[wader]

So now we know: The price point is $4.

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall.

The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable. Everything has a price point. Remember that "love affair" with SUVs? Love, it seems, has its price too.

Unfortunately, instead of hiking the price ourselves by means of a gasoline tax that could be instantly refunded to the American people in the form of lower payroll taxes, we let the Saudis, Venezuelans, Russians and Iranians do the taxing for us -- and pocket the money that the tax would have recycled back to the American worker.

This is insanity. For 25 years and with utter futility (starting with "The Oil-Bust Panic," the New Republic, February 1983), I have been advocating the cure: a U.S. energy tax as a way to curtail consumption and keep the money at home. On this page in May 2004 (and again in November 2005), I called for "the government -- through a tax -- to establish a new floor for gasoline," by fully taxing any drop in price below a certain benchmark. The point was to suppress demand and to keep the savings (from any subsequent world price drop) at home in the U.S. Treasury rather than going abroad. At the time, oil was $41 a barrel. It is now $123.

this seems like a good idea - anybody find any "holes" in this?

This post edited by wader 02:43 PM 06/09/2008

 

[jpd]

wader wrote:

this seems like a good idea - anybody find any "holes" in this?

Just that it's too late, and payroll taxes would never go down as a result.

 

[MakoMike]

By "payroll taxes" he means Social Security, and if you believe that the government would ever reduce the FICA tax, I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

In fact all they ever done is raise social security taxes and they are still talking about raising them more.

Besides if the U.S. did that what would stop OPEC from reducing output to force the price to the "floor" taking the tax for themselves?

 

[SORTIE]

while there are certain obvious signs, there's still a lot of people driving around with no sensitivity to the cost of fuel

how are we planning to 'dispose' of millions of unwanted SUVs?

LMAO whenever I see a TV ad touting the latest Tahoe or Ford SUV...who the **** is buying these things?

Bueller?

Bueller?

anyone?

 

[SinkerBouncer]

SinkerBouncer wrote:
Demand pushes the cost of oil up, not oil companies

Don?t get me wrong, Big Oil is in the right place at the right time but they are making a ?commission? as the cost of oil spirals up. The price per barrel will continue to climb as China, India and other rapidly developing countries compete with us for the oil. When oil is $ 150 a barrel in a couple of years then we will look back and say oil was cheap in ?06.

Who is really reaping this windfall? It?s our oil exporting ?friends? in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and the rest of OPEC. No one is going to car pool, buy a compact car or do anything else to use less gas ? unless they are forced to. The only way to get people to use less gas (this is the part you?re all going to love) is to make it more expensive to buy. If the government put a $ 2.00 / gal tax on domestic gas sales then people would stop buying gas guzzlers and then Detroit would scramble to build the fuel efficient cars that the public would demand. The government would get the extra revenue, instead of the Arabs (I wonder what they are doing with all that money). The tax would be phased in gradually over 3 ? 4 years to give Detroit and the public a chance to gear up for the changes. The extra tax revenue would go back to the public in the form of tax credits for gas for lower income people.

It?s not my idea. Tom Friedman of the NY Times came out with it a few months after 9/11. It makes more sense now then ever.

1/31/2006 11:42 AM

This post edited by SinkerBouncer 03:53 PM 06/09/2008

 

[MakoMike]

SORTIE wrote:
while there are certain obvious signs, there's still a lot of people driving around with no sensitivity to the cost of fuel

how are we planning to 'dispose' of millions of unwanted SUVs?

LMAO whenever I see a TV ad touting the latest Tahoe or Ford SUV...who the **** is buying these things?

Bueller?

Bueller?

anyone?

No doubt sales of SUVs are waaaay off, but some people do "need" them. If you had 4 or 5 kids you would need an SUV or mini-van just to get the whole family from point A to point B, and loaded mini-vans aren't much better than gas than SUVs.

