US Gasoline Prices Spur Telework

coondoggie writes "The price of gasoline may finally be changing the way many people commute and communicate. Anecdotal evidence says teleworkers are growing rapidly as a direct result of the cost of driving. The article links a survey indicating that in Q1 2007 the 19 largest US cable and telephone providers (representing about 94% of the market) acquired over 2.9 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers, to a total of about 56.2 million. That can be attributed in part to more employees taking advantage of telework programs, experts say. Just this week the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust task force opened the first of a series of hearings on the oil industry. Its chairman noted that gasoline prices have soared well above $3 a gallon and asked, 'How did we get into this mess?'"

Comments

How?

[dj245]

Urban sprawl, SUV's, and lack of MPG targets for manufacturers. Average MPG hasn't changed much since the 70's. I also haven't noticed any change in peoples driving habits. People still tailgate, race to the next light (even though it is red) etc. I guess they have money to burn.

There is no good fix for the sprawl. The other two are at least somewhat addressable by some means of legislation or industry curtailing.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the assumption that oil would remain cheap and plentiful forever -- a flawed assumption for any finite resource.

Re:How?

[thule]

Don't forget there has not been any refineries built in 30 years, even though there has been more types of gas that the states have required. Don't forget that not only has our demand for oil continued to grow, but the world demand has also continued to grow.

Re:How?

[MyLongNickName]

lack of MPG targets for manufacturers
The other two are at least somewhat addressable by some means of legislation or industry curtailing.

A more sane way of solving the problem is to have the consumer pay the true cost of energy. Does the gasoline you buy require us to import from unstable governments, resulting in a higher defense bill when we are in more conflicts over it? Put a tax on gas to foot the bill. Does gasoline hurt the environment? Put a tax on it to cover the cost.

Worried about tax payer backlash? Give out a refund check to cover the average cost. Those who buy the fuel efficient car or choose not to live an hour from work will make a killing. Those who don't will get killed. I bet you'd see habits change REAL quick.

In

Re:How?

[HomelessInLaJolla]

A more sane way of solving the problem is to have the consumer pay the true cost of energy Don't we already?

Does the gasoline you buy...Put a tax on gas to foot the bill. What's happening to the tax money we're already paying?

Does gasoline hurt the environment? Put a tax on it to cover the cost What's happening to the tax money we're already paying?

I understand what you're saying but I think there's a hole in the government's pocket which, if sewn up, could allow many of these problems to work themselves out.

Re:How?

[timeOday]

Don't forget there has not been any refineries built in 30 years,

So why don't we import refined gasoline instead of crude? I'm sure we could have it made to whatever specification is required.

Re:How?

[Metasquares]

I think it's to maintain the perception of control. Despite the fact that 99% of the work I do can be done remotely and I am more productive when I don't need to travel 3 hours per day to and from my school, my advisor still insists that I show up at the lab routinely "so he can communicate with me if he needs to"... not that he does unless I specifically schedule a time to meet with him.

Re:How?

[j79zlr]

Obviously it is less expensive to refine it here. Market dictates. Thats the whole point. The environmental restrictions in place make it impossible to build a new refinery, but that doesn't help the environment. The fact that 30+ year old refineries are allowed to continue production under inefficient and environmentally unfriendly practices which cost us instead of building newer, more efficient refineries, that produce less harmful contaminants and more gasoline because they aren't grandfathered in, is ridiculous.

Re:How?

[TheRaven64]

What's happening to the tax money we're already paying? It's not connected to the amount of petrol you consume. There is no incentive to cut usage if you are paying a flat rate. Worse, a lot of the cost of using petrol isn't even being paid at the moment, it's being deferred. Which would be more likely to make you consume less petrol:

1. Having it cost twice as much at the pump, or
2. Having the cost of the increase added to your other taxes?

If petrol cost the same in the USA as it does in much of the rest of the world (well over $5/gallon), then you would almost certainly see a drop in demand.

Re:How?

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Because realistically the federal government should only be involved in those things that nearly everyone agrees it should be involved in, otherwise leave it up to local That was the thought behind the 9th and 10th Amendments which sought to limit the rights and powers of the federal government to a small, and explicit, set of duties and, in doing so, prevent the runaway abuse of government by the established gentry such as they had in England.

