"Thomas E. Bryant" ". . . We are a spoiled bunch of people in the U.S. We
have had gasoline for low prices so long that we think that it is our right.
"The government should step in and regulate these monsters" seems to be the
normal reaction".
Tom and others I completely agree with what has been said so far, except to
the comment above. Tom's remark above kind of infers that we are the bad
guys compared to the more "frugal" nations. US Gas prices are lower than any
other nation simply because of our taxing structure. The oil for the world
essentially comes out of the same holes for just about everybody. (North Sea
oil being the most expensive) but Europe and others compete along with us
for the same oil from the middle east and every one pays essentially the
same price per barrel. Yet, European "consumers" pay more than 100% more for
their gasoline! Since our consumer costs are 1/2 of most other countries, we
are unjustly blamed for our consumption. Which has absolutely nothing to do
with why the price disparity exists.
Almost all densely populated nations, and all socialistic countries, use
gasoline as an extremely significant source of tax revenue! Exploitive Taxes
are intended to regulate your pocket book activities. They influence amount
of cars one buys, the kind of car, and the miles driven. In crowded, small,
densely populated countries, control of, or vastly reduced driving, has many
attributes which I won't go into here. The US is a 3,300 mile wide country
with a vastly popular interstate highway system. For many reasons (good or
bad) our system choose to "promote" the development and freedom of
individual, personal travel. General aviation, trucking, consumer choice,
time-to-market goods, on and on, all benefit from our NON-regressive taxing
structure. Sure, gas is taxed but it is not oppressive like it is everywhere
else and it is not designed to be. I do not apologize for enjoying our
system. Obscene taxation of fuel has subtleties for our economy and quality
of life that could be severely treacherous. As Tom's graph mentioned the
price of gas is catching up to reality and already behavior is being
modified. However, many want behavior changed at a faster RATE. . . which
may have grave economic side-effects. -Elon
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