Posted on 03/04/2005 6:26:18 AM PST by Crackingham
Try 1.5 million.
Sorry, I can't seem to figure out what your answer has to do with my post, and the post of yours that it was directed to.
How about a little bet on where the price of oil will be at the end of this year. I say it will be around $35.00 a barrel. A case if cyber beer, whatever you're drinking is the wager. Give me a number where you think oil will be at the end of 2005.
Good luck.
“Why don't we just tax gasoline a bit more so that consumption goes down.” You say.
The government thinking for the people does not work. Have German tobacco taxes reduced the use of tobacco? However, Germany did discover the catalytic converter a DECADE after the US, unleaded fuel a DECADE after the US. Here’s a little fact for you. My Jeep SUV (1995) with a 5.2L V-8 uses a little more than a 1978 BMW 520 I once had. In the long run technology will solve the problem. Hydrogen, battery, hybrid or whatever which partially already exist will replace the conventional Otto engine.
What will your thinking bring? Disaster. Even in Germany, you’re completely dependent on the car for mobility. Without it, you may find yourself in a “Dorf” with little to buy or do. The whole state subsidized public transportation only works in major metropolitan areas and even then is a big hole the government pumps money into year after year. Modern housing development is more suburb and spread out. People work in Frankfurt but live in Bad Homburg. Though the German politician sold you a good lie so that they can rob you a bit more, these taxes are UNsocial, and have NOTHING to do with environmentalism.
Explain how I as an Alaskan living in a snowy place that gets to -70F with gravel roads am supposed to function with your high priced fuel? Do you want to have a bus to drive 2 kids 30 miles one way for school?
“Isn't it amazing that China will soon have higher fuel efficiency standards than the US?” You say.
Oh-more of this BS from you guys. So-Who had recycling first? You copied the whole concept from us. However today you typically go stupid and instead of making it a profitable and functioning system you create a “Gruene Punkt” that is running deficits and is BS. Much of the trash ends up on the dump anyway, some gets burned and it’s so costly that the Germans take their trash and ship it around the earth to Indonesia to be dumped. By the way, who had scrubbers first? Oh-the US. You burn the cheapest coal there is and because Nuclear power is taboo you build more coal burning plants! You’re insane.
Oeko crap we don’t care for. We don’t want our economy to implode such as yours. We don’t want to live in a socialist world where the state manages your life for you. It’s a sick outlook on life that is economically dysfunctional.
“Why is a country so focused on independence, so blind to its oil addiction? with our greatest enemies as the big suppliers.” You say
Ammmm, read where Germany gets its oil from. The Middle East. By the way-Europe imports 2/3 of its consumption. We import 1/3 of our consumption. Most of our oil is domestically produced (Alaska, Texas, Gulf….). The 1/3 that is imported is from Venezuela (Our major foreign supplier) and elsewhere. Only a small portion comes from the Middle East, unlike you.
Typical German-blind ideology. Central though. Only the “Vater Staat” can solve the worlds problems. A market with supply and demand? What’s that? Watch, in 10 years you will see many changes in the automotive industry and this will come WITHOUT Schroeders divine hand helping it along. As prices go up certain technology becomes cost effective, more is spent in R&D for alternatives and the consumer will change his purchasing criteria. Forcing this with legislation and taxes (To think for the consumer and market) is BS. It’s eyewash which will bring little to nothing.
But rest assured, as you pay $4.50 a gallon for fuel the airplanes at your airports are tanking 128,000 pounds of JP4 (Cheap fuel that burns dirty) at maybe 30 cents a liter and have NO catalytic converter, soot filter or anything else. Has Joschka got his new 600SEL at governments expense? Has he refused to fly with his government Airbus?
I would not criticize the US policy if I were you. It’s a more level handed and market driven way of looking at things. It’s not a class system as in Germany where "some" have exceptions (If the car belongs to the business etc) other get it paid for by the state and the majority of people are forced to drive their new version of a Trabant, the SMART car. In the US we don't go for that kind of thinking. There are a few liberals who see the virtue in how you do it, but they are the minority.
Red6
WOW!!!
What does it take to get out of the rocks?
It's silly not to drill in ANWAR, but the cynical side of me wonders just how much that would effect the price of gasoline. Just wondering.
The motor and transmission are headed toward 400,000 miles near Topeka, KS.
With the S-bahn it takes 15 minutes to get from Bad Homburg to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.
