Why Fuel Efficiency Advances Haven't Translated To Better Gas Mileage 891
greenrainbow tips an article about a research paper from an MIT economist that attempts to explain why technological advances in fuel efficiency haven't led to substantially better gas mileage for the average driver. Quoting:
"Thus if Americans today were driving cars of the same size and power that were typical in 1980, the country’s fleet of autos would have jumped from an average of about 23 miles per gallon (mpg) to roughly 37 mpg, well above the current average of around 27 mpg. Instead, Knittel says, 'Most of that technological progress has gone into [compensating for] weight and horsepower.' ... Indeed, Knittel asserts, given consumer preferences in autos, larger changes in fleet-wide gas mileage will occur only when policies change, too. 'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' he says. Among environmental policy analysts, the notion of a surcharge on fuel is widely supported. 'I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes,' Knittel says."
Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
93% of all statistics are made up. 99% of economists know that.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Even then, goods that need to be transported further will increase in price more, leading more people to choose locally produced stuff, benefiting the economy in that way.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so simple.
1) Raising fuel taxes a lot certainly influences car choice and average mileage. Look at the average car in the UK vs the average car in the USA.
The large trucks/suv/etc which are common in the USA are almost unheard of in the UK. Similarly, your idea of a compact economy car (e.g. at a rental company) is our idea of a large sedan. Over the last few years, our fuel costs overall have gone up significantly and there has been a noticeable shift towards smaller more economical cars. I can't find hard stats, but I'll eat my hat if this doesn't flow through to average mpg.
2) Raising more tax via fuel would allow the government to reduce the tax burden elsewhere - so there isn't _necessarily_ a significant impact on the cost of all goods - just a shift of cost towards goods with high transport costs.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Has it occurred to you that your dependence on said travel might be a critical strategic danger for your economy? Or that your dependence on oil from the Middle East might be a critical strategic danger geopolitically?
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Informative)
The US gets most of its oil from canada and mexico. Since oil is a commodity, of course events in the middle east effect the price, even if the US doesn't actually obtain oil from those countries.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny you mention AR. I grew up in Little Rock and went to Central High School (smack dab in one of those less-than-awesome neighborhoods). I think I rode CAT once. Maybe. And yes mass transit doesn't work well in sparsely populated areas like AR.
However, that doesn't mean everyone needs a giant car. If we all follow the i-need-a-bigger-car-because-bigger-cars-protect-me-better-in-collisions-with-other-vehicles mentality to its logical conclusion, we'll all be driving eighteen wheelers before too long. As I understand it, large and small cars with proper safety features fare about the same in a barrier collision (i.e., with an immovable object) but in car-vs-car collisions, the heavier car fares much better against a smaller car because they have more inertia and therefore decelerate less. If cars were generally smaller overall....blah blah blah.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Just remember the USA isn't the EU, with everyone packed together in little clumps, you are talking a HUGE area with people spread out all over the place
Check the numbers. The median and modal population densities for the USA are higher than the EU, only the mean is lower. Or, to put it another way, the infrastructure required for 80% of the US population is less than the infrastructure for 80% of the EU population. The vast majority of the US lives in cities with much higher population densities than you'll see in most of the EU.
Check the last story about broadband in the US for some real numbers - I bothered looking them up then, I'm too lazy to do it again. Yes, there are lots of people living in the middle of nowhere with tens of miles to their nearest neighbour in the USA, but they're statistically irrelevant from an infrastructure perspective. 100% coverage is much harder in the USA than the EU, but 80-90% coverage is a lot easier.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Informative)
The link you provided cites as it source the EIA which is the very site that I linked in my post. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Nickel-and-dime me all you like, the story is still gloomy. Here's more [eia.gov]. The US consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day -- almost a quarter of the world total. We spend roughly $522B each year on petroleum. More than half of our petroleum (58%) is imported. We send about $300B abroad each year to support this nasty habit. And the price is volatile! If the price per barrel stays at its current value which is over $100 per bbl [bloomberg.com], then we will be spending $700B and sending $400B abroad every year. That's a lot of treasure -- and I haven't factored in any costs for our wars which are arguably caused by our desire to insure oil supplies. Personally, I would like to see that $400B spent here at home.
As for my original point -- that we are sending a lot of money to some dodgy regimes -- here is some more detail. We import 5 million barrels per day from OPEC. We import 1.465 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia alone. The average cost per barrel for crude oil is $74.71 per barrel. *Every single day*, that comes out to:
$109,450,150 USD to Saudi Arabia ($40B/yr)
$56,704,890 USD to Venezuela ($21B/yr)
$39,521,590 to Nigeria ($14B/yr)
$30,108,130 to Iraq ($11B/yr)
Iran - none (my bad).
That paltry 16% of our oil imports from the Persian Gulf means we are sending $48B (16% of imports which are 58% of total 522B) to the Persian Gulf every year.
Re:Statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
I frequently walk to work, which is a real challenge here since some of the lights don't have crosswalks here and I'm the only person on foot. My argument is not on my own account.
Gas taxes hit poor people with old vehicles much harder than affluent people with large vehicles. You're not thinking like an economist, you're thinking like a politician. As was Knittel.
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
Again, tax exemptions to make sure the wrong people aren't hurt are already very common. As someone has already pointed out, farmers don't pay the same gas taxes for their agricultural equipment that the rest of us do for our hoopties.
I don't know if you've ever spent any time around economists or economics departments of major universities. I have and Economics is an even softer science than psychology. When it comes to intellectual rigor, even Womens' Studies professors think economists are lightweights. Most of what passes for "Economics" is pop economics like "Freakonomics" that makes its bones by appealing to small-minded people. You can find dumb-shit economists pulling down nice salaries at "conservative" "think tanks" who will tell you with a straight face that supply-side, "trickle-down" economics has worked wonderfully and would be good for everyone if we only gave the people who pay their salaries all the money and then clapped louder.
When you say I'm "not thinking like an economist" I take it as high praise indeed.
Re:Statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations! Your wish has already come true. They already pay more taxes because they buy more gas. That is the magic of percentages.
Re:Statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
"All day long, you can drive up and down Ashland Ave and there will be one Suburban or Nissan Armada or Navigator or some other ridiculously huge vehice with a single person driving all by herself. Those drivers need to pay a higher gas tax to cover the externalities they are forcing the rest of us to pay."
I do. Compared to a Prius driver, I pay about 225% more in gas taxes per mile.
Of course the Prius driver is paying perhaps a 40% of the taxes per mile for road maintenance, and I'm waiting to hear if a Prius causes that much less wear than an Explorer does. Maybe so, maybe not.
So indeed, I do pay a higher tax per mile, and more tax by using more gallons.
Your point?
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because some of us drive larger vehicles doesn't mean we should be the only ones to pay higher taxes. We already suffer when we fill the tank up. In my case I have no choice but to drive a large family vehicle because they don't make fuel efficient vehicles for large families, therefore my family suffers more at the pump than you.
