I am so sick of being compared to Europe. The US is vastly different than Europe in many ways. One is the distance needed to travel to get goods across the area. We do not have a train system as connected as Europe. There are no where NEAR the tractor trailers on the road there. They don’t consume as many gallons of gasoline that we do. There is no reason we should have the same gas price if the almighty supply and demand rule applies. So we are supposed to sit back, consume how many times more the gas and still say “Well, it’s not as bad as Europe. Too bad I don’t have a train to jump on”.
AMEN!
Trains in the US were regulated and unionized out of existence in the 50s-60s-70s ... I am surprised that they were able to survive at all. (I did a master’s paper about the problems) I really didn’t expect that any US trains would be able to survive this long.
Thank the ICC and unions for this.
I know that we are not Europe and share your resentment of being told we should be more like Europe when in reality they should be more like us. BUT Europe is a fairly large area (look at a map) and has lots of people (more than the US) and uses trucks to haul all their stuff around (they don’t transport a lot on bicycles). My point was not that $4 gas is not financially painful; it was simply to point out that we have it better than they do. And that $10 gas is not the end of the world but something with which people can learn to cope. The buses in our area are still running near empty. On the other hand, I saw my minister on a bicycle the other day.
What I resent is the politicians who are satisfied to keep it that way by blocking exploration for more domestic fuel, by blocking the greater use of coal, and by proposing pie-in-the-sky “alternatives” as if that would solve our problem in the short run.
Look, if tomorrow General Motors produced a car that ran on water, it would not solve our gasoline problem. There are about 250 million cars in the US. How many people are willing and able to immediately scrap their old cars (for zero value, remember they run on gas) and buy a new car? Look around you. The worldwide auto industry could not even replace all the cars we have in less than 15 years! So those “alternative” energy sources - none of which have yet to be produced commercially – are not going to provide an answer for a generation. Meanwhile the Chuckie Schumers in congress are happy to have you paying through the nose because they are rich and want the votes of the environmental Luddites who want you to freeze in the dark.