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Why Fuel Efficiency Advances Haven't Translated To Better Gas Mileage
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."
I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes Knittel says.
93% of all statistics are made up. 99% of economists know that.
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.
"'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' " No, it's the market's responsibility.
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
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.
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.
One of the US crash safety standards required by the NHTSA that adds weight and expense to new vehicles is for "unrestrained drivers", despite the fact that under 10% of US drivers go un-belted these days. The punch line is that the IIHS found the NHTSA test not very useful, because un-bented passengers often aren't held in place in front of the intended safety devices.
While the SUV revolution is more than a little bit to blame for today's lackluster fuel numbers, the article fails to point out collision safety as a factor in the modern design of cars. It's not just the trucks and SUV's that are bringing the average down -- compact cars these days are still way heavier than they used to be, with much worse visibility, largely as a result of increasingly stringent crash standards.
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.
The 2012 Impreza gets 30% better 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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Seriously, your argument is photography? You have so much photographic equipment that it can't fit into a hatchback so you need an SUV?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
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."
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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 citizens through the betterment of the country as a whole.
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.
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.
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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.
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).
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)
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.
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.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' he says.
NO, IT'S NOT! It's the stupid consumers responsibility to START BUYING UP ALL THE FUEL EFFICIENT CARS! Supply and demand, when people demand it, companies will supply it!
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 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.
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 were put in place. A great deal of the weight gain over the years was due to the increase in horse power needed to overcome the pollution control regulations imposed on vehicles while maintaining similar performance.
Again, fuel economy is not the only design criteria. You can't look at an overall improvement in safety, accident survive-ability, comfort, mileage, pollution abatement, vehicle longevity, and dismiss all such improvements as "a total waste" just because all of these improvements didn't fall into one's preferred area of political rabble-rousing.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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?
This is a must read. It's a perfect example of a "market solution".
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?
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Individual behavior that has a societal cost should be fair game for targeted taxes. In many cases I think that allowing someone the freedom to engage in the costly behavior while asking them to compensate society for the privilege is preferable to an outright ban on the behavior.
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.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
You started out making a good point. One of the reasons that gas mileage has not improved more is because the government has mandated more safety features, which increase the curb weight of cars.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I disagree, what you call the government picking winners and losers is called by others a government trying to create a more equal society. I would even go so far as to say that the whole concept of 'winners and losers' is more akin to how individuals behave and subjectively speaking, the government trying to create a more equal society is considered the government picking sides by those who deem themselves 'winners' in society and don't want an society of equality of a society of their superiority.
Because your giant vehicle pollutes our air, tears up our roads (that we must pay to repair), kills us in our smaller cars or on our bikes, and guzzles gasoline, driving up the cost for the rest of us and sending gazillions of dollars to fascist states that breed terrorists who want to kill us.. Get your head out of your ass, man.
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?
Speed limits are often higher in europe (70mph in the uk, no limit in some parts of germany etc)... And yet European cars are generally more economical than american ones.
Cars have always been designed to accelerate to speeds higher than the speed limit anyway, if anything some newer cars are so underpowered as to be quite dangerous as they significantly increase the size of gap you require when pulling out.
Better safety equipment and structure is a design goal regardless of the speed limit, a car designed to be safe at 100mph is going to be pretty good at protecting occupants when driving at 30mph.
On the other hand, low speed limits make it much easier to fall asleep at the wheel, 65mph was noisy and uncomfortable 30 years ago, but in todays cars you barely feel it.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Why is it wrong when a behavior increases an individual's societal burden?
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
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.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
No kidding. I moved cross-country including a small photo studio's worth of gear (two monoblocs, a half-dozen or more small strobes, at least five stands, two SLR bodies, several lenses, etc., etc.) in a MINI Cooper, and had room to spare - and that was with a co-pilot and his luggage. Aside from some extremely unwieldy backdrops, fitting any piece of photo gear in my car is no problem whatsoever (and as the GP said he was driving to make landscape shots... that's irrelevant here).