Why should society grant you special tax breaks just because you've decided to have a large family? You're already getting a break on your federal taxes, now you want a break on your fuel tax?
It costs you more to move your big family because you have a big family - big families are expensive.
You're not being singled out for this tax - everyone that uses a gas/diesel fueled vehicle will pay it. It's just that you'll pay more because you use more.
You don't say how large your family is, but check out the Mazda5 - 22/27 mpg is pretty good for a 7 passenger vehicle. It gets better gas mileage than my 10 year old 4 passenger car. (if I drove more I'd get something more fuel efficient, but I don't drive much so there's no point in taking on a $400/month car payment to save $10/month in gas)
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
First, who are you to say they shouldn't have those cars?
Maybe he's a military servicemember who gets sent to go oppress middle easterners so those selfish assholes can have cheap gas for their SUVs, and he's sick of risking his life for their vanity and selfishness.
Re:Euclidean zoning (Score:4, Insightful)
Eliminate Euclidean zoning for the most part. In case you're not aware that name comes from Euclid, Ohio where it was pioneered. It's the kind of zoning where "all the houses are here, all the businesses are there". Get rid of it, and you eliminate a lot of trips.
I remember playing SimCity for the first time as a child and seeing this kind of zoning and wondering what kind of insane city would implement such a system, since it would mean that people would spend a huge amount of time travelling and no one would be living near where they worked nor where they shopped. It seemed completely ludicrous and I assumed it was some unreality that they'd inserted to make the game more challenging, since there was no possible way of designing a sane city with those rules. Then, 10 years later, I visited the USA for the first time and saw that you really do lay out your cities like that. No wonder Americans consider their cars to be so important...
Re:Statistics (Score:5, Informative)
This is a well known phenomenon and it's why you see such incredible fleet efficiency in Seattle compared with most of the rest of the country. Simply put between taxes and oil company gouging we pay more for our gas than they do in most of the rest of the country.
It's been known since the 19th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox [wikipedia.org]
Simply put if you don't tax the fuel sufficient to make up for the cost reduction you tend to get more fuel being consumed rather than less. There are limits to it, you're not going to suddenly start commuting 1000mi a day simply because of cheap gas, but it's less likely that you'll work close to home than if the gas was really expensive.
We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Informative)
The increase in gas prices hasn't drastically changed what vehicles we buy. Many of those that really would rather buy more efficient vehicles can't afford them, and are stuck with older ones, so the economists would just be hurting the poor.
As consumers shouldn't we choose what vehicle economies we use? Where I live, SUVs are all over. But, it makes more sense. Adverse conditions favor SUVs. An economist, you would think, would say people buy what they want.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Insightful)
Adverse conditions to not favor top heavy rear wheel only SUVs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, get a Subaru.
Mod parent up.
Re: (Score:3)
Why is he modded down? He is correct. An AWD subaru or something like it would be a much better choice.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:4, Interesting)
Gound clearance:
Ford Explorer - 7.6"
Toyota Highlander - 8.1"
Jeep Grand Cherokee - 8.6"
Subaru Outback - 8.7"
Nissan Pathfinder - 9.0"
Nissan Xterra - 9.1"
I just picked most of these (except the Xterra - I picked that because it's mentioned further down) at random because they're what I see in the parking lot at work. Yes, the Nissans have more ground clearance but I don't think that half an inch is going to be the difference between yay and boo.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:4, Informative)
True enough... A lot of them think they can drive just like there's no snow, and others don't know how to drive in snow anyway.
I live in one of those "not so friendly" areas. I also drive a car, front-wheel, with a diesel engine sitting right on top of the drive train. I handle snow very well, and better than some trucks and SUVs that I see... That or the drivers don't know how to handle what they've got.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Informative)
I think you'd be surprised with what a great pair of winter tires will do on a little four-cylinder FWD car.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it did have an effect - when gas started to get to about $4 per gallon, there were several studies that determined that people responded by driving less. This makes sense, because driving less is an adjustment that's usually much faster and easier to make than buying a new car.
However, I for one would be interested to find out what the true cost of a gallon of gasoline is. Not just the price I pay at the pump, but the price I pay in taxes to support the wars where oil is secured, the price I pay in taxes to support the Medicare and Medicaid costs of those harmed by the pollution, the higher prices I pay for anything coming from anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico because the rig exploded, etc. Yes, in theory all those prices should get factored into what I see at the gas pump, but in practice that simply doesn't happen.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Interesting)
You misunderstand my point, which was about artificially lowering the price of gasoline based on externalizing costs.
For instance, if BP is pumping oil out of an oil field in Iraq, right now they are benefiting from the security provided by Xe contractors paid for by tax dollars. If they had to pay for that security, that would cost them, say, $100 million, then the cost of the, say, 2 million barrels of oil they get from that is actually $50 lower than it should be, which translates to a few dollars per gallon of gasoline.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Interesting)
SUVs are a complete waste of resources (metal, petroleum, etc.) and enormous polluters. Why use a 3-ton vehicle to drag one fat ass around town? The problem as I see it is that folks are choosing what economy they want which means that self-indulgent rich dicks want land barges that pollute *my* environment and their petro dollars go to such enlightened states as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, and Nigeria, all of whom seem to hate Western society which means we have to spend still more dollars propping up one petty dictator after another and then knocking them down. If our fuel economy was twice as good, our geopolitical interest in those dodgy areas would probably cost us a lot less money.
I can appreciate not wanting one's taxes raised. How about we reduce federal income tax and shift the tax burden to a petroleum tax?
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Informative)
The super poor people I'm familiar with don't have cars. They take the bus or the subway.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the US, if not the world, does not have any form of public transport.
No, that's just US. In the rest of the world "city planner" and "fuckheaded asshole" are two different professions.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Interesting)
The poor having SUVs hurts the poor. Government policy has little to nothing to do with it. A gas tax hike and something cash for clunkers would probably do a lot more for the poor than just hoping the price of gas stays low.
You're basically saying let's not enact a policy because we know there will be pain in the short-term. Lets instead wait and see if it becomes a horrible problem that is nearly impossible to solve. We could have war with Iran, and completely screw diplomatic relations with the Saudis and see gas prices quadruple in a couple months. So really the problem gets back to the fact that people are being irresponsible and buying gas guzzlers. And the market wants to sell them to them because they have huge profit margins. This is exactly like the housing bubble. The government can chose to act now, or they can wait until it blows up in their face and voters are demanding the government give them a credit to buy a new car. A slow rise in the gas tax over a decade could very easily slow the pain and change people's choices in a reasonable manner.
And SUVs are only great in adverse marketing conditions. Most truck chassis based SUVs I've encountered have trouble getting over a speed bump.
