Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
We really don't have a right to complain. It's a finite resource and our consumption rate is astronomical, thus leading to a supply crisis at some point. Sure there are "artificial" manipulations of supply and price along the way, but sooner or later the piper must be paid. If you have designed your life around using lots of fuel and using it inefficiently, you had better not let out a peep about fuel prices. Another favorite pastime for fuel price whiners is to project the blame onto anyone but themselves: govt, oil companies, speculators, etc.. The bottom line is if you sit around and wait for science or govt or whatever to bring back 99 cent gas, you are wasting your time. Only you can take control of your fuel expenditures.
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True, but even someone who lives in a passive house and rides a bike will feel the higher oil prices through more expensive food and services. Oil is in every single part of our (global) economy, from fertilzers, to transport, to heating, to plastics production. You'd have to have your own self-sufficient farm and make your own stuff, ie be 100% independent, to not really care.
The Wife and I ride our bikes to the farmer's market every saturday year round, but the stuff we buy (or at least a sizeable part of it) used oil in one form or another. We use our own shopping bags, but some things always come in disposable packaging, either when we buy them (cheese and milk), or before they are sold (packaging during transport).
Quote:
Originally Posted by bdesj
If you REALLY want to have fun with taxes, take up smoking as a hobby.
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Here, cigarettes and alcohol have lots of taxes, just like fuel. About 2-3 years ago one of our ministers lowered alcohol taxes and, to the surprise of many, alcohol tax income
increased. Some claimed that this was because the price fell, so people would drink more (nothing like good anti-alcohol programs
), but the real reason was that when legal alcohol became cheaper, it became more competitive with alcohol of illegal and unsafe origin. The number of people with methanol poisoning slightly decreased.