Would it be more convenient to throw it all in the back of a pickup or SUV? Sure. But it takes about five seconds to fold down my back seats. That sure isn't worth more-than-doubling my fuel costs.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
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.
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.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
It's not a judgement, it's just rebalancing the invisible hand of the market.
Fuel has costs that are not reflected at the pump - environmental damage, oil subsidy, military costs.
In a true free market system, the price of a product should reflect the cost of a product, such that an informed choice about purchase can be made. If the value of your need exceeds the price of fueling an SUV, that's how you know you really need to drive one.
Why is it wrong when a behavior increases an individual's societal burden?
First, the increase in societal burden in a way that government is the proper redress is presumed and not proven. Second, at least in the US the fed.gov lacks that power. The fact that the courts and the people have thus far let them get away with it does not actually change that fact.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
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.
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...
Fuel taxes do make a big difference. I've been abroad and never saw a single huge SUV in the entire time I was there. The truth is when you FEEL the money you're spending and literally can't afford more, it does force you to make changes.
Another issue is health and comfort -- I know it sounds unrelated but it's not. When I was abroad, I saw very few overweight people as compared to here (in the U.S.). Yes, it's sad, (all actual conditions aside) throw away any sense of self-responsibility and call it an "epidemic" -- as if you 'caught' your fat when someone sneezed on you -- if you want, call it your "genes"...whatever...it doesn't really matter what name you ascribe to it. The bottom line is when your rear end warrants buying an extra plane ticket, you're not going to fit, let alone be very comfortable in a Chevrolet Cavalier, VW Beetle, Toyota Corolla or other fuel-efficient, compact vehicle. Yes, there are other larger and still somewhat efficient vehicles but the larger you go, the less fuel-efficient they get and seat size doesn't go up very quickly. This is a real factor these days especially when so many people are overweight.
All that aside, we are SPOILED here in the U.S. Perhaps I'm one of the few who will happily admit this but what we call a 'family-size sedan' here is what they'd call a 'luxury-size sedan' in Europe. I can't tell you how many times I see some tiny woman in designer shades speeding down the highway in a Cadillac Escalade...with NO passengers in the car. --and how many mpg is she getting? What sort of efficiency is that to be hauling so many tons of metal in a not-very-aerodynamic vehicle just to transport some tiny woman that probably weighs 125lbs or so. I understand the need for more space if you have 3+ kids (though I don't understand the notion of ever wanting that many kids...). But why do you need so many extra seats just to transport the average family of two partners and 2.5 children? That fits nicely in a sedan -- even a Corolla!
We need to go on the "put the f-ing fork down" diet, chill out a bit and not need to compensate for with a huge monster of a vehicle and just pick something sensible. Hey, if extra taxes on gas do that for us, so be it. I'd be HAPPY to pay my share if it stopped this rampant abuse of natural resources...especially when clearing the road of those huge trucks makes the roads inherently safer for smaller vehicles!
See that big truck outside the back of the grocery store?
Uh huh.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
But it is wrong. There are cars from the 1980s that get great gas mileage. The difference is the mandated changes for safety, which has made cars heavier. It takes more steel to make a car crumple the right way. I am not saying this is a bad thing - I am a fan of living through car crashes, but that is where the major mileage decrease happened.
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
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.
This is a very naive view.
Taxes have always been used to influence behavior... by all societies throughout time.
You may not like it, but taxes do influence behavior... even the taxes which are not designed to influence behavior.
It is useful to use taxes to "reprice" goods for all kinds of reasons. In the case of gas tax, the revenue is used pay for the external cost of building and maintaining roads since it is a convenient way to pay for this public good. People who buy more gas use the roads more. Gas taxes can be used to add a cost for other externalities such as CO2 emission which has negative effects on the environment.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I don't think your example of a $45,000 fuel efficient car is representative. Most small fuel efficient economy cars cost less than $20,000 new (and much less used), putting them in the same price range as your gas guzzler SUV. (BTW, most gas guzzler SUVs cost more than $40,000.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
because it's not at all clear that smokers increase public health care costs. They tend to die 10 years earlier than non smokers which keeps them out of tax payer funded nursing homes.