If consumers should be able to choose what vehicles they want to drive, then they should be able to choose to deal with $7/gallon gas in a car that gets less than 15mpg. I chose to drive a (standard gasoline) car that gets 30mpg because I want to minimize the variability of gas prices on my wallet. I could afford an SUV, but I'm making a choice. As are SUV drivers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If they really worried about the poor, they would tax the hell out of gas and use the proceeds to fund mass transit. The only reason why the poor drive is because there aren't reasonable alternatives. I remember a few years back needing to be downtown early on sundays for work and having absolutely and completely options other than, taxi, private car or bike. The fact that there are times during the week when you have no transit options and that those times of day are more likely to have low income people c
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:4, Insightful)
And, let me guess, you live in an area that gets little to no snow, and does not have rugged mountains.
The problem I see with a lot of these types of articles, they are written by (and comments like this made by) people that have not experienced the west. The snow, the mountains, etc. Most people I know, have 4wd vehicles. That is because 2wd, even front wheel drive, are not good at handling really bad roads.
I've NEVER seen an SUV that had trouble getting over speed-bumps. If you are talking about vehicles cut down, you are not looking at a SUV. You are looking at a toy.
I can't afford 2 cars. Jumping gas prices would just hurt me. I don't think that FORCING higher gas prices via taxation is a good idea. As it has been shown. With our economy, jumping the gas prices also sends us into a recession.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Canada. I've lived in Canada all my life (Alberta and Quebec). I can rock a FWD car out of a snowbank that is up to the wheel wells. If I can't move the car with a shovel, a bit of time, and my own effort, most 4WD vehicles wouldn't have made it out of that situation either.
I've driven in blinding snowstorms through the crow's nest pass in the Rockies, and I've been stuck on the top of the Coquihalla with the semis putting the chains on their wheels. I made it through there just the same as they did. All I needed was some winter tyres and a modicum of care.
With traction control systems and some experience, driving in the snow is not a thing that requires 4WD. I know that they're better in the snow and ice, but they're not essential. Even with the car that I have (diesel VW Jetta wagon), which has a very low nose and consequently not much ground clearance, city driving in bad conditions isn't a concern. If it's so bad that I can't move the car, it's too bad to be driving, period.
If you need an SUV or truck—and there are people that do, obviously—then that's fine. But you almost never need one just for day-to-day things driving in the city.
Re:We've had an increase in gas prices... (Score:5, Insightful)
The increase in gas prices hasn't drastically changed what vehicles we buy. Many of those that really would rather buy more efficient vehicles can't afford them, and are stuck with older ones, so the economists would just be hurting the poor.
As consumers shouldn't we choose what vehicle economies we use? Where I live, SUVs are all over. But, it makes more sense. Adverse conditions favor SUVs. An economist, you would think, would say people buy what they want.
Few people really *need* a 4WD SUV or even an AWD car.
When I lived in the northeast, I commuted entirely with a front wheel drive car. I put on snow tires in the winter, and never got stuck (or in a winter time accident). For 3 winters, I moonlighted as a snow-plow driver for a local business, so part of my commute meant driving in conditions that many people stayed home in (and I regularly saw 4WD vehicles that had run off the road). As long as the roads had less than 8 inches of snow, I was good to go - beyond that I'd need more ground clearance than my car provided. I did resort to chains on a few icy days.
Smart driving and snow tires are much better than blind trust in an SUV. And unfortunately, many SUV drivers do appear to use that blind trust rather than good driving skills.
4 wheel drive (or AWD) only helps you move forward, you already have 4 wheel braking, and for most of us, it's the braking that's more important when driving in adverse conditions.
Now it's possible that you have a need to travel on unmaintained roads to your cabin in the woods, for that I'll grant you that an SUV may be helpful (but not infallible, get a Sno-cat if you *have* to get somewhere in the snow)
Link to the actual paper (Score:5, Informative)
The article links to the peer-reviewed, pay-walled version of the paper.
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/knittel/papers/steroids_latest.pdf the following is the version author put up on his website
So Tax Gas (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to reduce gas consumption (reduce oil imports, reduce green house gasses, etc.,) levy a carbon tax, don't increase gas mileage. Do it directly – not indirectly.
Forcing me to pay extra to buy a fuel efficient car is going have little impact on the above issues – I don’t drive that many miles (yeah bike, mass transit).
When the first MPG requirements were put in place, a lot of people switched from big gas guzzling station wagons to big gas guzzling light trucks – the minivan.
Each year Americans drove more miles until gas hit $4.00 a gallon. Only at that point did they start switching their behavior. Smaller cars and shorter commutes.
Are they nuts? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason people hate taxes is because they are commonly used as punitive measures to modify behavior. This is NOT what they should be used for. Thanks to federal and state government not having the discipline to operate within a budget, we pay too much as it is, and coupled with the rise in inflation every time washington prints more money, the people at the bottom are the ones who get burned at both ends, in savings and expenditures. Raising fuel taxes hurts these people even more because they are not able to afford a new car every few years and thus are most likely the ones driving 10+ year old models, nor can they afford to pay even more at the pump than they already are. If money needs diversion to research new technologies then it should come out of the pockets of the oil companies, not consumers. They shoulder enough of the yoke as it is while large corporations are the ones who benefit the most from government economic management.
Re: (Score:3)
Federal taxes are at levels lower than almost anytime after WW2. A gasoline tax is not a punishment, it is a method of internalizing costs that are normally externalized. Poor folks normally drive old cars that tend to get better than average mpg. An old Honda civic dx is pretty cheap.
Unrestrained driver safety (Score:5, Insightful)
Crash standards (Score:5, Informative)
Cars these days have to be able to protect you in a 60 mph (30 + 30) corner collision, with rollover, even if you aren't wearing a seatbelt. The result is bigger, heavier frames, and thick pillars that prevent you from seeing pedestrians. As a result, cars are heavier, and their engines have to be more powerful to compensate.
Subaru Did It (Score:5, Informative)
The 2012 Impreza gets 30% better [motortrend.com] gas mileage than the 2011.
Read the article, but CVT, lighter body, electric steering - 36MPG for an AWD vehicle is nicely impressive.
Technology, it does good things.
electronic junk (Score:5, Insightful)
Given all the electronic junk such as ABS, TCS, TPS, multiple airbags, electric seats, motorized windows, mirrors, rear-seat DVD players etc etc that they shovel into cars as standard these days, All the efficiency gained is probably mostly lost in extra weight and power consumption to drive that stuff.
I for one would welcome the opportunity to buy a simple car without all that junk, except there isn't really the option any more. Apart from the fuel savings, think of the production cost savings the car companies could pass on to the consumer.
More Gas Taxes Make Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're so simple. They would also allow our highway fund to be self-sustaining, which would mean that we could stop subsidizing it with income taxes from people who don't drive. Things like tax credits and CAFE Standards can be gamed.
