|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Gas Prices in your area
|
Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001
|
posted 08-07-2005 01:43 PM
Governments who build their countries economic system on taxes raised in the name of environmental protection are what pushes up prices Randy, the treasuries are rubbing their hands every time that Hummer fills up. It's somewhat short sighted, ok when you price fuel out of the reach of all but the rich, what happens? All that revenue ceases pouring into the states coffers, and the house of cards built on it collapses. It's the same reason they don't really want you to give up smoking and drinking.
I'd love not have to use my car almost everywhere I go, but certainly in the UK there is no viable alternative. Public transport is unreliable, expensive, doesn't serve a lot of the community and is unsafe. I find the current UK taxation scheme on company cars particularly unfair for people like me. I cannot do my job without a vehicle, there is no way I can carry me and all the tools, test kit etc from place to place any other way. I didn't ask for the car, I don't use it when not working, yet I'm taxed to the hilt, in essence I pay do to do my job! I have no beef with taxing people who are given a flash car, have fuel provided for them and drive 1 1/4 miles to and from work each day, but for someone like me who is provided with a modest vehicle, only gets fuel for business use paid for and has to drive hundreds of miles a day it seems a tad unbalanced.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 08-07-2005 05:48 PM
quote: Pete Naples
Governments who build their countries economic system on taxes raised in the name of environmental protection are what pushes up prices. [...] Randy, the treasuries are rubbing their hands every time that Hummer fills up.
An increase in energy taxation is really an increase in direct taxation in all but name. As far as road fuel goes, even if you don't drive yourself you will buy goods which have been delivered by lorry and you will buy the services of people who have to drive to work.
quote: Pete Naples
It's somewhat short sighted, ok when you price fuel out of the reach of all but the rich, what happens? All that revenue ceases pouring into the states coffers, and the house of cards built on it collapses.
I'm not entirely sure I agree there: burning fossil fuel energy is something which is essential for survival in a developed world country: so if the price goes up (either due to market forces or taxation), people are going to cut back on other sorts of consumer spending. For example, now that gas price increases have put a tenner or so on my quarterly bill, I'm going to find that money by not going to the pub one night or not buying a book or a DVD or two: I won't be finding it by letting the flat go cold in winter. Likewise, I have to get to work, so if the price of LPG goes up, I'll just have to pay it and cut back on non-essential spending. So the state continues to get its cut: though granted, it may then lose some of that in the form of lower VAT on other spending.
quote: Pete Naples
It's the same reason they don't really want you to give up smoking and drinking.
Agreed entirely. If it's agreed that tobacco is an unacceptably destructive drug, why faff around with a taxation system to offset the financial cost of its health effects and silly laws that ban you from smoking in pubs, apart from those which don't serve food; and just outlaw the stuff? Probably because that would be a hellish difficult law to enforce: people would just smuggle tobacco in from Europe, just as they smuggled booze across the border from Canada when the United States bought in prohibition in the '20s. But even so, there are obviously double standards going on.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 08-09-2005 03:36 AM
Driving into work just now there was an interesting piece on the Today programme (you can hear it here, though this link will only be good for 24 hours from the date of this post), asking why the oil price rises dont' seem to have buggered the British economy in the way that they did during the last spike in the '70s. The tentative conclusions were (i) interest rates are a lot lower, which are holding off the inflationary pressures which exacerbated the effect of oil price rises then, (ii) fierce competition, especially from India and China, is preventing retailers from passing on energy price rises to consumers in manufactured goods, and (iii) the slowdown in some parts of the economy caused by more expensive oil is being offet by the higher profits of oil companies, which is keeping the stock market healthy.
The only real sign of trouble ahead is that house prices are either flatlining or going down slightly, depending on whose figures you believe. But given that they've inflated so far out of line with earnings in the last 9 years, that had to happen anyway. To be honest I can't really work out why higher fuel prices don't seem to have hit other sectors of the economy. People only earn so much, and if they are pouring a higher proportion of it into their cars, then surely they must be spending less elsewhere. If I hadn't had my car converted to run on LPG last November (which is rapidly starting to look like the best investment I ever made), I reckon I'd be paying around £150 a month on petrol, compared to £110-120 at the time I converted my car (the monthly LPG bill comes in at around £65 ![[Cool]](cool.gif) ). So I'd have had to save that by cutting back on leisure spending.
Something doesn't seem right, and I'm not sure what.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jon Miller
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 973
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 1999
|
posted 08-11-2005 03:30 PM
As I write this I am on vacation in Northern California for a few days, enjoying a little breather in the town of Danville after attending a conference in San Francisco. Since I don't fly and didn't want to make the trip in my thirsty F-150, I rented a Ford Focus. Thirty MPG on the freeway ain't bad (well, compared to the pickup truck anyway).
When I left San Diego last Saturday, I topped off the Focus at $2.619 a gallon for regular at a neighborhood Arco station. Two-hundred fifty miles later...another Arco station, this time in Buttonwillow (off Interstate 5 in the middle of California's produce department and summertime pizza oven known as the San Joaquin Valley ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ), $2.559/gallon.
