[TR] Gas prices

[Skip Gurnee]

Some contrararian thoughts on the thread:
1. Who's the biggest supplier of oil to the US?  Canada.  then Saudia 
Arabia, then Venezuela, then Mexico.
2. The idiots in charge of the big three are in trouble not because of their 
cars (they've reacted a little to foreign competition), but because they 
loaned money out to people who can't repay them.  Just like the banks with 
mortgages and credit cards.
3. At my house, we ran the Tracer when gas prices rose.  It can't do things 
the Jeep can,  so those things were cut back, but not cut off, because I 
can't afford the debt to buy a new car, nor will I when the big three are 
out of business.  Other SUV owners think the same way and that's why they're 
back on the road.  They need them and can't buy something else.
4. World price differences for gasoline are exacerbated not by the price of 
gasoline, but the price of taxes.  In the US, there's a federal tax of 
$0.184%, and the states average $0.256 (total 0.44/gallon).
In Europe, they tax their people differently.  One of the differences is 
that gas is taxed more than here; see the following: 
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/  and 
http://www.worldwide-tax.com/ .  Our taxes show up elsewhere, like social 
security, sales taxes, medicare, etc etc ad nauseum.
This is highly simplistic, of course.  Countries subsidize and/or own oil 
supplies and infrastructure, and politics is played with all of it.  In 
general, we can be fairly sure that in the "free" world, we work for the 
government about the same amount, being more than half the time.
Best,
Skip Gurnee
64 TR4
66 TR4A


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Spence" <dkspence at telus.net>
To: <triumphs at autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 11:56 AM
Subject: [TR] Gas prices


> Just another way for the "Gummint" to subsidize the idiots in charge
> of the big three. What a difference you'd see if Americans paid world
> priced for gasoline etc.
>
>> Dunno about buying them; but I've noticed a huge increase in the
>> number of
>> big SUVs and pickup trucks on the roads here in CA over the last
>> few weeks.
>>
>> Almost makes me wish for $4/gallon again ... almost.
>>
>> Randall
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