We are getting SCREWED on gasoline!

Northern Maine wrote:What do income taxes support? AND I say whack the tariffs on imports/exports....

The income taxes don't even cover the interest on the debt.

Maybe if we stopped printing money out of thin air, we wouldn't need them?

But asking that question is the wrong mentality. It is acknowledging the government has a higher claim to your labor than you do.

Why do you feel the government "deserves" a third or more of your effort? Sounds a lot like share cropping to me.

jpete wrote:

Northern Maine wrote:What do income taxes support? AND I say whack the tariffs on imports/exports....

The income taxes don't even cover the interest on the debt.

Maybe if we stopped printing money out of thin air, we wouldn't need them?

But asking that question is the wrong mentality. It is acknowledging the government has a higher claim to your labor than you do.

Why do you feel the government "deserves" a third or more of your effort? Sounds a lot like share cropping to me.

I may agree with you...especially on the fact that we have borrowed more than we can pay for...but, I'm sure we both have accepted some of the funds that was borrowed to support this country....a double standard that we can't avoid I guess!

Possible.

Except some of us would like to reverse course and others merely want to slow down going "Forward."

jpete wrote:Possible.

Except some of us would like to reverse course and others merely want to slow down going "Forward."

Very guarded response!

I left it open to "interpretation"

jpete wrote:I left it open to "interpretation"

Great..

I have to disagree here, my job involves working with many Europeans and when "we" complain about taxes they just laugh. Most of these people come here to escape the absolute oppressive tax system used by their respective Governments to raise capital. Another client of mine from Brazil tells me about the cost of imported products into his country, usually four times the actual cost of the item goes to tax. So, enjoy 4 dollar per gallon gas, thats not as bad as it may seem. Buying a used car is smart, and will save more money in the long run. Do the math, whether a car gets 100 miles per gallon, is irrelevent if you paid too much for it. The cost of ownership lies mostly in principal and interest of the purchase price, not the savings from fuel usage.

EarthWindandFire wrote:I have to disagree here, my job involves working with many Europeans and when "we" complain about taxes they just laugh. Most of these people come here to escape the absolute oppressive tax system used by their respective Governments to raise capital. Another client of mine from Brazil tells me about the cost of imported products into his country, usually four times the actual cost of the item goes to tax. So, enjoy 4 dollar per gallon gas, thats not as bad as it may seem. Buying a used car is smart, and will save more money in the long run. Do the math, whether a car gets 100 miles per gallon, is irrelevent if you paid too much for it. The cost of ownership lies mostly in principal and interest of the purchase price, not the savings from fuel usage.

Not for the length of time I keep a car!

Short of having to replace the body or the frame, it still beats a car payment. I use 10 gallons MAX a week. What would gas have to be to force me to get something else?

I paid $.12 per gallon for gas in Iraq back in 2004. Filled up a five gallon can and gave the guy the dinar eqivalent of $1. He was happy. They call it benzine. If you ask for "gaz" you'll get diesel. Paying $3.76 per gallon in the USA is just absolutley ridiculous!

EarthWindandFire wrote:I have to disagree here, my job involves working with many Europeans and when "we" complain about taxes they just laugh. Most of these people come here to escape the absolute oppressive tax system used by their respective Governments to raise capital.

We are on track to be just like the "European socialist" countries, or worse, if we don't get our house in order. Saying that we shouldn't complain about increasing taxes etc. because it's worse in some other country doesn't make sense to me.

just think for a minute, how much work, or work savings, do you get out of a single gallon of fossil fuel. seems cheap when one thinks about it, complain less, someday it will really be expensive, if available at all.

homecomfort wrote:just think for a minute, how much work, or work savings, do you get out of a single gallon of fossil fuel. seems cheap when one thinks about it, complain less, someday it will really be expensive, if available at all.

Where does that logic end?

$5/gal?

$15? $50?

jpete wrote:

homecomfort wrote:just think for a minute, how much work, or work savings, do you get out of a single gallon of fossil fuel. seems cheap when one thinks about it, complain less, someday it will really be expensive, if available at all.

Where does that logic end?

$5/gal?

$15? $50?

At a price equivalent to the same power provided by solar technology, the eternal source of energy. It will be expensive.

EarthWindandFire wrote:Buying a used car is smart, and will save more money in the long run. Do the math, whether a car gets 100 miles per gallon, is irrelevent if you paid too much for it. The cost of ownership lies mostly in principal and interest of the purchase price, not the savings from fuel usage.

I do not agree with that at all. I mean I buy used cars, but I buy cars that get longevity with great fuel mileage because I have a long commute: 87 miles one way.

The point I think you are missing is one that I missed for many years, and that is it requires 15 gallons of fuel to get that 1 gallon of gasoline that we burn in our cars. For society as a whole, it makes a major impact on the fuel supply chain. Where I work, a 1-1/2 hour commute is common, and I often see people driving pick ups to work based on their image. If they are getting 17 miles per gallon in their truck, a simple trip in to work WITH the 15:1 ratio added is a whopping 76 gallons. My little commuter car however, that gets 43 miles to the gallon, would be a total of 30 gallons of fuel, with the 15:1 ratio added in. That is a fuel savings of 46 gallons on one trip into work and that is just getting to work.

As a farmer I know there are times when using bigger trucks makes sense, and I know that, but when you work at a plant with 7000 people and most of them drive pick ups to work, the 15:1 ratio just is mind boggling.

Now think about all of us and the effect that 15:1 ratio has on the national fuel chain in regards to using coal to heat our homes. My house would use around 700 gallons in oil if this place was heated by #2 oil. At a 15:1 ratio that is a total consumption of 10,500 gallons. Now it does take fuel to get coal out of the ground and onto rail cars or trucks, but the economy of scale on mining operations is going to make the extraction pretty low on a gallons of fuel used per ton figure, and transportation by rail is extremely cheap. In the worst case scenario, if a truck load of coal was hauled up here from Hazelton it would be about 33 gallons per ton, so if my home could use a total of 167 gallons of fuel to save 10,500 gallons of fuel, which is a huge impact.

Now think of the impact if even more people burned coal for home heating purposes...