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, not so much the latter but we're really good at running up the bill for said afflictions, along with COPD, asthma and the panoply of other illnesses worsened by smoking.
Smoking ain't cheap.
(Neither is drinking - probably costs more than tobacco if you factor in health care costs and police / courts / rehab / social services related to alcohol abuse)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If the govt would get out of the petroleum regulating business and stop putting additives into gasoline we would get better fuel mileage, it all started with MTBE, now its Ethanol. When MTB came out in the US, my 82 VW Scirocco went from 42mpg to 32mpg on the first fill up of that shit gas.
Stop fucking with the fuel!
Make one grade of gasoline that gets the best fuel economy possible for most cars.
You're complicating things a lot. What you need for a functional public transit system is investment. None were built overnight, and all the good ones took decades. Otherwise, you make fine points, except for #6, which is insanely expensive for no good reason, since rail reliability is pretty awesome, and makes a double, unexploited line, not worth the investment.
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.
-Styopa
Two points.
1) If the gas pay were high enough to pay for the wear and tear of that truck on the roads I'd be paying for it, because my food prices would include the increased gas tax. But I'd only be paying to the extent I actually use the roads.
2) Most freight infrastructure exists without significant subsidies from the government. The North American freight rail system, for example, is self-supporting. So are ports, and freight airlines. But truckers would not be competitive for long-distance shipping if people like me didn't pay taxes for roads we can't use.
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.
" 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."
So then, whose responsibility is it when our air, soil, and water are all toxic? How does that minor problem get fixed?
I don't respond to AC's.
All taxes modify behaviour, intended or not. At the moment most taxes are raised in ways which result in modifications to behaviour which are bad. For example, taxes on labour, and taxes that cause corporations to prefer debt financing over equity financing when there's no underlying business reason to do so. You have to pay your taxes somehow.....much better to have them levied on things where there's an obvious economic advantage (like fuel and anything else with negative externalities) than where the opposite is true. There's a limited supply of those things, but what supply there is isn't being fully used.
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.
A fast food tax is already being examined and so is one on "unhealthy" snack foods. The only problem is that the over subsidized corn sweetener industry opposes it and has a lot of money. I would support a gas tax, or better yet, the closing of the loophole that allows people to buy those damned SUV's that I can't see through when trying to turn, back out of a parking space, or blind me when they come up behind my car.
The united states has a very large distance between major commutities. For instance, the distance I drive every day is about comparable to the distance from wichita ks (the city I work in) and Hutchinson ks (a nearby major city). Kansas has strong, high winds, tornadoes, and animals that would stand on the tracks. Freight lines commonly must reduce velocity when traveling intercity to 40mph or less to avoid serious issues. This is with heavily loaded freight cars.
Light commuter rail would have greater trouble.
If the distance between the cities was very small (say, between cities on the east coast), rather than 300mi+ with inclement conditions being the norm, then yes, you might not need a dedicated emergency track. I might compromise, by having both tracks operated, but staggered in depatrure times so that a problem could be reported, and the train diverted to the other track without risk of collision with the next departure. You get some of the benefits, with less incurred lost carry capacity that way.
Why shouldn't they get to? The problem we currently have is that the cost doesn't cover all the costs involved. It doesn't cover cleaning up the mess and it doesn't encourage people to figure out how to reduce their consumption. If a few percent of the people out there buy their way out of it, the people who can't afford to still benefit in terms of pollution and general quality of life.
If you do not allow society to lay the cost of externalities onto the perpetrators, you invariably produce a tragedy of the commons. You can, in principle, use Ron Paul's approach and simply make people pay for polluting private property - i.e. if you produce CO2 that turns up in the air over my property, you are trespassing and need to pay damages. But that is technically implausible for shared resources like air, water, and the ecosystem as a whole. Thus, using taxes to approximate the externalities is a reasonable approach. Of course we can only approximate the cost, but that is no different than with any other financial planning, wether by government or in the private sector. Very very few projects end up exactly on budget. That's not a reason not to plan, nor is it a reason not to act.
Stephan
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?
