Letters to the Editor
-
the war, the war, the war
Any discussion of oil and cars and pain has to include the information that since 2003 the Saudis' oil reserves have increased in value by 7.920 trillion dollars. If McCain wants to stay in Iraq for a hundred years I dare not calculate the cost - in any terms. Getting rid of this tax or keeping it is not the problem. It's just another knee jerk 'cut taxes' scam from the party that loves cutting taxes- and closing schools and building jails. The real problem is that the Republican party's true electorate is in Saudi Arabia. As long as that's true nothing with regards to oil can be fixed by taxation or any other means. The west is heading for bankruptcy whatever happens because of the Iraq war. The Vietnam war had a similar effect leaving inflation and world wide recession in its wake. Iraq is much, much worse. Someone always has to pay but, count on it, it's never the rich and the mega rich. They have better things to do with their money than clean up the mess: bribing politicians for instance and paying off the media so they can get away with murder, for instance. Until OPEC, the cartel from hell, is fixed and the world moves away from oil to other sources of energy, and the Bush, Abdullah, Turki, Bandar Bush nexus is ended, arguing over this tax is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This is McCain's pitch to those concerned about the price of oil -now on its way to $120 a barrel - and of course it does nothing whatsoever to deal with the looming car crash of the globalized economy or the cost of oil. That's just another fairytale. It putting out a fire in your backyard while the whole forest burns over your fence.
-
Economic Stimulus
I remember a few years back when NCAA basketball coaches were arguing for an extra scholarship so as to help some poor kid get an education. My take on it was that if I were solving the problem of poor kids getting an education, I wouldn't give out that education based on which kid could shoot a jumpshot best.
If I were looking for economic stimulus, I wouldn't be looking for a way to have people buy more gasoline. The one area of the economy that does not need a jumpstart is the petroleum sector. They don't need more of our spending, they don't need more money, and people don't need an incentive to use their cars more.
I sympathize with those who cannot afford expensive gasoline, but the price isn't going to diminish significantly with this handout. And the handout will go to everyone, not just the poor; in fact it will disproportionately benefit the rich, who drive bigger cars and have more money to spend on gas anyway. At least where I live, the gas prices in poor neighborhoods are higher--by more than the amount of the federal gas tax--than in the suburbs.
This makes a great publicity slash, while being about as poor a public policy as I can imagine.
-
No more
Dawdler- Just to set the record straight, I would not vote for McCain, ever, but those in my situation might, because he is talking small-picture economics, that is, what we dummies understand - a per gallon cut in price. Of course, that wouldn't actually result in much of a savings, because it's all a shell game, but he is the only one who hasn't talked about raising gas taxes for our own good. I hate it when politicians give us double-talk about "Americans not willing to pay to protect the environment." This is corporate-speak for "We aren't paying for shit."
chiefpayne -
And just WHO do you think will PAY this tax? The companies will NOT bear the cost...they will push this onto the consumers...who will decrease their purchasing of the above or in other places and then you will see things only get WORSE.
I COMPLETELY believe that the corporations should pay for what they have wrought!!! They have bribed and stolen from our governments to line their pockets and given us crap wrapped in plastic to buy for decades, meanwhile fouling our air, earth and water - because they made more money that way!! This is a moral issue, not an economic one.
Who is SUPPOSED to be providing free money to small businesses in trouble - I didn't know this was the job of the government.
Excuse me but they just bailed out Bear Stearns, for making their own bad decisions, decisions that enriched the wealthy and our so-called representatives through lobbying dollars. How about spreading that largesse to the actual victims of their greed - small businesses and wage earners!!!
williedigital -
Unfortunately, most workers, poor or not, do not use public transit to commute. Just because the majority of transit riders in areas where transit exists are poor people commuting, do not assume that most poor commuters take public transit. In all but a handfull of markets, the ONLY people who take transit are those too poor to own a car, the physically or mentally handicapped, and/or radical leftist students.
Yeah, when was the last time you took the bus; I think you will find that the market for public transit has widened considerably. You just don't want to ride on public transit with the great unwashed. Your statements smack of elitism.
I get the two of you (CP & WD) work for the transportation (or related) industry which resists all change to protect their profits, and f*ck the environment. It's so HARD, you whine, to change the way the economy works, let's just let the market do it. Well, when the little people (us) run out of cash to buy your goods transported 3000 miles away, and bartering with our neighbors for veges and bread replaces your "Market" let's see how hard it is to change the economy on a dime.
Talk about being bitter!!! I am furious!!!
-
By the by
In countries where the price of gasoline would be considered obscene, I've never noticed that it altered in any way the way people drive or the amount they drive. Tooling around France years ago when the gasoline was the equivalent of $4.85/gal we all drove well over the 140kph limit on the A routes. And everyone drove A LOT. If you imagine that expensive gas will crimp people's life style you have to make it virtually UNaffordable before that will happen. So until you're prepared to drive the country right back into the 18th century you'd better reconcile yourselves to the fact that people will drive the way they drive, regardless. The only other alternative is to flat out ration it.