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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Mass transit, at least where I live, is a total joke. The increase of rent or house payments at a location closer to work is more than the gas price increase. We're so scattered that carpooling is out of the question and again it goes back to the previous mass transit comment. Here they don’t supply carpooling parking areas so you either have to park in a business lot and risk getting towed or someplace where you risk the vehicle getting broken into. If I had an option that allowed me not to drive I’d take it, but I don’t.

As others have pointed out, it’s not just how much I’m paying at the pump. Delivery services have put notices in the local papers that they’re going to start charging extra for delivers beyond a certain distance. I’ve noticed prices for groceries and other goods are creeping up.

Our household budget use to have a lot left over each month. Now there’s red creeping into various categories, notably gas and food. So it’s not just how much I’m paying specifically for gas but also food, clothing, etc. It’s affecting the entire economy.

How is that sniveling?

This is similar to a conversation last year. I don't know if you're trying to be funny or not, but we are not snivelling. This is having a serious impact on our economy.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Of course it is having a serious impact on your economy. But our gas prizes are (and have "always" been) much higher. Still we have an economy. SO it's not a 1 on 1 link.

(I accidentally typed "tax" instead of gas. What does this mean? (true story))

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

There is any easy way to make sure we don't continue to have this problem. We got to break the oil addiction. Perfect time for El Presidente to step up and say, "Hey these gas prices are crazy, aren't they? Let's do something to make ourselves more fuel efficient and mandate serious fuel-efficiency changes in vehicles sold here over the next x years." I could get behind that.

Heck, I'm against ANWAR drilling, and I would get behind that for short-term relief if it was coupled with reasonable long-term plans to reduce consumption. Unfortunately, I think we'll only hear about more drilling. Don't want to take this on a political side-street though... just wishing out loud.

You also typed "gas prizes". I'd loved to get a prize for buying gas. I'd love the prize to be cheaper gas actually.

Don't your higher petrol prices have much more to do with higher taxes on petroleum products? Maybe I've been seriously misinformed on that, but I thought that was the case.

I'm all for an alternative too, but it's not going to realized overnight. It's going to take a long time (years probably) even if the government dedicated itself to it today.

Well, actually there regularly are games here where people can win a full tank, or they give away 10.000l gas to one town. So in that case, it are gas prizes.

(ok typo )

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Yes the high price is due to taxes. And gas for commercial purposes (farms, industrial, transport...) has less taxes. Still the prices are higher than in the US, while our economy needs it just as much. (maybe a little bit less, because they're somewhat adapted to the gas prices).

And in Belgium, I don't think that much of the tax money is spend to effectively make the economy better. :roll:

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Yesterday I read a business report about the expected hike in oil prices, due to a) overheated Chinese demand and b) limited prospects for production increase. Prepare for the worst.

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

Oh, definitely. I even said it was a long-term solution. It just boggles my mind that we cut tax incentives to buy alternative fuel vehicles each of the last three years and, back in 2001 (after 9/11 I think), the administration got rid of, or lowered, the future fuel-efficiency standards that had previously been set under Clinton (which were already very modest to begin with). [Edit to add: I think the alternative fuel vehicle tax-breaks have been dissolved altogether for cars purchased after 2004 now. It might not go away until 2005, there seems to be some confusion in the sources I've read.]

We need to get realistic and realize that demand is going to sky-rocket in the next two decades and if we do nothing to reduce our own consumption we will be hurting. Badly. Additional petroleum drilling and processing capacity won't really help us much once China and India really start to ramp up demand. We need increased processing capacity, alternative energy supplies and reduced consumption if we don't want to hit too bad of an economic speed bump. And the sooner we start the better-off we'll be down the road.

Well here in the Vancouver area, prices are up around a dollar per litre now. Filling up the Cherokee hurts a bit now! Mind you, there is a very large percentage of taxes in that price. If you head out of the city about an hour you can get gas at 80-85 cents/litre.

On a side note, a few years back when gas prices started going up, I heard a report at how the transit system here actually started losing more money because more people started taking transit. The transit authority essentially relies on the gas taxes for funding and if the consumption goes down, they lose out, despite increased ridership. Thats a real head scratcher. :-?

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Earth First! We'll mine the rest later.

Whoops sorry.

China and India are definately turning into black holes for all sorts of good.

Not entirely that easy. We have to expend a lot of bomb tonnage to keep the price so low. Keeping people under your thumb is a lot of hard work.

(Hunkering down to prepare for ballistic responses - pun intended).

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

But that's the point. They always have been much higher. You're used to it. But if your gas suddenly went up drastically, and in turn, caused everything else, including food to go up, it would impact you. I suppose someone in AFrica could find an Internet cafe and tell you to quit snivelling, but no one has said we have it worse than anyone else. We're just responding to a crappy situation.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

The irony is that, even if true, we would be the worst at this kind of activity since the actions of the U.S. in Iraq have actually reduced overall production. Iraq still isn't even to pre-Gulf War II levels, let alone anything like they pumped out in the '80s or '90s.

Scifi Chick:

Of course it will have an impact.
I have never said you were snivelling.

I said the US still had some slack before their economy got killed, because we have shown for years that you can run an economy with higher gas prices too, and even stay on the market together with the US economy with its lower gas prices.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I realize you didn't say I was snivelling. But you responded to my post to snowcelt regarding the snivelling, so I was still on that track.

I just don't understand why every time this subject comes up, the Brits and the Canadians can't wait to come on and talk about how their prices have always been more. What is your point? We know this. I'm all for raising gas prices over time in a controlled manner. It's these random jumps that suck. And Congress comes up with brilliant ideas like extending daylight savings time as a solution. :roll:

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."