In the long-term taxes also have the advantage of getting people used to $6 Gas. Oil production isn't rising. Indian and Chinese guys are finally getting rich enough to drive home for the holidays, which means it's inevitable that gas will go up. Period.
But since everybody pays the gas tax all the time nobody wants to be responsible for raising it, therefore we get a mess.
Oh how I wish for some smaller vehicles.. (Score:3)
Like say a compact pickup. I'd buy one if I could. (preferably turbo diesel, while I am dreaming) But the Ranger was discontinued, the Colorado is big enough to be a full size pickup of 10 years ago, and the Durango is big enough to be a semi truck, much less the "full sized" trucks. And it's not just the "merican" companies. The last time the Tacoma was mid sized was in 2004, now it's ginormous (same thing with the Frontier).
How about we cut the subsidies, first? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not necessarily against taxing gasoline. However, before we start using a gasoline tax as a tool to force people to behave a certain way, maybe we should consider eliminating the billions of dollars of subsidies given to the oil industry so that we can see the *true* price of gasoline?
(NY Times on oil subsidies: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html [nytimes.com])
All the posters here keep crying about how "the open market" has failed, but we aren't in an open market, so that is nonsense.
Nonsense. It's all to do with crash safety. (Score:5, Informative)
What a load of tripe.
The average weight of cars has been increasing because crash survival standards have been becoming stricter, and that requires that more material be used in the car to protect the passenger compartment. This adds weight and bulk; with bulk (thicker doors, etc.) comes an overall increase in vehicle sizes, which itself adds weight AND frontal area. The frontal area increase comes with an increase in drag. Exotic materials like carbon fiber are still very expensive, so it's still aluminum and steel. And despite what legislators seem to think, you can't pass a law that increases the number of joules of energy in a gram of fuel.
It's not just American cars (so lose the anti-American screeching please). The average vehicle weight in ALL markets has been increasing. Go look up the dimensions and weights of just about any vehicle model and manufacturer regardless of market or whether the vehicle in question is sold in North America, and see how it's changed over time.
Safety costs weight and size. Weight and size cost fuel. At a given price point, you can have increased safety XOR increased fuel economy.
Choose.
Re:Nonsense. It's all to do with crash safety. (Score:4, Informative)
You've nailed it exactly.
Cars weight a lot more than they used to. My 1981 Honda civic weighed 1,700 pounds. It got by with a 1.5l 67 HP motor. I got 35 MPG around town, 50 MPG on the highway
By contrast, a 2012 weighs 2600 pounds, and has a 140 HP motor. It gets 28/39 MPG.
The 2012 is by every measure a better car. But it gets significantly poorer gas mileage.
The new Civic I'm sure is safer
Safety is the reason (Score:4, Informative)
Typical /. response (Score:5, Informative)
Gas prices are too low...so let's raise taxes? That's our knee-jerk response?
How about instead of raising taxes which will fall disproportionately on the middle class (the lower classes tend to use public transit), instead let's STOP subsidizing gas and oil exploration, remove massive subsidies, rebates, and all the frosting for our oil-lobby friends?
Raising taxes on the masses while simultaneously handing $billion$ to oil means that the primary beneficiaries are the oil companies, nobody else.
Re:Laissez faire (Score:5, Insightful)
This is then a market failure. What we should do is tax fuel at a rate that makes it internalize the costs it normally externalizes when the results go out the tail pipe.
Re:Laissez faire (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only a market failure if you believe that a handful of politicians and bureaucrats should be making choices for millions of individuals and families rather than allowing those individuals to make choices (and bear the costs) for themselves.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The issue is they do not bear the costs. Larger cars kill those in smaller cars, they increase our need to go to war in oil rich areas and put out more pollution into the environment.
The idea is to make them bear those costs and let them decide what is right for themselves. Right now they make these decisions based on a market that is not pricing these things in. Garbage in, Garbage out.
Re:Laissez faire (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Laissez faire (Score:4, Informative)
That's bunk. If you raise fuel costs it doesn't necessarily mean that the vehicles are going to be less safe. Safety is a separate function and is supposed to be dealt with before the vehicles are on the market.
If you raise the price of gas the easiest ways of minimizing the cost are to either drive less or to drive slower and both of those are going to result in fewer fatalities. You don't magically remove safety features just because gas gets more expensive.
Re:Laissez faire (Score:5, Insightful)
That's cute. You think the market will naturally do what's right instead of what's profitable. :)
Re:Laissez faire (Score:4, Insightful)
A market is not a living being. It has no will. It has no responsibility. There's a reason that for negative externalities like pollution, we rely on leaders with human will rather than markets with computational power.
Re: (Score:3)
If you really think laissez faire economics is valid, you also realize negative externalities aren't propertly priced into the market, either. But nobody really wants to address that issue.
Re: (Score:3)
Flamebait, I know. But if they payload is you (and I'll generously give you 300 lbs for yourself and your laptop) and the vessel weighs 15 times that much. A total waste.
Earlier today, we had a story on how the Massachusetts Lt. Governor crashed his Crown Vic doing 108mph [slashdot.org] and walked away with no injuries. Say what you will about the Lt Governor, it is not really a waste when crash survival rates increase dramatically [latimes.com].
Fuel efficiency isn't the only design criteria for modern cars.
Still the story makes an assertion that simply isn't supported by anything but the authors opinion:
Thus if Americans today were driving cars of the same size and power that were typical in 1980, the country’s fleet of autos would have jumped from an average of about 23 miles per gallon (mpg) to roughly 37 mpg, well above the current average of around 27 mpg.
Vehicles of that vintage couldn't achieve anything near 37mpg once the tougher pollution controls
Re: (Score:3)
Seriously, your argument is photography? You have so much photographic equipment that it can't fit into a hatchback so you need an SUV?
Re: (Score:3)
Most SUVs can't go anywhere that a normal van can't. I can get my van into - and, crucially, *out of* - a lot of spots where 4x4s just can't go because they are too heavy and don't have the grip.
Re:HUH? (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that the US Gas tax is used to pay for highways, that it's not indexed to inflation, and it was last raised early in Clinton's first term. Which means it doesn't actually cover the cost of maintaining highways.
The result is that my, non-car-using, ass has to pay income taxes to subsidize all these people who love their cars so much, but if I dare to ask them to pay for a train or another bus I'm breezily told "nobody will use that."
Re:HUH? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me preface this carefully.
I drive a lot every week. 40 minutes at 70mph one way, each work day. I do not like driving. If I could use significantly less fuel while driving, I would jump on it.
Even at "oil crisis" prices in the bush years, the costs of fuel were still significantly less than the offset costs of living closer to town, and my standard of living is far higher. I am NOT wealthy. I own a 25k house, and make about 35k a year. The house I own would cost 2 to 3 times that much in the city, due to marketing forces of supply and demand, even now with housing crash prices. A sleezy, roach infested duplex rental in a gang violence riddled slum costs significantly more than my current house payment per month, for a significantly poorer living arrangement, with considerably greater risks of buglary and physical violence.