 

[Scott1280]

My favorite Line:

Charles Krauthammer wrote:
Herewith concludes my annual exercise in futility. By the time I write next year's edition, you'll be paying for gas in bullion..

I don't recall if I read it or saw it on TV but the comment was made that here we are looking to the Saudi's to increase priduction to lower out prices, but we don't look to ourselves, the Third Largest Producer of Oil in the World, to do the same. Doesn't God help those who help themselves???

 

[mesinger]

ill buy one

cant wait another year or two of this ill get to buy the H2 I always wanted real cheap...and since my commute is only a mile I will rule....and its only 7 miles to my boat...and my insurance will be cheap cause no one will want to steal it and it will be the biggest car on the road and last but not least...

Hot Chicks will think I have alot of Cash...as for all the other suvs....we can make a reef

 

[SORTIE]

MakoMike wrote:
SORTIE wrote:
while there are certain obvious signs, there's still a lot of people driving around with no sensitivity to the cost of fuel

how are we planning to 'dispose' of millions of unwanted SUVs?

LMAO whenever I see a TV ad touting the latest Tahoe or Ford SUV...who the **** is buying these things?

Bueller?

Bueller?

anyone?

No doubt sales of SUVs are waaaay off, but some people do "need" them. If you had 4 or 5 kids you would need an SUV or mini-van just to get the whole family from point A to point B, and loaded mini-vans aren't much better than gas than SUVs.we have become so sissified as a nation. when I was growing up, there were four kids in my family, five in my wife's. neither family had anything larger than a station wagon (with rear-facing seats in the cargo area). My Pikermobile still has these rear-facing seats - they're very popular with my daughter and her friends!

 

[wader]

let's get offf the SUV/truck topic

what about the idea of a gas tax that holds the cost @ $4 bucks or some arbitrary number & recycles the money back into the US economy instead of over seas?

If it changes consumption habits & at the same time keeps the money here I'm not sure what's wrong with it. Especially if we are going to be paying that money anyway.

Makes more sense to pay it back to us - no?

 

[MakoMike]

wader wrote:
what about the idea of a gas tax that holds the cost @ $4 bucks or some arbitrary number & recycles the money back into the US economy instead of over seas?

If it changes consumption habits & at the same time keeps the money here I'm not sure what's wrong with it. Especially if we are going to be paying that money anyway.

Makes more sense to pay it back to us - no?

But it won't work unless OPEC agrees. Otherwise they can just cut back production so that the market price equals the floor and uncle Sam gets no tax and they get it all. The way for Uncle Sam to profit from all of this is to open up U.S. drilling adn then collect royalties on the production.

 

[bluefish69]

refineries

Does anyone know what percentage the refineries are working at? Maybe we should build a few new ones. the oil companies can afford them but won't build them. There is crude oil to be refined but big oil is choking the supply at the refinery level so they can raise the price. The news tonight said high oil prices till the end of 2009. The PB I work on takes 150- 175 gal. at a time she holds 800 gallons. The ride home from SHB has had less traffic even on weekends.

 

[PaddleOn]

.[/quote]we have become so sissified as a nation. when I was growing up, there were four kids in my family, five in my wife's. neither family had anything larger than a station wagon (with rear-facing seats in the cargo area). My Pikermobile still has these rear-facing seats - they're very popular with my daughter and her friends!
[/quote]

You got that right 100%
This nation has become a bunch of pansy ass little crybabys who want more...more..more...
Sissified made me smile because that is exactly what this nation has morphed into.
This generation knows nothing of hardship and being without.A spoiled bunch of soft weak limp wristed little brats that moan n groan and ***** n complain if their "cable" is out or their car doesn't start...
God forbid they open the hood and actually understand how the **** thing works

Change a tire???
No way these soft pansy asses get dirty and change a basic!

This country has become soft and needy.
Lots of overweight lardasses sitting around allowing their lawns to be cut and their wives to sit home as the "cleaning womam" cleans the home as wifey goes shopping...