00 a gallon, and I don’t expect prices to drop that much even if Gadafi is gone, and things settle down in the middle east. High gas prices are going to be a fact of everyday life.
A mute question is one that is silent. A question that is of little or no practical value or meaning, or purely academic, would be “moot.”
Sell the house in the suburbs, or farm. Move to the city close enough for public transportation and sell the car(s). Until you can do that, you pay whatever you have to pay.
What you describe is exactly what Americans did during the industrial revolution.
Fuel prices actually went down last week, so your prediction of $5/gallon gas might not come to fruition. Every time fuel prices go up like they have, people try to jump to make the most dire predictions possible. What we see throughout history, however, is that fuel prices settle back down to where they were before the crisis began.
History can teach us a lot.
So what’s keeping you from going 80 MPH in you Accord? The person in the SUV feels that his/or time is worth more than the few bucks he/she will save at the pump. It’s an individual call.
Fuel prices actually went down last week, so your prediction of $5/gallon gas might not come to fruition
Some places in CA are seeing $4.50. So it’s possible. Here in NH we’re $3.99
Of course they complain about it. People complain about the cost of a postage stamp to move a letter literally thousands of miles in a few days, for less than a 50 cent piece too. Imagine the cost of delivering it by hand?
Would I like to see it happen? Sure. Saudi Arabia is flourishing with out a democratic or republic rule. Same for China.
What do you mean by flourishing…Economically…YES…Socially…NO…
I’m not convinced that China is a responsible country that I trust.
It looks like Syria is getting into the action too.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/04/25/syria.unrest/index.html?hpt=T1
This reminds me of something I saw in the grocery store yesterday. I saw California oranges in the produce section of my local grocery store … IN FLORIDA! Why do Floridians need California oranges, when we can grow oranges in our own back yards?
Avocados I can understand. Florida’s avocados are a totally different species than the avocados that come from California, but what’s so special about California’s oranges that you can’t get with Florida’s oranges? They were even the same type of orange (navel oranges)!
Instead of paying $4.50 for California oranges, I paid $3 for Florida oranges. I guess that extra $1.50 is the cost of transporting them across the country.
When the cost of a stamp goes up, it doesn’t immediately affect the cost of everything else as transportation costs do.
I’m not so sure about that. The cost of a stamp is a cost of transportation (of an epistle), and ripples all the way through the cost of shipping anything via the USPS, including things like bank statements and checks. Do you think the bank is going to absorb the additional cost of mailing statements and checks? No, they will find a way to pass it on to folks like you and me. It’s just not in our face, like the cost of filling the tank is.
If you order anything on the internet, even if you think you are not paying for shipping, you are. Suddenly the books you buy on Amazon include $4.99 for shipping and handling instead of $3.99, or the things that have free shipping cost an extra dollar.
When the cost of postage goes up, it’s not as “in your face” as fuel prices, but trust me, it’s there. Fortunately, there are ways to opt out and avoid it, like electing to get your bank statements online, and buying stuff at a flea market instead of eBay.