The $6.66-a-Gallon Solution

The New York Times ^ | April 30, 2005 | Simon Romero

[pjsbro]

[Erik Latranyi]

Just great, more advice from lemmings in Europe.

[BobL]

Yo. Bad news.

If you do the numbers, you'll see that we are paying pretty much exactly the same to drive on our new toll roads.

To all you guys, don't laugh too hard at Europe, the Republicans in the White House and in Austin (Texas) are shafting us just as bad now.

[mwyounce]

And a right-wing party in Parliament, the Progress Party, once again called for a cut in gasoline taxes, which account for about 67 percent of the price.

So it would be $2.19/gallon without the taxes....

[FreedomFarmer]

Just the nyt, trying to convince us we can be taxed into prosperity.

[Arkie2]

The views expressed by the people in this article are so totally foreign to opinion in the US it's like reading a report from Mars.

To imply that Norway is even remotely a Capitalist state is wrong however. If it weren't for the North Sea oil Norway would be an impoverished socialist backwater of Europe, which is exactly what it will be when the oil runs out.

[Paradox]

"Personally I have no need for a new vehicle; I'm proud to hold on to my own for as long as I can," said Johannes Rode, 69, a retired art and music teacher and owner of a 29-year-old red Volkswagen Beetle in Ramberg, a coastal town in northern Norway. "To do otherwise would be wasteful and play into the oil industry's hands."

What a deluded moron. The "oil industry" would want nother more than to him to hold on to his fuel inefficient old car. Not only that, but his old car probably produces as much pollution as 10-20 new vehicles. Whoever said that Liberalism was a mental disease is surely right.

[RayChuang88]

And you wonder why in Europe a car like the new Toyota Aygo are all the rage:

[lizma]

The right-wing party is the Progress Party????? That tells you a lot right there. Too funny.

[rightwinggoth]

At a pub in Oslo, for instance, a pint of beer might cost the equivalent of $12 and an individual frozen pizza $16.

Who buys frozen pizza at a pub?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Norway is to the United States as a teenage kid who sponges off his parents for the necessities and then uses his own income in a purely discretionary way.

[talosiv]

"To do otherwise would be wasteful and play into the oil industry's hands."

Let's see, I will drive around in a leaky rusting polluting sh*tbox just "not to play into" their hands. Smells like a Jayson Blair quote. -R

[bahblahbah]

Dumbest f'kn idea ever.

[cripplecreek]

What's the deal with Singapore?

[hflynn]

The NYT's uses the word consumption approximately 6 times and the word tax or taxes approximately 10 times.

Not once do they put the 2 words together to explain how Norway gasoline has reached 6.66 a gallon, CONSUMPTION TAX is a way of life in Norway.

[frgoff]

The standard environmentalist mantra:

You must lower your standard of living.

[Hodar]

So it would be $2.19/gallon without the taxes....

Sanity check .... $2.19 is about what gas costs in the USA after taxes. So, this raises my question:

Is Norway buying gasoline from another country, that has already added their tax; and then is adding another massive tax bill? If so, maybe Norway should look into building their own refineries. This simply doesn't make any sense.

[Paladin2]

Closer to: You must lower your consumption, I'm OK Jack.

[MikefromOhio]

And a right-wing party in Parliament, the Progress Party, once again called for a cut in gasoline taxes, which account for about 67 percent of the price.
My calculator says that means there is $4.46 worth of taxes on every gallon of gas on Norway. That means that after taxes, their gas prices are right in line what ours are, AFTER our own taxes....

[Paladin2]

If you plot "personal" consumption as a function of price, you'll see that there is not much correlation. Higher taxes don't result in much less consumption (according to the NYT data).