After adding all the bills together, I came to the conclusion that it was actually cheaper (including increased fuel costs, vehicular maintenance costs, and additional tax costs) to live outside the city than it is to live inside it.
This is because of several factors, the most poigniant of which is the cost of living differences caused by everyone else in the city trying to get a slice of everyone else's pie. (Eg, every store keeper wants to turn the highest profit that the local market can bear. This is basic economics. When people in the city get paid very well, people have more money to blow, and the costs of items increase to match the disparity. This is why the cost of living in high wage areas is so significantly higher than in low wage areas. ) I ran the numbers and found that living a certain distance from the high wage center, you get the option of earning the better pay, while livng in the reduced price area.
This is exactly what created the concept of suburbia. (Note, I do not live in suburbia. I live in hickville farmer community.) Suburbia could easily be serviced by light commuter rail, if the following conditions were met. (At least for most circumstances anyway...)
1) the train center needs free all-day parking. People still need cars. We just want them to drive them significantly less. The train does not go everywhere they need to go, such as to the dentist, or on a romantic drive into the countryside. The biggest consumer of fuel miles in consumer vehicles is the work commute. Free parking with reasonable lot security allows the suburbanites to drive 5 minutes to the train station, then take the light commuter rail to the various districts of the local big civic center, go to work, come back, and drive another 5 minutes to get home. We radically reduce the number of hours they drive, the number of miles they drive, and the city jurisdictions over which they drive, by enabling the free parking lot. People won't use the rail station if they get charged to ride, and charged by the hour to park. Subsidize the costs of the parking structure into the yearly rider's pass prices. Problem solved. One off riders only pay the one off ticket price, and get the free parking.
2) don't penalize people for living outside the city. People chosing to live outside the city forces prices for city residents down, because demand for services and properties diminish. People using the light rail to get to work reduces the nightmares of intracity traffic and parking (fewer people are driving), reducing the rate of roadway deterioration, and everyone is better off for it.
3) the light rail needs to be accessible, affordable, and offer a free or at least flat rate shuttle bussing service with dedicated commuter bus routes to all major centers and districts of town, and the surrounding suburbs. If it is a major city industry or service, it needs to be easily and safely serviced by the public transit option.
4) the actual day to day operations of terminal stations in the public transit network can be franchise run, but a minimum QoS for cleanliness, access, safety, and ease of use needs to be enforced somehow. Franchises work great here, b
Re: (Score:3)
It's fine to raise the taxes - just write into the law which places the tax on petrol to use the proceeds for specific things. Unrestricted funds are what the government messes around with anyway. (Though the ***tards are sometimes clever enough to craft a law which allows them to "borrow" from those funds, without paying interest, like they did to the Social Security pot.
Re:HUH? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tax breaks on new cars where MPG meets a certain requirement?
How abotu a rolling tax break on cars with increasingly higher MGP? ie, as the efficiency goes up and the MPG goes up, the amount of tax you pay is reduced?
I think that would be great.... all you need to do is tax gas. The less your car uses, the less tax you pay. Simple.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
If we save fuel all across the board...
The oil companys might not make more money next year than they did this year. Repeated forever into the future.
And we can't have that now can we?
Sounds like a recursive function.
Of course, there's always a constant thrown in - P for Profit, they'll always make a profit.
If we all drive cars which get 100 MPG then the price per gallon will simply be adjusted, due to economy of scale - fixed costs are spread over less product, so are rolled into the unit price - say... 10$US gallon. A that point, people still stupid enough to drive 12 MPG Behemoths will feel the pain.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxes are for funding the govt services we all need...that should be it...period.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Taxes weren't passed to allow a 'chosen' few to dictate citizen behavior....
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
Taxes are for funding the govt services we all need...that should be it...period.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Taxes weren't passed to allow a 'chosen' few to dictate citizen behavior....
So you advocate rolling back tobacco taxes?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
Taxes are for funding the govt services we all need...that should be it...period.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Taxes weren't passed to allow a 'chosen' few to dictate citizen behavior....
So you advocate rolling back tobacco taxes?
Speaking for myself, absolutely. Taxes used for social engineering are wrong. Period.
The purpose of taxes are to pay for the government. If the specific role of fuel taxes are to pay for the roads, then raising them with the idea of forcing 'economy' is wrong.
It is also amazing to me that some of the same people who will practically demand such taxes in the name of the environment will turn right around and argue that a flat tax is wrong because it hurts the poor. As if the higher fuel tax doesn't?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of taxes are to pay for the government.
As long as we have any publicly funded health care, then government is paying for the health consequences of smoking. With that in mind, why is it wrong to tax a behavior that increases an individual's societal burden?
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
The purpose of taxes are to pay for the government.
As long as we have any publicly funded health care, then government is paying for the health consequences of smoking. With that in mind, why is it wrong to tax a behavior that increases an individual's societal burden?
That is one of the problems with government funded health care. Because as far as that goes, your logic is correct and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of that kind of thing in the future. Though, perhaps we ought to kick government out of health care before it is too late.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a smoker and someone who supports these taxes...to a degree. I'm also uninsured and seriously doubt that the money I paid in will ever be put forth in an effort to better my life later on -- perhaps stabilize me in an ER room, but actually get the help I need (e.g., chemo)? Probably not.
The amount of money taken in as taxes for anti-smoking campaigns really irks me. How about free distribution of nicotine patches and gum? Why not tax it in a manner to pay for an eventual phasing-out of cigarettes, making major pushes for entire smoke-free states? Or, if you feel that's highly unlikely to work, spend some money and develop government-approved nicotine delivery devices (e-cigarettes but with some hard facts behind them)?
Yes, it's simple enough to say "Just quit smoking". You've never been a smoker or been someone almost completely dependent on cigarettes. Nicotine stabilizes my mood -- I used to be extremely depressed growing up and cigarettes, in a sense, saved my life. I wouldn't recommend them as an alternative to expensive medicines if you have the cash, but a high possibility of lung cancer versus chronic, life-crushing depression, does lead me down the cheaper route.
Taxes do push people to quit. But not everyone, not to mention the next generation coming up simply picks up the slack. You're not going to end smoking in this country unless you treat tobacco like another marijuana, and we know how well that has worked in the USA. Keep the taxes, but keep them fair -- don't dip into the pot that should be set aside to fund "like" anti-smoking programs/treatments for other projects, for then it just becomes essentially a sin tax, punishing people for years for the single mistake they made as kids, picking up that first cigarette.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, ask all the overweight people out there what's wrong with a junk food or fast food tax?