We're so far away from that now that nothing short of a revolution of monumental proportions could ever set the record straight.

Re:How?

[Moridin42]

That's one component of the "I'm not buying it". People have been pumping fuel out of the ground for, what, a little over one hundred years? It's been an extraordinarily profitable commodity product since at least the first decade of the 1900s. There is probably enough petroleum product stored up, around the globe, to last us all for at least a year or two. That's more than plenty time to adjust production and refining rates. This is about government protected profiteering.

Except that if we really do have that much petroleum stored up around the globe, its because the people who store it believe it to be more advantageous to store it than release it. They've already allocated their resources in what they believe to be the best way possible. There isn't any motivation for them to drain their stores while we retool the globe's production and refining capacities. Unless you'd be willing to pay them more for gas while we do so. I'm thinking thats probably not what you had in mind.

That's a very astute observation and the Wall Street market fund managers who invest in various segments of the petroleum industry know it every bit as well as you do--and they're leveraging that need, guaranteed because people are (conveniently) in debt (due to systems which the same market fund managers and bankers also happen to conveniently control), against the population using government protected trusts and monopolies (which are in reality but due to some accounting technicality legally aren't).

I can't even begin to comprehend what you're talking about. From what I can tell, somehow Wall Street is forcing people to incur debt and to buy copious quantities of gas. How they manage to do that, I don't know. Here I was under the impression that every cent of debt I'm carrying was incurred voluntarily. Not to mention that every gallon of gas that goes in my car was quite my own decision.. I guess I'm just that strange exception and everybody else has some Wall Street thug strongarming them in their decisions.

Only because the financial game is rigged. In decades past many groups have expressed interest in shoring up our refining capacity and making it redundant. Those moves have been blocked on both the business and the political sides by already existant vested money interests.

That may or may not be the case. I don't look too hard into this segment of legislation. It wouldn't surprise me terribly if the oil companies were pretty supportive of environmental legislation that blocked new capacity by making it excessively expensive. Thats kind of been the history of "protective" legislation in the US. Whatever was trying to be protected is barely better off, if at all, and the businesses that get grandfathered in see their margins increase.

Yet demand never has gone down. This further illustrates (and debunks) the complete idiocy with which people attempt to apply supply/demand/price explanations to a major global real world market. It may work for apples and oranges in the classroom, it may work for five cent lemonade stands in the streets, but it damn sure doesn't work that simply within a socially stratified society.

I see you're thinking demand as going down only when raw quantity demanded shrinks. That isn't the whole of what economics would consider as "down". When prices go up, demand really does go "down". The quantity of gallons consumed may be up this year from last year and 5 years ago. However, if prices now were the same as last year's or 5 years ago the gallons consumed would be even higher now than they currently are. If you wish to use a gradeschooler's understanding, then lots of things don't work they way they should. Kinda how physics says that a 10 lb bowling ball and 10 lbs of feathers will hit the ground at the same time when dropped from the same height. If you actually try, though, the ball hits first. Because physics assumes you make th

Re:How?

[Moridin42]

Again.. You're essentially asserting that people who buy gasoline are being coerced into buying it. Which is quite frankly not the case. Or at least, I find it very hard to believe, given that no one I have ever met or have ever heard of in my entire life has made such a report. Since it is not the case that people are being coerced into buying gasoline, they must be doing so voluntarily. That is to say that buyers value the gasoline they buy at at least the value of the money they fork over to pay for it. How this is milking the American population any more than any other corporation turning a profit, I can't fathom. I guess Honda, Toys R US, Google, Panasonic, and IKEA are milking Americans for their own personal greed too. Oil companies provide something that Americans want. An energy source for their vehicles that allows Americans to get where they want to go in a timely fashion. Anything the oil companies do to stifle alternative fuels, competitive providers (although I'm far more inclined to believe that the massive startup costs are stifling more competitive providers than anything incumbent companies could do), and buying politicians are options only so long as the American masses implicitly allow it. Which the American masses are currently doing. Sure, the general public grumbles about it and media outlets can publish stories. But the prices currently aren't getting the public up in arms. They really aren't demanding that we devote a lot of resources to alternative fuels. Little public outrage makes politicians buyable. Or at the very least, a lot cheaper to be bought.