You know something? In the county where I live in California the roads are in such poor repair you have to drive an SUV to get over the potholes. The anti-freedom activists have hijacked all the highway and road repair funds and used them to campaign ceaselessly against people who drive cars. Its great you drive a motorcycle, but if you hit one of our potholes riding at the limit, you'd be toast.
I don't understand why people hate SUVs they're just cars for crying out loud. The anti-freedom activists hate muscle and classic cars as well, purportedly because they don't get good enough mileage either. I don't care what kind of cars people drive, most conservatives want them to be mobile so they can work, contribute to society and have full happy lives.
Go ahead and use less gas, China is going to buy every last drop you don't use and the price is still going to go up because they have a billion people to our 300 million.
1.5 TRILLION Barrels potential we could tell the rest of the world to go to H*LL!!!!
Sure, they run directly to the Zeil and it's so easy to carry all bought stuff home.
Bad Homburg is still fairly well connected as it's real close and big itself. Yet even there it's unpractical most of the time. Most people do NOT commute with the S-Bahn but rather are found on the A-5 or the B-Strasse in the morning.
Let's say you live in Walldorf (Hessen) and work in Fechenheim F a.M. It takes you 2 to 2.5 HOURS one way to get to work and back. A distance that with a car takes .5 hours. Frankfurt H-bahnhoff is still lots of time away from many destinations in Frankfurt. What is the ride time and schedule to get to the former Hoechst plants in Fechenheim from the HBH? Unless you’re a prostitute on Kaiserstrasse, you may still have quite a trip ahead.
In the US it's no better. The public transportation myth is a waste of time and money. Here too we are not really environmental. Why? Well, even the electric trains produce pollution, just the pollution is generated far away in a power plant somewhere. Ever see half of the routes these trains run? They are way under max. capacity. You need to have lots of passenger volume to justify a train/bus so look at the schedule at nights. You may find yourself with an hour of wasted time just waiting for your ride to show up. Some routes shut down all together.
Modern Germany is ruled by ideology. The 68ers are in power. They are in their courts, media, schools, and government. The policies in defense, economics, security (BGS, BND, BVS), social programs and more are a reflection of the values of this generation and people. Public transportation was free in some former East block republics when they were under communist rule. If the public transportation net in Germany were not subsidized, they too would be out of business within a year.
Even in Germany you see the people move out of the big cities. The people live in Walldorf, Bad Homburg, and elsewhere. This sprawl is found in the US too. It’s the death sentence to mass transit. People live in Plano and Frisco but may work in down town Dallas. The new housing developments are sprawling out. People like their space and privacy. You?
But even this is a good example of the German typical “state think”. Hmmmm- well tax the crap out of their fuel, pump millions per year into rail and other public transpo. Yea, that’s the answer! Sorry, I don’t want the same in my country. The state does not know better most of the time. The state thinks like a communist (even ours). There is not bottom line for them. There seldom is accountability.
A perfect German “Vater Staat” knows better example for you. The state determines how many people can study certain fields at the state run schools. Therefore, while Germany had 10% unemployed a few years ago they were still importing programmers from India because they had a shortage. But of course it could never be that the market and this phenomena “supply and demand” can regulate itself. Again, I’d rather not emulate this much better way of operating.
I don’t hate the Germans, but I do think that they have no concept of a “private” economy. The German looks up to the government for every answer. They can’t even comprehend how out of chaos (Which the US must appear as in their regimented minds) can be so successful. They are central thinkers and believe in socialism (Ordentliche Sozial politik). Even the idea that “YOU” are responsible for your own education, retirement, and medical insurance is scary to them.
Red6
We should immediately drill in ANWR and get as independent from Middle East Oil as possible, but unfortunately, we don't have anybody in Washington now to stand up to the environmentalists freaks. As Arnold would say, Washington D.C. are full of "girlie-men"
Methanol is an alcohol, natural gas is methane, not the same stuff..
You seem to be proposing higher gas taxes to go along with higher oil prices. Sounds like a double-screw job on the economy.
Tax-induced efficiency improvement in the US is not going to appreciably lower the global oil price via reduced demand. Raising taxes to further jack the effective price just increases the pain. And sending off more money to the federal treasury is generally akin to tossing it down a rathole.
If prices are going through the roof, those price signals alone should be enough to alter behavior and incentivize new solutions. If you want to talk cutting oil subsidies so that that the price signals are clearer, I can see that, but raising taxes is rarely a sound answer to an economic problem.
Don't know that..
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