The cost of obesity on society is 100 times the cost of smoking on society, and we're footing the bill just the same as with smokers. Ask yourself this: if a parent allows their child to eat themselves into their own grave, does that constitute child abuse? Should the state be allowed to remove the child from a home that does not make sure their children are of a healthy body weight? If a child is severely underweight, the state will absolutely take a child into custody, it happens all the time. But overweight? Never.
So how do you feel about a crappy food tax? Because honestly, I find that nine times out of ten, the person that is all about the smokers tax thinks the shitty food tax is just going too far. That's not to say that it is always true, but it usually is. Smoking is considered the dirty habit, but cramming 10 servings of powdered mini donuts in your mouth in a single sitting isn't? Eating 3 Double Cheeseburgers for lunch with an extra large fries and half gallon of coke isn't a dirty habit, too?
And then there's the excuses "Why should I be punished for eating fast food once in a while?! I am not overweight!!" That's a bullshit excuse because not everyone that smokes gets fucking lung cancer, but they all pay the tax just the same, don't they? So the fact that a person is healthy and only eats a little candy is immaterial.
Mind you, I'm not a smoker, but I used to be, and it really was the increased cost of the things that encouraged me to quit...$7 a pack when I finally managed to lock myself in the house for 3 days without cigarettes and get off of them once and for all. I just find it funny how hypocritical most people are when it comes to smokers, and how easily they ignore their own bad habits. Human nature, I guess...
Re:Instead of a junk food tax (Score:4, Informative)
It's always been cheaper to eat good food than to buy junk food.
Not where I'm at in the Great Lakes area about halfway between Detroit and Chicago. Fresh produce and the healthier alternatives typically sell for a premium price. It's fairly standard supermarket/food industry practice to charge a premium price for items that carry what they consider to be marketing buzz-words to be monetized. Anything that can be labeled with (or could be said to naturally be) "fresh", "organic", "low fat", "all natural", "diet", "sugar free", "low cholesterol", "low sodium", etc etc always costs more than the less-"healthy" alternatives.
At typical food prices in this area and with what a poor person receives in food stamps, it's a struggle to simply get enough calories of any kind to last them all month. Eating a healthy diet as recommended by the FLOTUS and others would mean that this poor person would probably run out of food somewhere around the end of the third week of the month, maybe sooner. Either that, or be undernourished to some degree all month.
That's the reality many face; do they choose to eat unhealthy or go without eating some days, or not eat enough any day.
Strat
It's always been cheaper to eat good food than to buy junk food.
Not where I'm at in the Great Lakes area about halfway between Detroit and Chicago. Fresh produce and the healthier alternatives typically sell for a premium price.
I wasn't referring to "organic" or "premium foods". That's part of the problem - people are either too picky or just can't cook.
Cheap pasta, dried beans, rice, tinned tomatoes, onions, rolled oats, sultanas, desiccated coconut, flour, drum of olive oil, a cheap loaf of french or italian "home" style bread unsliced. Those things are cheap. Everywhere, all year round. Add in whatever is cheap in season - carrots? celery? cabbage? potatoes? How about some cheap canned tuna? some eggs (to be used with the flour), maybe a bit of rump steak and some kidneys if you're a meat eater (but not every meal, or as the majority of a meal), throw in a packet of tea (not bags) or coffee (cheapest vacuum packed - *not* instant). A few spices - food doesn't have to be boring - pepper, cinnamon, chilli, cheap minced garlic. All those things can be bought once a week - no need to spend hours shopping every days.
A kilo of block of cheap cheese stretched over a couple of weeks. Notice I didn't put sugar, milk, or chocolate on the list - except for bread everything has only one ingredient. (quantities are per person)
People are dumb, and lazy - both handicaps can be overcome *if* they want. Those ingredients will supply the more vitamins than junkfood - without missing out on the required *protein* (not calories - that comes later)
Sure - people who are used to high salt, fat, and sugar foods will not find it interesting - easy fixed. Go to bed hungry. Hunger is the best sauce.
But people go from one extreme to another - they either eat junk food which is not cheap - or they buy premium "health" food. Most of which goes to waste. The bigger the fridge - the more waste.
An apple a day is nice, maybe a banana. But even if you only eat a plum or an apple a week you're better off than if you ate one of those choko/apple things from Maccas every day. Rolled oats with some sultanas and coconut - soak for ten minutes in boiling water - add some milk and it's breakfast.
People watch all those fucking gourmet cooking shows when all that's needed is simple things - doesn't mean they can't taste nice. And most everyone can find somewhere to grow a few herbs - bit of parsley, some basil. Why does it have to be either Pizza Hut and Pepsi Colonic or snowpea and mango salad? It's nice to have fresh tomatoes - but it's hard to justify the cost when it's not the local season - and they've got fuck all heath benefits when they've been trucked/flown 2000 miles. And orange ju
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
But very slowly and very messily. They get heart attacks and strokes more often than non smokers. We're pretty good at treating the former,
Clearly not a doctor are you? I've got one sitting beside who just laughed bitterly at your statement. Smokers have heart attacks and die. That jump-start crap you see on television only works on young, healthy people. Unless smokers are wealthy enough to have hospital wings named after them they don't get transplants - nor do they get joint replacement or stints. Do you know how much either of those things cost?
You are absolutely right about drinking it costs society big time. Obesity is next and about to over take it.
Smokers just die. On average they get sick (sore back) and then, with radio they might live another 6 months (small cell lung cancer is fast). Total cost for respite nursing and medication when smokers get lung cancer in one state (her figures from the AMA) is less than half the cost of supporting diabetics. If you're real lucky (and have a strange idea of luck) you die from emphysema - takes years, and you'll be outnumbered by all those dying with blocks of James Hardie in there lungs. Do you have any idea what those little electric buggies cost the taxpayer - sure some of them smoke - but very rarely is that the reason they're in one. Maybe smoking should be compulsory in McDonalds (at what age do children stop being special?)
Go talk to a doctor about death certificates these days - died in a car accident? Cause of death - heart failure resulting from a car accident (no I'm not making this up) . Did he smoke? Tick the smoking box. Now he's three different types of death statistics - if the lobbyists don't get a say that'll just be "smoking as a major contributor" but likely it'll be massaged as another death by smoking statistic. The 40+Kg tub of lard on half a gram of speed a day died of smoking, *and* a car accident. And no - he'd still be dead if he'd never smoked. The autopsy (he died in hospital) showed what's apparently common - if the car accident hadn't killed him his diet (this guy had diabetes), drinking, or use of amphetamines would of anyway. I guessed "biker" and "trucker" - I got gonged - he was a barrister.
The stats in this country are a joke (don't be thinking every other country is any better). We have a higher percentage of pot smokers than Trenchtown Jamaica - from a survey of people who work in drug rehabilitation clinics - most who went there instead of jail. If you get bashed on your way home from the club the hospital will do a survey - they will ask is you've ever smoked cannabis. Love them stats.