As an aside, the Constitution was written by men asserting their right to be free from English monarchy. The document says a great deal about how the Federal government should keep its big nose out of its citizen's business and very little about competitive markets.

If you want competitive markets, keep politics out of them. Oil companies may collude, but if they didn't have the weight of federal legislation to keep out new companies or impose large extra costs for opening new facilities or whatever, I can pretty well guarantee you that the lure of increased profits would induce one or more to break a collusion agreement.

Given that no one can keep politics out of markets, politics itself becomes a marketplace. And as I said before, its a market the american public isn't trading in much. There just isn't enough reason yet. Not that that surprises me. After all the price of gas is in the $3-4/gallon range. And yet we're still blowing through $4-5/pint on beer in quite ridiculous quantities. Heck, not only would not going to the bar save us from paying for heavily marked up alcohol, but we'd save the money on gas by not driving. Yet we still do a lot of both. Because its still relatively pretty cheap.

Re:How?

[drsquare]

Don't we already?

No, you pay a token amount of tax. The amount you pay doesn't come close to the true costs of that oil. Take the costs of the defence budget for the middle east, plus the cost of the environmental damage from the gas being used in America, and divide that by the amount of gas sold in America in gallons, and you have the amount you need to tax gas per gallon. Then oil would pay for itself.

I've been riding my bike

[geek]

I always preferred walking or riding but the gas prices are what finally drove me over the edge. I live in CA and it's pushing 4$ a gallon right now, in some places it's gone over 4. So I just ride my bike, everything I need is in riding distance. If I do have to go further I have my car, which is a rather fuel efficient Saturn. I think I've put all of 60$ in the tank this year total. To me that's how it should be.

I blame a lot of the fuel efficiency problems on city planers. The layouts of our cities are really bad for fuel economy, especially place like San Francisco and Los Angeles. California also suffers badly from a lack of a good public transit system. We have buses but it's not good enough.

Part of the problem is also social. People want their big tanks (Hummer, Suburban etc) because they feel safe in them. For whatever reason people equate size with safety even though it's not the actual case.

Re:I've been riding my bike

[Silver Sloth]

The drivers of small cars, like us cylists, are far, far more road aware. The divers of large tank like cars feel safe in their boxes and don't feel they have to worry so much. Hence the drivers of small cars drive better and are safer.

Re:I've been riding my bike

[CheeseTroll]

It isn't so much the size that makes SUVs less safe, but their high center of gravity, which makes them more prone to rollovers. In the winter, we see SUVs flipped over in the ditch all the time. They'll hit a slippery patch, their tires will catch on a ridge on the side of the road, and away they go.

I think they should create a NASCAR-like race using SUVs. Then people would really see the difference in handling between them and a low-slung car.

Congress!

[MBCook]

How did we get into this mess?

Congress!

Let's see what congress HASN'T done...

• Made it easier to construct refineries to avoid the problems right after Katrina
• Allow drilling in ANOIR
• Allow drilling off the continental shelf in the gulf
• Set federal gasoline standards so gas could be used anywhere, instead of each state requiring different blends and ruining some of the economy of scale we could have
• Raise CAFE standards more than once ever 20 years, and then only by like 3 gallons. Every car should be getting 30+ at this point, every truck/SUV 20. We can do it.
• Use Iraqi oil for reconstruction and running our equipment. In a rush to avoid looking like the war (which I support) was for oil (which everyone thought anyway) we've wasted tons of money and oil that could be shipped to the US, the savings put towards gas tax reductions or rebates, etc.
• Working to make diesel more common here now that we have relatively clean and efficient diesels. Europe has them. We should too.

What, exactly HAS congress done to lower gas prices? Ethanol subsidies? Hydrogen research? Those haven't done much, have they? I remember 7 years ago when I saw a station out of town with gas for 99 cents a gallon. I'd be very surprised to find a station right now in my area at triple that. Ok, I know, they passed tax rebates when you buy a hybrid. But they passed them when hybrids were very hard to get and the expire this year as hybrids are getting easier to get. Oops.

