The extra taxes you pay for fuel probably pays for your free healthcare. So it isn’t really apples/apples.
in sweden we have 1.44 dollars per litre!
Not exactly, its the national insurance we all (of working age) pay that partly (12%) pays for our (mainly) free health care. Thats the big difference between the US and UK systems. The remainder of the NHS costs are met from general taxation , thats income tax, VAT, business taxes etc.
General taxation will include fuel tax as a very small part of the total as fuel tax is not stictly ring fenced for transportation spending. Indeed it could be argued that the NHS should recieve some fuel tax moneys because so many health conditions are made worse by the pollutants in engine emisions and Road traffic accicdents cost so much to mop up.
Sarah
Re: Re: hey- your still lucky
If this is new information to you this further proves that you have no place posting in any sort of political discussion on these forums, especially when it comes to international issues.
here in NC the price in my area is around 2.57
It went from $2.44 to 2.77 here.
gas is the highest i’ve ever seen it here… $3.29 for regular and $3.50 for premium
2.65 to 3.32 that was the most expensive gas station… the avererage it like 3 25 ish
Chase
we went up from 2.95 to 3.35 in one hour…time to ride everywhere
Gasoline prices in the US are an interesting study. Here is a good link to the BREAKDOWN OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS. This shows what the 42 US gallon barrel of crude turns into, which is some 44 US gallons of products. Take into consideration that crude hit $70US per barrel recently. Also take into consideration that it costs money and takes energy to either refine, distill, or crack these products and that it costs money to transport and distribute them. Gasoline in the US has been and still is artificially cheap. Why is this?
Klaas might be able to give a more realistic idea of what fuel prices should be in certain areas of the world. That is, if they were competitively priced which they clearly are not here.
smaller profit = more home heat this winter?
It’s harder to explain how the CEOs and owners of oil companies manage to draw huge profits from a product they sell so cheap.
They draw huge profits, while Americans try to figure out how much cold they can endure this winter.
These things I cannot explain. Can Klaus or anyone help?
Is there any connection? That is, if oil magnates took a smaller profit, could Americans afford more home heat this winter?
Billy
Bush: Americans shouldn’t buy gas they don’t need."
I just saw Bush on TV saying: “Americans shouldn’t buy gas they don’t need.”
I hope none of you whiners are contributing to this gas price problem by buying gas you really don’t need.
I didn’t know this was happening. But if people listen to Bush, maybe this “problem” will go away.
Billy
Below is the exact quote. Perhaps he thinks Americans are stupid. Perhaps he was talking to himself out loud.
“Americans should be prudent in their use of energy during the course of the next few weeks. Don’t buy gas if you don’t need it.”
come one, cut the guy some slack, in his own charmingly naive and downhome aw shucks kinda way he’s just trying to say ‘don’t stockpile’ without using the word stockpile cause that’ll cause people to …all together now…stockpile
this reminds me of the conundrum faced by the woodstock organisers about the supposedly ‘bad’ brown acid
and how wonderfully ‘Wavy Gravy’ cocked up that public announcement
Ya gas prices suck up here in Minnesota too, at about $2.99 per gallon right now. I hate it especially since I have a 8 cylinder mustang that consumes a decent amount of gas, about 20miles per gallon if I don’t floor it too often. But at least I don’t have a stupid SUV that sucks down almost twice as much!! Guess I’m about in the middle of the average miles per gallon (maybe a slight lower than average?).
As much as the gas prices suck, I’ve heard many people say this is a good thing for several reasons. One so that Americans can cut back with the luxory of driving everywhere and anywhere even when not neccesary. Two that it’s best for the enviroment if more people stop using their cars. Third to make Americans start to buy more efficient, smaller, hybred vehicles. And fourth to show how much Bush sucks. (OK, I made up the last one)
My only arguement about those is that yes some people can cut back but we don’t have the public transportation like Europe and the UK have so much of us don’t have a choice here. Now I would love it if this opened up the eyes of some political people to build more trains, buses, subways, and other public transportations so us Americans have more of a choice.
Cause right now I live about 25 miles from where I work with no buses, trains, etc. to get me there besides my car. So I have to drive. One thing I could do is to carpool which I already do with my girlfriend to cut the price in half but that’s all I can do. Suppose I could carpool with a couple more people but that’s easier said than done.
Bottom line is the gas prices suck but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.
Listen to the level 10er. Level 10er knows all.
That’s possibly true in the cities, but not so in more rural areas. It would take me nearly two hours to get to work (less than ten miles!) by bus. It takes me 20 minutes on the bicycle, an hour on the uni, or less than 15 minutes in the car. Petrol is more expensive here than in areas where there is better public transport (the oil companies claim it’s because of the costs of getting it here), and it could be argued that we need to use it more because of the lack of (practical) public transport. That’s why we all drive cars that do a decent mpg (both mine will do 45-47mpg on a long trip, 35 average, and they’re over 30 years old). The longer the trip, the more practical public transport becomes, but for normal journeys of <20 miles it’s hopeless.
I like cycling, so it doesn’t really affect me that much personally, but I’m probably still compelled to drive a lot more than most city dwellers (who often choose to drive all their short trips anyway).
I know there are other reasons for the price of various things in different countries, but I can’t agree that our public transport justifies the petrol prices here. The “PC” reason given by the government would be that they are trying to cut down petrol use because of pollution (which is rubbish because they supported change to unleaded petrol that is far more toxic due to its benzine content than the leaded stuff ever was, and there is still hardly any tax on aero fuel which causes far more pollution), but I suspect they just don’t want to lose the huge tax income they make from it.
In general, looking from our point of view, it certainly seems that life is much cheaper in the US than almost anywhere else in the western world. Similarly in Scandinavia everything seems to be ridiculously expensive and average income isn’t any higher than here - after being to Norway for a couple of holidays I can’t see how anybody can afford to live there… any Scandinavian members got any remarks on that?
I understood the line to mean for people not to hoard gas. I didn’t have any problems comprehending that.
If people went and filled every container they had with extra gas just so they could have an extra 25 or 50 gallons on hand at home just in case, well that would cause some problems. I heard a CNN anchor talking about the statoins running out of gas in Atlanta about a day ago. He was wonder out loud whether he could fill up the 5 gallon can he uses for the lawn mower with extra gas. Hoarding would not be good on the whole.
It’s not a question of wheter he thinks Americans are stupid. It’s a question of asking people not to hoard when in reality they really want to haord if they could.