Try this at home: - get a total of all the people who died in your country last year. Then get numbers for total deaths from smoking and other causes. Now do your maths. Looks good right? Did you count all the death by car accident? What about other accidents and murder? Still add up? Now try not getting the numbers from a breakdown of a total from a single source.
Part of the problem is addiction to tobacco, but mostly it's addiction to the money involved in that addiction. (and don't get me started on Lily Pharmaceuticals and the government picking up the tab for methadone).
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_tax
One of the original reasons given for a tax like that:
The sale of alcohol necessitates higher costs in policemen and prisons, Pigou argues, because of the crime associated with alcohol. In other words, the net private product of alcohol businesses is peculiarly large relative to the net social product of the same business. He suggests that this is why most countries tax alcohol businesses.
In the case of oil, there are many costs beyond that of simply producing the oil, refining it and transporting it. The most obvious is the cost of maintaining trade relations with many OPEC countries. Most industrial countries would have no need of Middle Eastern countries if they weren't sitting on a sea of oil, and could leave them to their own devices like countries in Africa and South America.
There's the cost of CO2 emissions, although many people are still burying their heads in the sand about this.
Then there's the cost of transitioning from oil. We could wait until we simply run out of cheap oil before doing anything, or we can preemptively start the long process of transitioning away from oil as a primary source of fuel used for transportation.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have any ideas other then the intellectually lazy stance of standing on principal?
Should the government then set minimum fuel efficiency standard for various classes of trucks/cars/buses etc and then make it illegal to make/sell/own anything that does not comply? There is no "tax" in that plan. The purpose of leadership is to lead, we can discuss the methods of leadership but the role is still required.
Lets use sewers as a very close proxy for car emissions. Are you in very of a select few deciding that we should pay taxes to properly dispose of our shit? Or should we all be free to do what we want with it? My car throws emissions onto your sidewalk. Would you like me to do the same with my feces?
I understand that Libertarian ideals are very seductive, to bad they just lead to dictatorships of force. Arg! it gives me a headache just trying to get inside your head to understand you.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, this is the same reason for the "tax the rich" suggestions, because "the rich" don't really have much in the way of votes.
Eh, no - would you like to call a friend?
I have a lot more vote than the two pack a day, slab at night, glued to the telly, eat at Maccas, works on the factory floor guy.
Politics 101
Rule 1. politicians *run* for office in the hope of getting in or renewing their seat.
Rule 2. Takes money to run for office - the poly with the most money wins. Fact. There's a department called the AEC - feel free to check. The donation and spending requirements are stricter in Australia - and the more votes you get, the more of the money you spend on advertising and buses from the old folks homes to the polling booths is returned for you to play with. Guess who picks up the tab - same people who don't get a say about their tax rate - same one who only voted because the believed that this time, unlike every other time, the politician would honour his promises to them (he can't - altruists don't get the funding to win elections).
Of course I 'could' be wrong about that - and Hubert Humphrey could have been an American president.
I'm not a multi-billionaire - but I even without availing myself of "tax minimalization" schemes it hurts me a lot less to pay my tax than "him". With them - I could easily pay only a fraction of his annual tax while earning more on a slow day than he earns in a month of overtime.
The reality of the "tax the rich" is that it's a sucker vote for the politician who's run has already been funded by the rich - and we own him - see Rule 1.
You have every reason to distrust me when I lament the state of public education. It's in my best interests to ensure my grandchildren have a private advantage over "his" - and (not that I own a factory) educated factory workers can with-hold their labour without starving. Just like politicians I'm after the second term - and that's seeing my offspring take advantage of my good fortune. The only way to break that cycle is the public library and the internet. Public libraries are vanishing, and the ones that remain don't have many books because their patrons are often illiterate - and the internet, well it's Facebook and Youtube right?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok. But should taxes be used to capture the costs of externalities not accounted for otherwise?
For instance, the increase in the cost of healthcare caused by polution isn't reflected in the price of gas at the pump. That cost is passed along to society at large. Do you think it's appropriate for that cost to be captured by a tax?
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok. But should taxes be used to capture the costs of externalities not accounted for otherwise?
For instance, the increase in the cost of healthcare caused by polution isn't reflected in the price of gas at the pump. That cost is passed along to society at large. Do you think it's appropriate for that cost to be captured by a tax?
No. For two reasons. The first being that once you allow government to start collecting taxes for "externalities" then you've given them practically a blank check for whatever new taxes they want to levy, as long as it is to "capture the cost of an externalty." Second, It ought not be the role of government to be deciding such things. What's more, who is to say what the increase in cost of health care is or even if it can be tied to car pollution or any other sort.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really?! Then what is a government supposed to tax. Any economist will tell you that negative externalities are *exactly* what a government is supposed to tax and then use the money to subsidize positive externalities. The government is certainly not the most efficient body in the world, but I'd argue that compensating for externalities should be the government's first priority.
Any economist? Keynesian economists, perhaps, would argue the POV you are espousing right now. Many who follow the Keynesian school of thought are in prominent positions in government power including the current chairman of the Federal Reserve as well as the President of the United States... and several treasury ministers in other countries too. And how they've been handing the economic situation over the past five years or so is supposed to give us confidence that they are doing the right thing and their philosophy is sound?
There are several economic philosophies which do not accept this basic premise you are claiming here, in particular those who follow the Austrian school of thought instead. Most of them feel that personal liberty is far more important than some sort of command economy controlled by some government bureaucrats, because those same bureaucrats simply can never have enough information to make proper decisions in the first place.
At issue here to is a sense of trust on the part of the government towards its citizens. A government which trusts its citizens to do the right thing is by far more likely to give you personal liberties and stay out of your life than a government which wants to monitor every detail in your life and protect you from yourself. Are you sure you want a government sticking its nose into your business, telling you how to live your life?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
"At issue here to is a sense of trust on the part of the government towards its citizens. A government which trusts its citizens to do the right thing is by far more likely to give you personal liberties and stay out of your life than a government which wants to monitor every detail in your life and protect you from yourself. Are you sure you want a government sticking its nose into your business, telling you how to live your life?"
Unfortunately, from what I've seen, most people are fucking morons. And yes, I'm OK with the government charging me more to smoke, drink, and eat shitty food if they're going to provide healthcare. I'm OK with the government charging more for fuel and coal-generated power due to their externalities. Your rights end where the next person's right's begin, and that includes the water and air you pollute for someone else, as well as the costs you shove onto someone else.
It's always "personal liberties" when it's your rights, and not someone else's rights.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
So then, whose responsibility is it when our air, soil, and water are all toxic? How does that minor problem get fixed?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hard time with that. We live in a world where "because f**k you is why" is the attitude of far too many people. Far, far too many. The libertarian ideal of "the government can piss off and get the hell out of my life" leaves open an unimaginably large chasm that ought to be occupied by societal responsibility, harmony and equality. To remove government as the modulator of behavior will see anarchy, chaos and destruction fall in to replace it. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes cannot sustain a functional society. Some may think rape is OK because "really it's just good fun and that's what women were made for right?", others dumping toxic waste into rivers isn't a problem, I'll drive 90MPH down the highway and ignore red lights if I think the intersection is clear. etc. etc.