Re:Congress!

[mbkennel]

Regarding above points:

Industry also had little incentive or desire to build refineries. And it's
better to use less gasoline as well. And refineries have had capacity
expansion equivalent to 10 new refineries.

There are some annoying problems with clean air standards raising prices,
but one of the principal ones comes from Federal political interference.

In California, the refiners are FORCED, against their desire, to use
ethanol imported expensively (and not compatible with cheap pipelines)
from politically powerful but sparsely populated farming states.

This despite the fact that they could meet even the strictest Los Angeles
emissions standards for fuel without ethanol---and give better fuel efficiency
to drivers.

Naturally this raises prices artificially---more than letting CA figure out
its own means to meet the air standards. CA isn't so insignificant (30 million+ people?)
that a robust market isn't possible on its own.

More oil exploration in Alaska and Gulf (which is actually already heavily explored) will
make oil companies locally a lot of money but overall be insignificant. Really, look at
the numbers of the hypothetical (optimistic guesstimate) oil available and compare to
global consumption.

At best, Alaska is our ultimate Strategic Petroleum Reserve and we should reserve it
for when the crap really hits the fan---which it will in 20 years when the terminal
downslopes of all major oil reserves really get cranking past the peak.

And again, since oil is a world tradable commodity for lowering prices all
that is necessary for Iraq is to just get its oil out on the world market.

If the US decided to confiscate the oil for its own profits you can bet
that the attacks on the oil pipelines would be far worse than even now.
No Iraqi local would have a stake in keeping the oil going.

I agree that efficiency standards ought to be raised. I prefer a fee-bate
instead of CAFE standards: tax low efficiency vehicles (without normalizing
by mass!) and rebate that to efficient vehicles. Make it substantial (e.g. $3000
on a normal Civic, $5000+ on a Prius-level efficiency) and relative
to the fleet sold every year, not an absolute threshold.

Then automatically you get a push to increase fleet efficiency every year
without additional legislation, and the vehicle choice is subject to market
forces not direction.

This is better than a high gasoline tax, because people have power of choice
when they buy cars, so it's not just punishing them for choices made
years ago.

We were warned.

[oddaddresstrap]

How did we get into this mess?
We were given a whack in the head about thirty years ago. We got up, dusted ourselves off and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Re:We were warned.

[Anonymous Coward]

We were given a whack in the head about thirty years ago. We got up, dusted ourselves off and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Nothing? I think you've been smoking too much pot the last thirty years. Do you remember the 1970s?

I remember gas lines. I remember dramatic action to improve energy efficiency. I remember consumers choosing fuel-efficient Japanese cars instead of hulking gas-guzzlers from Detroit. I remember Detroit complaining that they couldn't compete against the Japanese. I remember when the average fuel efficiency of automobiles went UP every year instead of DOWN. I remember when energy efficiency and energy independence were viewed as vital to the national security of the United States.

However, this all seemed to stop in the 1980s for some reason.

Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[reporter]

Gas prices in the USA are not particularly high -- even at $3.50 per gallon. Gas in Europe costs $10 per gallon.

Such high prices in Europe does not hurt the European standard of living because many Europeans use public transportation; bus and trains are relatively cheap to ride. In the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation due to class snobbery. In my neck of the woods, about 80% of the passengers on the bus is either impoverished Americans (from ghetto neighborhoods) or illegal aliens from Mexico. The occupancy of the buses is about 50% during most of the day. Meanwhile, the freeways are packed with late-model cars driven by the wealthier class.

Frankly, even if gas prices increased to $10 per gallon in the USA, Americans would not necessarily experience a decline in their standard of living -- if they use public transportation. It is cheap although it may be slighly inconvenient because you must time your life according to the bus or train schedule.

Note that American politicians never compare European gas prices to American gas prices. The politicians just tell Americans what they want to hear: "Gas at $3.50 is too expensive. We Americans are a sad, pathetic victim of the greedy oil companies. We should force them to lower gas prices back to $1.50 per gallon so we can enjoy your monster SUV."

