Changing our Car Culture

We actually don't have nearly the cheapest gas in the world, take a ride to venezuela or saudi arabia.

Free public transit? Who is going to pay for that? Me? I don't think so. A typical city transit bus costs $300,000. Are you going to buy some of those? I'm not. Are you going to pay to have new rail line put in? Or how about the millions of dollars for a typical high speed rail train, such as the Acela. My money already subsidizes amtrak. How much more of my money are you going to take? How about increasing the minimum wage to $25 an hour and then you can buy all the buses and build all the rail lines you want. More people can afford the $40,000 car then can afford the "upgraded" $300,000 bus.

 

More to the point, war legitimizes centralized (read: govenment) planning of capital investment, forces tens of millions of citizens into forced labor at way below minimum wage, and "solves" unemployment.

 

I think Bubba and Bob buy 14 mpg trucks, leading to a drain of capital out of the country that would have allowed growth in wages and jobs.

 

Huge elasticity of demand in oil based transportation. US is 50% less energy efficient than Europe on a per capita and per GDP dollar basis. We could do everything we do now and use 50% less energy to do it.

It is bogus to say shippers do not recoup costs of oil, of course they do or they go out of business. Goods are going to be shipped and transport costs paid.

The gasoline taxes go right back into the economy in form of roads, bridges, mass transit, new industry and jobs (per German example) so the effect is actually positive for the economy. As Eisenhower pointed out and economics demonstrates, military spending is 100% waste. US spends $1.3T per year on military, disastrous oil wars, over last 30 years. THAT is the real drag on the economy. Add to that the $500B per trade deficit from imported oil, a direct tax on US economy. A "tax" that could be eliminated.

If US imposed an "Oil War Tax" to pay off the $5T in debt from oil war spending over the next 10 years and recycled it into energy efficiency technology, industry, jobs and infrastructure, it would be a huge boost to US economy. putting close to $1T per year back into US economy, money that is now currently wasted on oil imports and unproductive military spending.

 

We already do. All of us. We give the government money, and they spend it. And far too much of it on war. Try not paying 25% of your income taxes this year, and tell the government you're not going to pay a war tax.

If sense were common, more people would have some. Forget the democrat/republican red herring - think about what's best for everyone. Think about creative, rather than destructive. Think long term, instead of short term. The world looks very different when you can see beyond yourself.

 

I'm not persuaded cars as a concept is bad. Cars furnish autonomous rapid mobility to the individual, a concept so powerful they're used everywhere mankind can figure out a way to afford them. The car bestows time; with a car we spend more of it doing what we need to do or enjoy doing than frittering it away getting there. The most efficient public transportation system will never beat a car for giving us the most valuable resource of all: time.

Thus I decry the push to public transportation as THE answer to the problems of cars. The biggest problem with cars is what we use to power them; change that to something less environmentally odious and most of what we object to about cars falls away.

Combine that with removing the fallible human as the car's operator and the car's two greatest disadvantages vanish.

 

Damned straight. I hate paying for things I don't use. Let's make the transit users pay for 100% of the transit costs. If they want it, they can pay for it. I shouldn't have to pay for transit on my property taxes, or on the gasoline I buy for my car. Which I paid for! And enough of these stupid subsidies!

Oh, wait. What do you mean drivers only pay half of what roads cost? You want me to pay double?! No way!! Hmm...maybe I like subsidies. I like them a lot. I think I like other people paying for the stuff I use.....

 

I have seen both creative and destructive with my own eyes. I have been all over the world and I can tell you that neither argument, the liberal or the conservative one, makes any sense. And also you do not make less than minimum wage in the military, I should know.

 

That's all well and good, but you still didn't answer the question. Where is the money for all this going to come from? Do you have one of those money trees my mom always asked me about when I wanted a new toy?

 

The same place your subsidized, unrealized full-cost private transport is coming from.

 

Yes, and computers will enable us to use less paper.

To be fair, I'm under no illusions that cars are going to be mandated out of existence any time soon; nor should they be. But we waste more time sitting in traffic, and travelling between things that are placed far apart, and working to afford the cars and paying the taxes that support the auto infrastructure....in the end, overall, I don't think cars save us time at all.

And, I will admit, my own situation is unusual. I work at home, and most things I need on a daily basis are within walking distance. I'm lucky in that my work comes to me, but I chose a profession and a place to live that enables that. Commuting, to me, is a big, frustrating waste of time. I can get around faster on foot in a big, traffic-jammed city than I can by car. Plus, with the exercise I get, I don't need to go to the gym (though I probably should), and I hardly ever go to the doctor. I will likely live longer and healthier than most of my driving peers. Unless I get hit by a car.....

 

Ok so then what your saying is that you are going to take current tax revenue, and then reapropriate it to fund your delusions of grandeur without increasing the amount that is already being taken from my wallet? You should have said that in. the begining, count me in then.

 

You know what happens in a volunteer/mercenary military. War means conscription. I do know.

 

The car giveth and the car taketh away. An efficient mass transit systems restores the time lost. Also time is money, it takes time to make money to pay for gasoline so an hour extra commuting a day listening to audiobook, websurfing etc. might "save" you much more time you'd spend working to pay for car, gasoline etc.

There is a finite amount of space for cars on the road, parking etc. A point we are reaching. 20 lane highways become self defeating.

Love my car and driving but we need much more extensive and efficient mass transportation for larger more concentrated populations. I'm OK with paying for it via my gasoline tax.

 

Glad you are on board.

Course, you may not want to continue your current habits when the price of your consumerism is full-cost without subsidy, and you have to pay for your pollution.

 

Fossil fuel prices will never go down (supply and demand and Hubbert's Peak).

And people will not use less (Jevon's Paradox) until there is no more (Hubbert's Peak).

I have a great idea: let's stop subsidizing big oil!
Then, instead, let's subsidize green energy for just as long as we've been subsidizing big oil and see how much cheaper green energy becomes!

Oh, wait, the Congress wouldn't permit that would they ( h t t p : / / w w w . pricelessmovie.org/air-dates/)?

 

My current habits? You should not assume you know anything about that. If you want to talk about a "culture" that results in global pollution and cheap "habits" at the expense of others then this thread should be about consumer electronics not the automobile.

And you still have not answered the question about funding these delusions of yours. Perhaps you have a money tree as well?

 

Re: Chnaging our Car Culture

Not disagreeing, but when did this 'history' occur. I know of no time when freedom and a free market existed. Would love an example.

 

I see you have selectively edited one of my posts to better serve the first part of your reply. You must work for NBC.

 

Unfortunately, no. What do you think externalized costs are ? What do you think money devaluation to fund oil subsidy, oil imports, and oil wars are if not 'money trees?'