Are You Upset About High Gas Prices?

Michgal, you jest, but I'm not ashamed to say that even a couple years ago this thought was not anywhere near my head. I was an 80 mph left lane guy. I would bet you most people are not actually aware of the relationship between their speed and fuel consumption, or at least have never had reason to think of it.

I don't recall anything in driver's ed (back in the day :-D) besides a series of safety procedures which, operated in conjunction with one another, constituted an action called driving. There was no actual how to drive. You're told to drive the speed limit because that's the law, not because it makes sense, and certainly not because it saves fuel.

Just tonight I took a public bus home, and all I wanted to do was call up the state transportation authority and tell them I could save them 10% in fuel costs overnight...by training their drivers to drive for better economy.

 

There is a huge difference between knowing this in theory, and actually seeing it on an MPG display right in your face.

Without the display, it is out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and easy to rationalize as a very minor factor.

 

The problem we have is that corporate america has directed our choices for decades and most of us don't know it.

They have convinced us that its cool to drive fast. Its safe to drive cars that outweigh the average car by 1500 lbs. They have convinced us that we need a car that does 120 mph. They have convinced us we need a car that does zero to 60 in. 6 seconds.

All of that convincing was done because corporations realized long ago that they could make much more money by providing cheap gas in abundencewith a small profit per gallon than it was took allow gas to be sold for its real worth. Because selling gas at its real worth would have eliminated the entire lower income drivers. It would have been cheaper to take the bus. Big oil could not let that happen. Car manufacturers. Could not let that happen. So they made YOUR. Choices for YOU

 

No amount of increased taxes will keep up with the pace of spending we have had in the last four years.

 

4 years? Might want to start a little earlier than that. Say around late 2001...

 

Yeah but there was some unprecedented shit going down at that time. Then around 03 or 04 and on through 07 the deficit actually went down from a high of around $400 billion to right around $160 billion. As a result of change in the leadership in the House and Senate after the 2006 election along with NeoCon politicians abandoning conservative fiscal policy the downward trend of the deficit was stopped. Today we have a deficit of $1.5 Trillion, spending still out of control and unemployment high! If the spending doesn't stop no amount of taxes will help.

 

What high price of gas?

 

I thought it started going seriously out of control in 1981, when 'tax and spend' was replaced by 'borrow and spend more'.

Some sources are claiming that despite this massive spending, our tax burden as a percent of GDP is the lowest in 50 or 60 years.

 

Easy for you to say . . .

 

wow...

The delta debt/GDP under:

Jimmy Carter: -3.3%
Reagan: +11.3%
Reagan Again: +9.3%
Bush 1: +15%
Clinton: -0.7%
Clinton Again: -9.0%
Bush 2: +7.1%
Bush 2 Again: +20%

Note that the higher the + number, the more the debt grew in percentage of GDP. The higher the - number, the more debt shrunk in percentage of GDP. Notice a trend?

Or to put it graphically:

 

And another snazzy graphic showing republican idiocy below. This one goes back further and shows the gross instead of the change.

 

Well, the annoying part is that some of the American public may not think the mileage is crappy because of the overemphasis of the highest number (highway on non-hybrids), esp. on niche models (e.g. 6MT Cruze Eco being rated 42 mpg highway, while it's 28 city and 33 combined and the 6AT version is 37 highway, but 26 city, 30 combined).

Newbie Prius owners here gripe about "poor" mileage of say 35 mpg (which usually turn out to be short city drives in cold weather) when the above cars aren't even close on the EPA city cycle.

 

YES!! But my anger is offset by my 2010. I have a 1994 Ford Explorer that I have to drive once and a while for work/home improvement projects/snow storms, etc and before I got the Prius, I thought 20+mpg was great for a 17 year old SUV. I had to fill up the tank the other day, $60+ I'm old enough to remember sitting for hours in the family car in line at gas stations during the 70's gas shortages and very happy that I'll be silently cruising past gas stations in my 2010 and the ever climbing prices. Come on Obama, do something already!! :attention:

 

I think a more effective display to use...instead of MPG or L/100km, would be a $/hour display. When people see an In Your Face display of what's coming out of their pockets, especially if it's an instantaneous calculation, they pay more attention that seeing any other type of display.

 

It is my policy to not complain about gas prices. You can't do anything about them. It's like griping about the weather, except when gas prices are high for a long time, people will do it EVERY DAY. It would be one thing if people discussed ways to get better fuel economy, or carpooling, or the cheapest gas stations, the effect on the economy, etc, but 9 times out of 10 it's just "I paid $X to fill up today! Waaah!" What a pointless waste of breath.

It doesn't seem to be as bad this time around, but it was positively unbearable in 2008. I was getting 23 MPG on premium and I kept my mouth shut.

 

So what exactly is he supposed to do?

 

You should, because you're helping to pay for the other guy's big SUV and house. They aren't paying all of the costs of their fuel use: we're paying some of them with our taxes for military protection of foreign oil producers, tax credits for domestic producers, tax credits for weekend warrior vehicles as a "business expense", and higher health care costs because of pollution. They aren't paying all of the costs of their big house: we all are, by subsidizing their mortgage interest deduction with our taxes.

We cannot afford social engineering in the form of welfare for the rich, and we should not be happy about it.

 

Richard .... there is so much more I would like to ... but I'll just leave it at, I completely disagree with you.

Change of subject: What is a "Special Master?"

 

First of all remember President's don't control spending, Congress does. Put this chart back up with which party controlled congress and just to be fair include the 111th Congress figures in also. :yo:

A question to ponder, if the Afghan/Iraq wars along with the "tax cuts for the rich" were responsible for our huge deficits how come from 2004 to 2007 it went down? Please recall that Pelosi and Reid took over Congress in 2007. :nod:



FYI: The 111th Congress under Barack Obama tripled the national deficit in one year. When Speaker Pelosi took over Congress (2007) the national deficit was $162 billion. When she exited in 2011 as Speaker it was $1.4 Trillion dollars.

 

We will be doing the same thing+ under any clean energy plan, that is if we ever come up with one.