These are the same Americans who overwhelmingly supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[notamisfit]

You know, I don't think we've seen so much as a drop of oil out of Iraq. From what I've heard, China and Vietnam are the ones getting the contracts. Not that I really care; most of the Middle Eastern oilfields were illegally nationalized from US or British companies anyways. (If it wasn't for the West, they'd still be driving camels on top of the world's richest oil deposits.) That's the _really_ scary thing about Iraq; Bush honestly seems to believe that letting Iraq vote itself into another Islamic Republic is going to be the thing that brings peace and stability to the region.

As for public transportation, it's feasible -- in the metropolitan areas. Out here in farm country, it's a lost cause (and the lower property taxes and intangibles like better schools probably make up for the extra money spent on fuel).

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[miskatonic alumnus]

Did you ever see the public transport system in the US. I have. I can understand why people refuse to use it.

Its non-existence in most places is a pretty good deterrent. I would much rather use public transportation than own my own vehicle. I hate driving, dealing with other drivers, paying for insurance & vehicle maintenance & gasoline, making the yearly donation to the DMV to keep it registered, and still having it break down from time to time. A lot of people consider the automobile as symbol of their freedom, I view it as a symbol of servitude --- when it breaks down, it immediately displaces whatever your current highest priority is. Goddamned things are balls and chains, polluters, and instruments of fatality --- claiming more lives in the age group 15-40 than any other cause of death in the U.S. The sooner we're rid of them, the better.

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[epee1221]

In the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation due to class snobbery.

Did you ever see the public transport system in the US. I have. I can understand why people refuse to use it.

Exactly. I don't avoid public transportation here because of snobbery. I avoid it because it is of low quality. With my car, I can roll out of bed at 8 and be at work before 8:30 minutes. If I had to take the bus, I would have to get up around 6:30, walk a mile and a half, get on one bus, ride to the middle of town, change buses (and hope everything's on schedule), ride out to work, and get there around 9. I would also likely have to get off work early in order to be able to take the bus back to where I got on (a mile and a half from home).
On top of all that, once I already have a car, it's cheaper to use it drive myself to work than to pay for the bus fare. (It's about $3 for a day's driving, $4 for a day's busing -- $6 for the bus if I pay for each ride individually)

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[timeOday]

Gas prices in the USA are not particularly high -- even at $3.50 per gallon. Gas in Europe costs $10 per gallon.

But most of the difference is taxes, which goes back to the taxpayers (instead of into $400m retirement packages).

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[EugeneK]

One root cause, in this area at least, is idiotic zoning policy that makes it illegal for most people to live close to where they work.

A good point; don't forget that the zoning policies are constantly being maintained by NIMBY homeowners who dread the consequences of higher density close to their neighborhoods, for example in Menlo Park recently, a plan to build high density housing near the Caltrain was shot down by the wealthy NIMBY homeowners who would like to preserve the suburban character of their neighborhoods.

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[garcia]

In much the USA, many Americans refuse to use public transportation because they want to get to work in a half-hour rather than spending four hours hopping from bus to bus to train to bus. That is certainly the situation in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not exaggerating those times, either

You're not exaggerating for the Minneapolis metro area either. We own one car and my wife takes public transportation daily (we both rode the train downtown from another suburb 15 mins away last night -- the nearest stop to our house). I work in a suburb on the other end of the metro. I want to buy a house there but I cannot afford the $65 to 80k jump in prices from where I currently reside. We went to look at a house priced at $224,900 which is still nearly $60k more than our current home cost in 2004 (and with the market the way it is, how much it still is worth) and not only was it destroyed inside (we assume from foreclosure or renters) it needed so much work that another $30 to $50k would be required to get it going again -- something of which I have no time for nor any funds.

Anyway back on topic, the *estimated* time to take a bus from where I live to downtown Minneapolis and from there to the North end of town's transit stop and then from there to 10 blocks from where I work would take 193 minutes bus time and another 15-20 by walking (please note that the temperatures here in January and February routinely drop to -20F or lower in the mornings (with highs in the 0 - 5F range) and that there are no sidewalks between the stop and the school where I work). That same trip takes me less than 30 minutes (33.1 miles) by car.

I'm super tired of Europeans thinking that they can automatically assume why Americans don't use public transportation. The layout of cities here is far different and the layout of mass transit is as well. I would *love* to take mass transit daily (more reading, more relaxing, and less money) but I cannot at the current time.