Arco's usually one of the least expensive major gasoline brands, but apparently not here in Danville. Try $2.819/gallon for regular, up to $3.019/gallon for super. Other brands of gas are just as steep. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) Guess I won't be filling up here...
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 08-11-2005 03:36 PM
Bobby: very interesting. You could substitute 'America' for 'Britain' in your last post and it would almost all be just as true.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Here's what all the money chasing MBAs don't want people to mention: many millions of Americans are paying their bills with borrowed money and equity cashed out of their homes. [...] People in the United States now have the lowest level of savings since the Great Depression.
It made the news earlier this year when Britain's total consumer debt busted the £1 trillion mark. Savings have also slumped. The reasons given for this vary. Opponents of the present government point to a big increase on the taxation on personal pensions introduced when it came to power in 1997, while others point to lower stock market returns (especially after the dot com bubble burst in 2000) and higher property prices encouraging people to regard their house as their retirement fund.
But, mortgage lending aside, I just can't figure out why this credit-led spending binge has gone on for so long and shows no sign of slowing. Surely, sooner or later people will reach the limit on their credit cards, or see that an extra fiver a week on their petrol bill is adding up, and decide that it's reality check time? Not yet, it seems.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The insane run up in home prices is largely due to speculators trading property like they were trading baseball cards. Truly, prices in most markets in the United States are hyper-inflated far beyond what the market would actually bear if we were talking about mortgages supported by real income.
This is where the difference comes, I think, although it's true that mortgage lending has gone up. It used to be said that a sensible level of mortgage lending was three times someone's annual income. Well, a very basic one-bedroom apartment in my neighbourhood costs 5-6 times my annual income. Unless there's a crash, there's no way I could ever afford to buy: and if there is a crash, the economy will be so well and truly sodomised that I will probably no longer have a job to pay the mortgage with! But I think that the house price increases here are supported by real money: money which has flowed out of the stock market and other forms of investment over the last 7-9 years and into residential property. The problem is that this shift seriously damaged our manufacturing industry (albeit indirectly) and locked those of my generation, and the one behind me, which don't have the capital to invest in the first place, out of the market.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The pricing structure of our economy has very wrongfully changed to assume that money is real income when it is extremely the reverse.
Agreed totally, and one thing I don't hear talked about is that the era of low interest rates is making that worse. During the last housing boom and bust of the late '80s/early '90s, interest rates were running at the 10-15% mark. So the real value of people's mortgages relative to their income was being eroded year by year. Now that rates are pretty much stable in the 3-5% bracket, they aren't. The average Brit's mortgage payment, especially for those who bought during the recent boom, is likely to be a higher proportion of their real income for a lot longer.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Our whole damned economy is effectively on a credit card. It's going to be ugly when that housing market bubble pops. You're going to see lots of people "upside down" owing a lot more money than their house is actually worth.
That's what happened in the early '90s here, which ushered the term 'negative equity' (mortgage value exceeding market value of property) into the dictionary. The big fear is, of course, of this happening again. The housing market is in a bit of a 'phoney war' at the moment: prices are effectively static, but, worryingly, the number of properties changing hands is plummeting. Because, as yet, unemployment hasn't risen significantly (we avoided a recession, unlike most other European markets, because of a healthy consumer and service sector), so people don't need to move. So if they're not getting what they're asking for their houses, they're just not selling. But if, for whatever reason, these people are forced to sell, then it logically follows that the UK economy will go TU very quickly.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Speculation, rather than market reality, has pushed oil to very wrong, over priced levels.
Especially since it's reported that the supply problem is caused by limited refining capacity, not limited crude availability. If anything I'd have thought that should push the cost of crude down, since there's no point in buying it if you then have to store it for a long time before it can be processed.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 08-11-2005 04:03 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
But, mortgage lending aside, I just can't figure out why this credit-led spending binge has gone on for so long and shows no sign of slowing.
The reason is people are spending out all their home equity. Their houses rise in value on paper, but those folks are spending it all in real cash. Speculators keep on pushing housing prices farther and father into the stratosphere and the average American is spending the cash like a junky hooked on heroin. They just can't stop.
As interest rates keep creeping higher and higher that's going to finally put a lid on this skyrocketing housing prices. Those people will have no more equity to spend. And they'll have a ton of bills they have no way to pay.
I would expect to see a spike in bancruptcies, repossessions, estate liquidations and especially divorces.
On the bright side, some people may make out very well even when the housing bubble bursts. But those smart few are going to be the ones who simply rolled all that extra equity into other more stable investments. Or you might have an elderly guy with no heirs who properly set up a reverse mortage to use the gravy for living costs. There's lots of reverse mortgages that are outright scams however.
Anyway, whenver these feared bubbles pop I sure don't want to be one of the folks drowning in debt at that time. I have very little debt to speak of, but that's only because I'm living humbly well within my means.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic