Saudis worried about Bush's oil pledge
- Thread starter Changleen
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ideally... tax it more, provide free public transportation (buses, trains), and provide tax credits to key industries that have to use truck to deliver so key products (eg. food) prices don't go up.
but lobby groups are too powerful... or more to the point, politicians are too weak.
but lobby groups are too powerful... or more to the point, politicians are too weak.
I don't know if that works though. Kind of like harsher penalties don't cause the crime rate to drop. You've gotta give people alternatives. If I've got no alternative but to drive to work, higher fuel prices mean I've just got less to spend on other stuff.Changleen said:
valve bouncer said:
if the US had the same petrol tax as other westernized, non-oil producing countries across the world, do you think that the F-150 would be the top seller?
no.
people would get more fuel efficient cars, and/or carpool. this was a real concern w/ people when the price was over $3 a gallon, but now it's faded a bit. a tax would certainly provoke the same behavior again.
Yep, it would be. However it's more likely that money from any tax increase would go into finding more oil and/or greasing the war machine.:mumble:Changleen said:
Honestly, are you at all surprised? Bush has talked about shifting to other power sources in previous SOTU addresses (although not a pointedly I'll admit) with no real action taken in that direction. I don't think the Saudis have a thing to worry about.Changleen said:
if the current price doesn't reflect the actual costs of using oil (in the form of global warming), then yes, taxes would make sense.rooftest said:
How about if we put a tax on oil that goes straight to the oil companies as a subsidy so that they can make even bigger profits this year. I mean, they might have had record profits last year, but they could have made more.ohio said:
I imagine very few products have their actual environmental costs (production, usage, landfill) included in their pricing. If you have examples of some, I'd like to hear them.narlus said:
What needs to happen is earnest development and implementation of new technology. Raising fuel taxes will just increase the cost of living on all levels, regardless of how often or what you drive. When gas prices were $3/gal my increased operating expenses were passed directly to my customers.
agreed; i can't think of any. but maybe we should?dan-o said:
and they have a choice. either pay it, or use less of whatever product you are selling. the latter would definitely not be good for the economy, but it's hard to see our standard of living continue to escalate w/o big changes on the horizon.dan-o said:
at this rate, i wouldn't invest in any waterfront property.
Not true at all. See "trade credits" or "pollution credits." We estimate the cost of emissions. It's not that much different to estimate the cost of the sources further up the value chain based on the same principles. You can't be 100% certain but almost by definition you will underestimate the costs, and accounting for some of them is better than accounting for none which is what we do now.dan-o said:
In that situation, the increased revenues went straight to the oil companies. In the scenario we're discussing, the increased revenues are tax dollars, which would be directed back into economy probably in the form of alternative energy research, subsidizing public transportation, or providing incentives directly to the public or corporations that use less energy/fuel. So you don't just increase cost of living across the board. You increase it for the inefficient and decrease it for the efficient, thus incenting a shift from the former to the latter behavior.dan-o said:
Does the price of a pound of beef reflect the estimated 2,500 gallons of water used to produce it? It doesn't according to my home water bill.ohio said:
My limited understanding of pollution credits is that they offset the actual emissions of the operation of the factory, but don't take the products created there into account.
If GM was paying in advance for all the pollution produced by the vehicles it created over their lifetime, why would a new tax to implement "actual cost" be needed?
The closest we have to an 'alternative' right now is hybrids and other generally smaller and more efficient vehicles. A tax hike on fuel would promote sales of such vehicles. Just look at the 'what do you drive' thread to see what might be saved. I'm suprised so many Mountain Bikers drive such huge gas gusslers.
I agree 100% but I don't think a tax is what's needed. Once hybrid move beyond space-pod styling and can be found in more functional vehicles they will take off on their own. My fullsize truck will be history once a hybrid truck can replace it.Changleen said:
I didn't say all products take that into account. I just said it's possible. As for that example... most cattle consume untreated water, so not really related to your water bill. Where they consume treated water, the farmer pays a water bill just like you, minus the government subsidies he/she gets just for being a farmer.dan-o said:
Cars aren't taxed or covered by pollution credits for for two reasons:dan-o said:
1) GM isn't the consumer of the fuel / emitter of the pollution. Since cars are utilized highly varying amounts over their lifetime, one can only tax the actual consumer/emitter. GM should pay for the actual emissions of their factories though.
2) Pollution of a single vehicle is too small and too variable to be feasibly accounted for in a freely traded credit system.
However, we know exactly how much CO2 a given volume of fuel will eventually emit, so it can easily be taxed on the front end, and that will cascade through to whoever ends up consuming it and emitting the CO2. Polution from poorly burnt gas (CO, O3, etc.) is much harder to predict (but IS caught in emissions trade credits) which is why I said by definition you would underestimate the pollution, but better to underestimate than to not account for it at all.