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

"...most of the Middle Eastern oilfields were illegally nationalized from US or British companies anyways..."

The same Middle East "legally" colonized by the West?

Re:Gas Price in Europe is $10 Per Gallon

[tftp]

If $6/gallon were levied as a gas tax in all counties with a population density over a certain threshold, to pay for a public transport system for that county. To make it faster, cleaner, safer and more convenient. I'd gladly pay $9 a gallon to gas my car up then.

What planet are you from, dreaming about anything that is efficiently operated by a government, that is faster, cleaner and convenient??? If you get your wish you'd be paying $9/gal and your money will be wasted, misdirected, and otherwise lost to you, and all you'll get for the trouble would be that broken old bus that comes every two hours between 9 and 5, government holidays excluded. As a bonus, $0.50/gal will be earmarked for riot squads, to beat you senseless if one day you decide to object to this arrangement.

How did we get into this mess?

[Colin Smith]

Human nature. Consume while it's cheap. You see it in every aspect of human behaviour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_common s

This is why socialism doesn't work and why market economics does.

Positive change

[Simon80]

I'll support these outrageous gas prices if they're finally high enough to make people rethink their horribly inefficient daily commutes. I find it wrong that there is such a huge flow of cars going back and forth every single day.

I love high gas prices!

[fyrwurxx]

"The higher prices reflect an imbalance between supply and demand"

Yeah, and I'm sure your profit margin has absolutely nothing to do with it.

As an environment-conscious individual, I relish higher gas prices. $3 a gallon? Why not $5 or $10? I truly believe hitting people in the wallet is the *only* way to incite change in habits as deeply-rooted as our gasoline addiction. People need to realize that carpooling, investing in very fuel-efficient vehicles (for example, I drive a manual transmission Saturn--I average 30mpg city) or looking toward hybrid/bio-diesel options is not just a fanciful dream but a necessary reality. Alternative fuel vehicles are a reality, but the only way we will leverage them into the mainstream is through the power of our collective consumer's almighty dollar (and pound, and yen... ;)

Bushian fantasies

[Harmonious Botch]

I agree, except I think you're giving Bush way too much credit. He probably believed that Iraq would turn itself into a liberal democracy as soon as the tyrant at the top was removed. ( It's not surprising that he should have that view; it will probably work in his own country...)

Re:And the rest of the world asks...

[Poppler]

Why is tax on gasoline in the USA so ridiculously low [compared with Europe]? The problem is that unlike Europe, most of the United States doesn't have a viable public transportation system. Unless you live in a major city, you're pretty much stuck driving - the closest bus stop to my house is about 10 miles away, and I live in one of the more densely populated suburban areas in the country.

In Europe, driving is a luxury, but in most of the US, it's a necessity. I could understand places like NYC imposing a high gasoline tax, but in much of the country, it would be an unfair burden on the working poor.

Bull

[Colin Smith]

Such high prices in Europe does not hurt the European standard of living because many Europeans use public transportation; Bull.

Yes more use public transport than the US. i.e. 90% of travel is by car rather than 95%. But it does indeed hurt the European standard of living. Not only do they have to spend a fortune on a car, another fortune on fuel each year, but they are also taxed to the gills in order to pay the truly massive subsidies that are required to make public transport remotely affordable for the 10% who are able to make use of the extremely limited service.

Conventional public transport is unable to provide an equivalent service to the car, it is simply physically unable service the other 90% of journeys that most need to make.

Public transport is most definitely not the answer to the car. Not with any of the existing group transport systems anyway. Anyone who says it is, is simply repeating dogma without having really investigated the costs and inherent limitations of such systems.

Re:Chicken and the egg

[mrchaotica]

Without resorting to significant subsidies...

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The road system in America is significantly subsidized, yet the rail system and public transportation systems are expected to make a profit! What. The. Fuck?!

Re:And the rest of the world asks...

[mrchaotica]

Why is tax on gasoline in the USA so ridiculously low?

Because, unlike in Europe, our cities are new enough to have been (stupidly) designed for cars instead of people. Now we're screwed, and have to have artificially low prices on gas to compensate.