I doubt you could legally sell the Civic VX in the US today. Cars are heavier as a result of new safety regulations and engines are less efficient because of pollution standards.
I don't mind fees for services from the government. If you apply for a marriage license...,
Telling you who you may or may not marry is a service?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
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.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
That's called a luxury tax and it already exists when you buy a luxury vehicle like a Roush Mustang!
While taxes certainly are of ancient origin, enough that they are mentioned in the Bible (both Old and New Testament), the nature of taxes has certainly grown to be substantially more complex and the tendency for tax policies to increase in complexity almost as a mathematical law. The original "Code of Hammurabi", including tax code, was written on a stone tablet that could be seen in every Babylonian city and read in a few minutes.
The Internal Revenue Code of the United States, on the other hand, is so impossibly huge that I seriously doubt any single person has ever read the whole thing. Between changes made by Congress, common law rulings in court cases, internal policy making guidelines at the Internal Revenue Service, and executive orders by the White House, I think it is safe to say that no person could even keep up with just the changes being made to that tax code as a full time job. A team of accountants, perhaps... but not a single person.
That says nothing about other kinds of taxes like trying to decypher tables for import tariffs (like a really odd rule that limits the number of wool suits you can import from Hong Kong.... but importing them from Beijing is no problem) and other very odd and some downright weird rules... like calling a network stack protocol driver to be a munition subject to physical inspection. In the past the tables were much, much simpler and didn't go into such fine details to drive you nuts. I think the Byzantium Empire, infamous for its bureaucracy, doesn't hold a candle to most 1st world governments of today.
The gas tax isn't a percent. It's precisely $0.184 per gallon gasoline, $0.224 diesel.
Which is exactly what it was in 1993.
While obviously not as significant as increases in car weight(though may be somewhat related to car weight), increases in the weight of passengers is also putting a drag on fuel economy. As we get fatter and fatter, it obviously takes more energy to move us around. Not to mention that the bigger people are, the more they seem to need an SUV, further diminishing fuel efficiency. Like almost all other problems in fuel efficiency, bikes are the answer. Not only do they save fuel when riding, they reduce the size of people's asses so you save fuel in a car too.
BUt unfortunately something in American culture dictates that people must go out of their way to be assholes towards cyclists. So glad I got out of that shithole of a country, I've lost 25 kgs since I've left and am in better shape in my 30s than I was in my 20s largely because I don't have to drive everywhere.
Monstar L
Why not compare a $10K used SUV to an $10k used hatchback that gets 30 mpg?
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.
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I think a lot of posters, like you, do not seem to understand the economics of externalities. If every dog in your neighborhood came to shit in your front yard, you probably wouldn't have liked it. However, for some reason, it's ok to drive around in a land barge that gets 14mpg in a city and pollutes the air that we all breathe. Realize that the price you pay for gas right now does not represent the full cost (to the society) of that gas. Of course, no one is saying that you should _have_ to stop driving an SUV. If can continue driving whatever you want, but you need to pay the full cost of making this decision.
According to the Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme, "Over the first 70 years of the twentieth century the US incarceration rate was characterized by a relative stability, with approximately 100 per 100,000 citizens suffering imprisonment at a given moment. The following 35 year period has seen a steep rise in this rate, with the figure reaching 491 per 100,000 in 2005. (US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005). More recent data suggests that this has risen still further since then". See the wikipedia article on incareration in the United States. Despite the catastrophic effect of the war on drugs, particularly on minority communities such as blacks and hispanics, America still has an ever increasing drug problem.
How's that war on drugs working out then? Seems to me that not ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away either. You just get the problems associated with drugs added to the problems associated with the war on drugs.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
"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.
Sure the cars are heavier, since the safety Nazis have demanded that they crash safely at something just short of relativistic speeds. Improve the tech, and then sabotage it with extra weight. Succeed and fail, all at once.
The solution is: Don't crash.
The way to not crash is: Pay attention! Most of the accidents come from not paying attention.