Nobody will ever agree with every behavior the government chooses modulate. That's obvious, but without a conductor the symphony is just going to break down into a discordant mess. As members of that society it is our responsibility to be educated, and provide intelligent, well thought out feedback to the government doing the modulating. This regrettably is often the missing component.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
So what?
So you're saying in the constitution the federal govt is somewhere mandated to be 'our brothers keeper'?
Pray tell where is this stated?
The US was founded to give everyone opportunity...to succeed or fail on their own merit...nothing more.
People will help their fellow man...this is shows all the time, look how much the US private citizenry gave to disasters it OTHER countries like when the tsunamis hit...
The govt isn't here to legislate morality...it is to try as much as possible to keep the playing ground fair and open...opportunity, at least on the federal level..is about all it is mandated to do by the constitution.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
By what mechanism does the market stop pollution?
The problem with everyone that bleats about the market correcting itself is that they forget that the ideal market relies on ideal people that are well informed at all times and have enough information to make a decision.
CO2 is colourless and odourless. How is the average person supposed to know the effects of CO2 if there isn't an expert to tell them that this is a problem? And once the expert has informed them, what recourse does that person have? The government is a way to make decisions on behalf of citizens to protect them and to give them power that they don't have individually. While it's not feasible for EVERYONE in a population to know about the problems CO2 cause, it IS possible for a few people to know and to give their expertise. Then it is the government, acting on behalf of the people (since the people selected the government, or the government is otherwise ostensibly acting in the best interests of the population) that can move to remove these problems that affect the whole population, whether they know it or not.
The government has done this many times, usually through regulation. For instance, there isn't lead in gasoline anymore. We don't have as big a problem with CFCs anymore (though the lingering effects of our past mistakes is still around). Etc.
However, what we're talking about here is something that is both dangerous but to an extent, indispensable. It simply isn't currently possible to maintain our way of life without fossil fuels at the moment. New technology will not be able to upset the status quo until such time as fossil fuels are unavailable because new technology is almost always less efficient and costs more while economies of scale aren't present. And, again, not everyone knows or believes the harm that is being done. This is exactly the sort of thing that the government was meant to take care of.
By levying taxes—and in this case, I believe they should be revenue neutral taxes—they can change behaviour, fix the problem that the market is itself unable to solve because of the flaws of the actors involved, and generally leave us in a better position than when we started.
Governments protect our best interests, and the market protects its OWN interest. There is a reasonable balance to be struck.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
ALL taxes manipulate behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
Taxes are for funding the govt services we all need...that should be it...period.
Almost all taxes manipulate behavior, it is just that we are more used to some type of taxes than to others. Intrinsically it is no more manipulative to tax a scarce polutant vs taxing work, investment and real estate like we do today.
I would rather say that since we need some taxation to support certain government function, let's tax the things with the least negative (or even positive) manipulative effects. Taxing gas would come well ahead of taxing work in that argument.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
I would argue the exact opposite. Taxes are the only way to fairly manipulate behaviour. Should it be in the overall interest of everyone to reduce our rate of fuel consumption, a tax is the only way to go. What are the alternatives, make gas guzzling vehicles illegal? Or how about requiring automakers make specific types of cars.
A tax on gas will change national behaviour without placing limits on what we can do. Want to drive a Hummer? - just be ready to pay for it when you fill up. The tax acts as an incentive for people to minimize fuel consumption. This is better then the alternative as people retain the freedom to do drive and purchase whatever vehicle they want.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Yes, but when those "fashions" have a negative impact on their neighbours then it is time to apply a tax. The true cost of a product is not measured with just dollar signs. For example, the environmental repercussions of consuming a product are almost never part of the original purchase price. If the "invisible hand" is going to work correctly, monetary values for those repercussions must be artificially added in the form of a tax.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that a problem, though? Don't think of it in terms of MPG, think about $/mile. Hippies care about MPG, the rest of us care about the cost of transportation and MPG is currently our most meaningful metric to gauge that. Handily, $/mi also works across all vehicles, including public transportation and bicycles. Based on some rough estimates, my current cost is about 12.5c/mi (~$4/gal, ~32MPG), if I exclude the purchase price of the car. If I bought a Tesla tomorrow (or perhaps an EV that's a bit less expensive), how many miles could I go on 12.5c worth of electricity? More than one, I expect. Net gain, all other things being equal (they obviously aren't - this excludes purchase price, maintenance, etc).
No matter what the cost of fuel is, it's always financially advantageous to go with the vehicle that consumes less fuel. Gas could be $0.10c/gal or $100/gal. You need to take the emotion out of the equation. Are you getting dicked over by the fuel companies? Probably. It's still better to pay less by having the more efficient vehicle.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People obviously value things like car power, size, etc over fuel efficiency. They can already buy more efficient cars, and they choose not to do so. When scarcity drives the price up, people may shift their priorities, but why force them to do artificially through taxes?
Because it's the government's job to strive for the betterment of the country as a whole, not just the individual. Individual actions may indeed serve the person better than actions that benefits the whole, but that's not the governments job. Indeed there are arguments to be made on where the line should be drawn for placing society above the individual or the individual above society, but when all is said and done the government (when functioning properly) should be striving the better the lives of its cit
Re: (Score:3)
This is a must read [straightdope.com]. It's a perfect example of a "market solution".
Re:Who do these jerks think they are!? (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, take a deep breath. :) Relax. It's ok, really. Don't let your blood pressure go up like that. It's bad for your health!
As lots of other people have been saying, a gas tax is not to punish you, it's to compensate for externalities. Every time you drive your car, you put wear on the roads and produce pollution. Those are real costs that people other than you have to bear. And since they are bearing those costs, not you, you have no incentive to reduce them by driving less or buying a smaller vehicle. You, in turn, are bearing the cost of other people's driving, and they have no incentive to drive less either. So that's why a gas tax is a good idea. Every time you (or I, or anyone else) drive, you should pay as close as possible to the actual cost of the damage you are doing. Then you can make more rational (in the economic sense) decisions about how much to drive and what car to buy. Your decisions will reflect realistic tradeoffs between various harms and benefits.
Re:There's an algorithm for that.... (Score:5, Informative)
The oil depletion allowance is not "subsidies for the oil industry", it's a perfectly just compensation for a declining asset.
That's just silly. The crash energy is absorbed in collapsing structures located between the front of the vehicle and the passenger compartment. Those structures are designed in proportion to the vehicle's weight, among other things. As I indicated in a post above, greater distance between the front and the passenger increases safety. A bigger crumple zone reduces deceleration and allows more room for a variety of protections for the passenger.