Re:How much do you all really spend on gas?

[frogstar_robot]

It isn't just what we personally spend on gasoline. I've noticed prices on fresh produce and other things in the grocery store are up too. High fuel prices affect the price of everything. Almost everything in the store came by ship, truck, or train. That takes fuel and higher fuel costs are passed on to consumers. High fuel prices are costing you more than a 0.15% household budget increase. Some families have to do more driving than you do so the direct costs for others is higher as well. That means many people stay home more and spend less when they are out. That will ripple through the economy as well.

This is a much larger issue than your monthly gasoline bill.

Why do you live 100 miles from where you work?

[fantomas]

Why do you live 100 miles from where you work, why not live 5 miles, or ten miles? genuinely curious. I can understand folk in the really big cities saying up to 3 or 4 miles from where I work is too expensive to live, that's prime downtown property. But 10 miles? 20 miles? I guess your cities are very spread out, is it a planning issue of pressing councils and your government to allow higher density residential property?

Re:Why do you live 100 miles from where you work?

[drsquare]

Why do you live 100 miles from where you work, why not live 5 miles, or ten miles? genuinely curious.

OK, so what happens when you move 100 miles towards your workplace, then you're fired? Or what if your wife works 100 miles in the other direction, now she has to commute 200 miles to work. You haven't really thought this through. Maybe you're single and are willing to live like a gypsy moving around following work, other people would rather have more stability in their lives.

Re:I hope soestion

[tronbradia]

Your condition is kind of a case in point about the american suburban lifestyle (sorry that other guy was a jerk to you btw, I'ma try and be nicer). But there is NOWHERE on earth where 50 miles is not a miserable/ridiculous commute. There was an article in the New Yorker about how miserable long commutes make people, but people have a tough time makign the cost/benefit analysis that it's probably worth taking a major quality of life hit if you can significantly shorten your commute, but nobody wants to take it. I don't personally even understand why it's a tradeoff, cus I live in a huge 3-bedroom apt w/ all amenities (except a dishwasher, which we've got plenty of room for) 3 miles/5 minute subway ride from downtown montreal where my school is, for which I split $1290/mo with 3 roomates. The gas here is well over $4/gallon (1.30ish per liter is how they actually sell it), and all i can do is feel bad for the suckers that have to buy it. Then when I moved back with my parents last summer and worked in Seattle (25 miles away), I had a 100 minute bike/bus commute and was utterly miserable for 3 months (the train would have been even longer, btw, your train sounds a lot better than transit in Seattle). I know being away from college and whatnot had a lot to do with my misery, but I have pretty much never hated anything as much as that commute. Anway I don't know why you live where you live, but if I was you I'd be seeeeriously considering moving, if it's not some kind of pleasure palace where servants fan you with palm fronds as you sit at the poolside and devise elaborate but easily escapable death sequences for James Bond. I mean, the way it sounds, it's not like you see much of the place anyway.

Re:Make all public roads toll roads

[DeadChobi]

No, if Americans had to pay for the roads they would be forced to quit their jobs or not eat. There is no public transportation for most of us. What we do have is slow, dirty, and doesn't go outside of urban areas. You've really only mastered one aspect of our economic dependence on the road system. A lot of us would turn to public transportation if only it existed. I would be happy to pay tax on it as a student. The problem is our government doesn't see what a wise investment it will be in a few years.

socialism, good and bad

[mkcmkc]

[Tragedy_of_the_commons]
This is why socialism doesn't work and why market economics does.

So, you're saying that we should

1. cut back on corporate welfare,
2. stop subsidizing oil companies, and
3. let gasoline prices rise to their true market value?

Sounds good to me!

I Forgot, Who's Making Record Profits These Days?

[lmnfrs]

"Its chairman noted that gasoline prices have soared well above $3 a gallon and asked, 'How did we get into this mess?"

I do no know for sure, as I don't pay much attention to oil and gas, but might it have something to do with greed? Remember when those execs weren't under oath, and efforts to put them under oath were scorned by the judge? Do you really have to ask how we got into this mess, or feel surprised?