Want to raise the tax on gas, and save the economy at the same time? Pass the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax dissolves the IRS, repeals all the income taxes, and just uses a tax on retail goods, combined with a "prebate" sent to all Americans to cover the costs of the necessities of life. The Fair Tax is 23% inclusive / 30% exclusive. So, your $4.00 / gallon of gas goes to $5.20, but you've got ALL the salary you made in your pocket, without having to pay income tax witholding, so you can afford the gas tax... unless you're driving excessively. Then you either get a car like the Chevy Volt that gets infinite mpg for 40 miles and then 40 mpg after that, or you car pool or ride the train, etc.
BTW, the Fair Tax proponents claim 3% unemployment within 2 years because of its business friendly nature, so it doesn't just help cars to do the right thing.
Want to save automotive transportation? Get SOMEBODY to invent the magic battery so's everyone can use electricity to get where they're going. Again, the Volt uses 8 KwH to go its 40 mile electric car range. That's 20 KwH per 100 miles. How much is 20 KwH in $$$? Around here it's $1.70. Now, compare that to a 20 mpg car paying $5.20 / gallon. It takes that car $26.00 to go 100 miles. So, quit spending $26 on gas, and spend $1.70 on electricity? Yeah, I like those numbers.
All is not lost, we just need the RIGHT tech and the RIGHT tax structure.
If he asked economists, he probably would get that kind of response since taxes and their impact on things are part of ECON. Economics has a lot of problems, one of which is that it tends to have a bit of a bag over its head. Then again, many academic disciplines have this problem since interdisciplinary studies tend to be frowned upon for political reasons. Anyway, I digress...
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.
Of course you'd still have to have some compartmentalization for "noxious trades" like rendering plants, sewage treatment, etc. OTOH, the reason why so many of us cannot walk to a store without passing miles and miles of bland cooki-cutter tract homes is this bad zoning. It looks neat on a map. It's polluting and making us fat in real life.
Unfortunately, it would take a long time to undo. You don't plop commercial establishments into neighborhoods without getting NIMBY reactions. This is a side effect of the way home ownership works. For any other product you're happy when the cost comes down. For homes the model is b0rked so that people are unhappy when the cost comes down.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when politcians talk about the need for affordable housing. We got that, and they called it a "housing crisis". The obvious solution is that most people should not own their homes, and non-leveraged REITs should be made available. The biggest argument for ownership, "I want to pound a nail" can be resolved with clear cut procedures in the lease for... pounding nails! Even major improvements could go in the lease--appraise the improvement, discount the rent for a contractual period, problem solved.
Anyway, stop forcing people to become leveraged real estate speculators just to get better control of their environment. BTW, I don't really hate the banks as much as some people; but yes, this would kill a huge portion of the banking industry so if you hate banks the non-leveraged REIT plan should be your cause celebre.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
There are a few higher end electrics that are cool, but for some reason the lower end ones are just totally plain or awkward looking. Can't we get some nice car design going? Do all electrics have to look like expanded eastern european leftovers?
While we're at it why not fund a federal project to put light rail everywhere there is an interstate highway. A new New Deal.
-Xen
It is not very helpful to condemn the use of taxes as a regulatory tool without providing an alternative.
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.
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yea... they are freaking expensive up here for sure. We paid ~$30k for our 2010 Jetta TDI, and it certainly wasn't loaded (Tiptronic and winter package, otherwise base model). The good news is that we got zero interest for 5.5 years and they seem to hold their value reasonably well.
We'd certainly have considered a used one (we tend to go used), except 2008 were the first year of the new Jetta's where we get some performance as well, and used ones under higher interest payments would actually cost more than the new one.
Some are more rigorous than others.
The current mainstream are simply yes men there to justify whatever the "leaders" want to justify. That's who they fund in academia.