Leave Oil Reserves Untapped for Strategic Reasons

[weston]

# Allow drilling in ANOIR
# Allow drilling off the continental shelf in the gulf


Not a good idea.

Oil pulled out of there now would probably simply go on the global market. Since it's not a particularly huge amount in comparison to what's out there, it probably wouldn't depress prices significantly. Especially since competition for industrial resources is getting steeper as China, India, and some third-world countries enter the game.

At some point, it seems likely the peak oil shinola really will splatter upon the fan. Or resource competition will get really intense. Maybe so intense that we'll see military challenges for control of resources on the other side of the globe. All while most modern militaries run, essentially, on oil.

Against that possibility, which option places us in a stronger strategic position -- if we tap all our domestically available resources, or if we leave some significant ones untapped while using those from around the world while we (more or less) have a dominant position?

Re:Yes, it hurts European's standard of living

[aslate]

Sorry, public transport isn't inferior to a car, but it should be used in tandem with a car. Public transport is great for commuting on. I love the ability to get on a train, sit down, stretch my feet out and read / work on laptop / play a games console and listen to some music.

For going to the shops it might make more sense to use a car, carry the shopping in the boot and not try and carry stuff on and off busses or trains.

And the biggest thing of all, congestion. If i wanted to drive to Uni from home it's a good 45 minutes, however i've only done this journey late on a Sunday or well after peak. If i were to do this in rush hour i'd forget about it. The train and tube take me about 45 mins start to finish (includes walking at both ends). Now the fact that a large proportion of people use public transport and the car still sucks makes a strong point.

Approximately 3 million tube journeys, 5 million bus journeys and several million more train journeys per day (operated by about 10 different franchises so no stats for that) show that transport doesn't suck that badly.

Re:Make all public roads toll roads

[Anonymous Coward]

The more the road is used, the more money it gets for upkeep.

Leading to well-paved freeways and shitty surface streets.

Attempting to apply capitalism to the road system is fairly pointless. We'd all have to slog 10 miles through mud after a rain to get to the parking lot because it just wasn't cost-effective to pave a street out to our neighborhoods. Not only that, but we'd start having arguments over "road neutrality" with the toll companies demanding that wal-mart pay up their "fair share" since the toll roads make it possible for wal-mart to make money.

Re:It's very simple...

[HangingChad]

It's not rocket science.

I was at the store this week and there was a huge ass pickup truck, towing a boat with a 4 wheeler in the bed of the pickup. Almost everyone around here drives a pickup or some giant SUV because they "need" a vehicle that big to tow their boat, camper, 4 wheeler, motorcycles or whatever. They'll drive a vehicle that gets 9 miles to a gallon all the time so they can get 5 mpg towing their boat to the lake and burning gas all day water skiing once or twice a month during the summer. It usually will have an American flag or support the troops magnet stuck on it somewhere.

The first thing we have to do is spend time and money educating people. I know that sounds horribly basic, but we want to start highlighting the connection between big vehicles and dependence on foreign oil. We need to do that before we start jacking the cost of owning and driving a gas pig. Then raise that cost in a way independent of gas prices. Because gas will drop and people will start consuming more all over again, just like the 80's. And we need better mass transportation options that don't exist right now.

I live on a farm...okay, a hobby farm...and understand what it is to need a big utility vehicle. I don't have one...yet...but there are really times when I could use one. Not to haul my camper or boat, but to haul fence supplies, gravel, dirt, trees, bags of concrete and...stuff you need out in the country. Moving things, hauling things. What would be perfect for me is if there was some place I could go and rent a pickup truck easily. Not like U-Haul (our only option here) endless paperwork, leave your first born...some place you could swipe a card and drive away. Do your business and take it back, all without reservations, fingerprinting, or a cavity search. ZipTrucks instead of a ZipCar.

Education and options. It's not sexy, it's not fast but it's a start.

Re:Distance to drive USA vs Europe

[drsquare]

If Americans drive further, why do they choose less efficient cars? You'd think that if you're driving 100 miles to buy a newspaper you'd get the most efficient car possible.

Re:Distance to drive USA vs Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that if you're driving 100 miles to buy a newspaper you'd get the most efficient car possible.

no, just a faster one, and make it big so I can buy more papers.