Deleted
Annual cost:
50MPG = $990
21MPG = $2,357
Here is info about this minivan that is banned in the USA:
http://www.car-emissions.com/cars/model/volkswagen/touran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Touran
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/touran-gp-ii/which-model/compare/interior?p=2
http://www.green.autoblog.com/2010/04/12/volkswagen-intros-updated-touran-minivan-51-1-mpg-with-bluemoti/
Moreover, CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles are insanely expensive because thise politician-corporate chimera caused every CNG part insanely expensive! For example home refueling station (tiny box that allow to refuel CNG car at home) costs about $7000 (seven thousend). Now you understand how this bust#rds make american to be slave by poitician-corporate mafia.
government is paying for the health consequences of smoking
... in fact, smokers die young and skip the age where government is paying a lot for health care. Smokers, obese, gluttons, drug users etc. consume a lot less than a healthy living person that lives until 85.
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).
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?
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
Simple observation quickly shows many people are clueless to the effect of their driving styles on their fuel economy as well. Full throttle rush towards the next red light, slam on brakes, stop....repeat. Highway driving? Absolutely positive HAVE to achieve that 10 foot gain on the guy beside you, even if it means changing lanes and mashing on the accelerator only to inevitably end up following another car and having to slow down. Again, repeat....over and over and over again.
Simple driving style changes can yield the average driver a HUGE increase in fuel mileage, but until the "I'm more important than everybody else, I need to be in front of you and get there as fast as humanly possible, screw you all" attitude of many of todays drivers change, all the technology advances in the world won't help if the idiots behind the wheel just continue to operate the vehicles in a basically inefficient fashion.
As someone who works in Transportation Demand Management, I would happily welcome higher gas taxes... especially if they are used to directly pay for the Federal and State highways. About 50% of roads and highways are paid for by non-user fees (income taxes, sales tax, etc.) because gas taxes are notoriously difficult to raise without severe political ramifications.
But if gas prices stay low (they're at about $3.60 where I am in Southern California), people will not have sufficient incentive to make their next vehicle more fuel efficient nor, which would be preferable, switch to more sustainable forms of commuting and city travel (bus, train, carpool, vanpool, bike, and walk).
Federal/State monies that would otherwise go to building/expanding roads and freeways would go towards mass transit thus increasing the availability of transit. Increased convenience of transit triggers increased utilization and thus greater expense recovery by fare being transit more solvent.
People will save money in their transit travel, pollution falls, reliance on oil falls (especially with hybrid buses and electric trains), and with fewer people living building-to-building, people will have to walk a bit more and be a bit healthier. ... But it all starts with the cost of traveling by personal automobile.
So is that why the rich are taxed at higher rate..
No, that's because they are affected less by the same percentage of taxation.
As this obviously isn't obvious to everyone, I'll explain:
Say the minimum cost of living for a certain time is 100, and citizen A earns 150, then person a has 20 left.
If we then introduce citizen B, who earns 200, then that person has 100 percent left.
If we tax them equally, say 20%, citizen A pays 30 and citizen B pays 40.
As this might sound fair, it really isn't. Why?
Because citizen A:s "discretionary income", as it is called, has shrunk by 60% and citizen B:s with only 40%.
So citizen A:s life will be far more more affected by the "fair" taxation than citizen B:s.
Also, the citizen with the higher salary will significantly benefit from the system, as that person will be able to invest his income, an yield a return, far easier than the one with the lower income.
As a consequense, most people over a certain income will almost certainly become richer, and most people under a certain income will almost certainly become poorer.
Widening income gaps has a number of other detrimental effects on countries, the most obvious, of course, is discontent but also a lessened interest in education. Why educate yourself when it won't make you make enough money to pass that barrier? Whatever, your parents can't afford college for you anyway, they have enough just sustaining the family.
This is an issue everywhere but especially in the "developed" world, where it simply isn't sufficient to have only a well-educated elite. Almost the entire population has to be well-educated to be able to compete internationally as a country.
The only solution is a progressive taxation system. And setting the level of progressivity is a simple math problem, easy to adjust to the effects of other taxes and to the taste of the current administration.
This especially kills off a host of counter arguments, since they were concieved before these things could be easily calculated(before spreadsheets, computers).
Personally, I pay the highest level of taxes in my country, and I don't wine about it.
There are upsides to paying taxes, too. In a working society, you get stuff back now and then.
Especially when you really need it. For example, if I get sick. Or if I need to hire educated people.
Baboons are cute.