Topic: The "n" word (Read 12875 times)

Demosthenes · « **Reply #25 on:** April 06, 2007, 05:20:31 PM »

Quote from: jeee on April 06, 2007, 05:17:29 PM

For what I can check you folks pay around 2,50$ for a gallon ? If so then gas prices are twice as high over here.

You can blame your government for that. Fuel taxes are almost as sweet a fruit as sin taxes.

Another factor that probably plays into it is the absence of domestic petroleum supplies in your homeland... the US's domestically produced oil offsets the oil we get from OPEC by a significant enough margin that we can bargain a bit more than a country like the Netherlands that isn't able to do so at all to speak of.

Quote

It's quite a pressure on the daily budget so we have all kind of "green" energy discounts. Do they have such things in the US ?

They do, technically, but nothing that in any practical sense makes any impact.

jeee · « **Reply #26 on:** April 06, 2007, 05:31:21 PM »

Yes and no, we have a reasonable good position exchanging earth gas for oil (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872966.html). It's a tax thing, they make us pay a lot to pressure us using public transport or share cars.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #27 on:** April 06, 2007, 05:35:00 PM »

Quote from: jeee on April 06, 2007, 05:31:21 PM

Yes and no, we have a reasonable good position exchanging earth gas for oil (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872966.html). It's a tax thing, they make us pay a lot to pressure us using public transport or share cars.

Ah, that makes sense (the earth gas for oil thing).

As for your government creating artificial "incentive" to use public transportation, that just kinda sucks. Carpooling and public transportation are not adequate solutions for everyone, even in your country; doing that sort of takes choices away from individuals in ways I've never found palatable.

I don't remember if you've ever visited the US at all, jeee, but as a blanket, Federal policy, such a thing wouldn't work here. In very specific, selected areas it would (major metropolitan areas where public transportation is practical, for example), but for 99% of the United States that would do nothing but grind our economy into widespread poverty.

12AX7 · « **Reply #28 on:** April 06, 2007, 09:16:44 PM »

lol... Yeh, the Marta bus don't come up here in the mountains.

ivan · « **Reply #29 on:** April 09, 2007, 12:40:05 PM »

Quote from: jeee on April 06, 2007, 05:17:29 PM

For what I can check you folks pay around 2,50$ for a gallon ? If so then gas prices are twice as high over here. It's quite a pressure on the daily budget so we have all kind of "green" energy discounts. Do they have such things in the US ?

Yes, a few weeks ago gas in my neighborhood was at around $2.50/gallon. This morning it's at $3.40/gallon. The West Coast has higher than average prices, and my neighborhood is high for my region, but prices are still climbing all over. I have heard predictions that local prices will crack the $4.00 mark this summer before starting another decline. There is no other widely consumed commodity that has such wild price fluctuations. Gasoline is heavily taxed, but it is also like a fluctuating (and generally increasing) hidden tax, because almost all working people rely on gasoline to earn their pay.

Public transportation in my area is inadequate, and will remain so. I live and work in the same county, but my drive is 40 miles round trip over several small streets, a tollway and a freeway. (My commute is short -- many people I work with travel tripple that distance.) A public transportation network that could get me to work and home again in a reasonable amount of time would have to be enormous. The problem is that homes and workplaces are spread out, scattered all over the county. The only feasible means of transport for most people is individual vehicles. This spread-out situation developed precisely because of the availability of private transport. If private transport were not available at the time when this area was being developed, then people would naturally live close to work, and business areas would be concentrated. There is no way now, short of draconian totalitarian measures, to reorganize living and working locations for millions of people.

BizB · « **Reply #30 on:** April 09, 2007, 01:19:52 PM »

The thing that pisses me off more than anything is the weekly fluctuations that we experience in the Toledo area. It's unlike any other place that I've lived or visited.
Here, for example, is Toledo (green) compared to Phoenix (blue) and Baltimore (red) for the past month.

Nothing quite piss you off like passing a gas station on the way to work where the price is $2.34 only to find out at lunch time that it's now $2.53.

BP runs the gas prices here. When they go up, everyone else follows. If someone else goes down, few, if any, follow. When BP drops their price, everyone else does, too.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #31 on:** April 09, 2007, 01:22:53 PM »

Why not stock up on gas when it's cheap?

BizB · « **Reply #32 on:** April 09, 2007, 01:24:27 PM »

Okay. Why didn't I think of that.

Oh, yeah, now I remember... they don't announce ahead of time when they're going to raise the price. It used to be every Tuesday afternoon, but not so much lately.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #33 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:05:04 PM »

Quote from: Agent_Tachyon on April 09, 2007, 01:22:53 PM

Why not stock up on gas when it's cheap?

In my area it is possible to do exactly that.

First Fuel Bank

If I see gas dip below $2.00 a gallon again I'm going to buy $1000 worth.

dcrog · « **Reply #34 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:25:43 PM »

Quote from: Demosthenes on April 09, 2007, 06:05:04 PM

In my area it is possible to do exactly that.

First Fuel Bank

If I see gas dip below $2.00 a gallon again I'm going to buy $1000 worth.

If you do you do realize that it will soon go to $1.50 afterward. Don't you?

Or maybe that's just the way that my luck runs.

12AX7 · « **Reply #35 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:31:59 PM »

I try not to look at the prices. I know I have to have the gas; so there's really no point in making myself sick about it. I just let it fill til the pump cuts off; hang the nozzle and split. I don't even look at the total. Thank God I get to telecommute a couple nights a week; cos it's about 55 miles one way for me. Coming home in the mornings is kinda shitty, cos a lotta times I have to pull over into a shopping center parking lot to take a nap on the way home. (Yeh - YOU try sitting in front of a comp for 10 hours overnight; then try to drive 55 miles in ATL rush hour traffic just as it's getting light...) Sometimes I dont get home until past 8:00am (I get off at 6:00am) I have about three places on the way home where I'm likely to stop and crashout, and the sherriff's deputies already know me and know what Im up to, since I've had to explain myself a couple of times.
"Well, sir, I can stop here and sleepabout an hour and be on my way; OR , I can wait until you show up at the accident scene and tell you then that I was sleepy; sorry to have killed those children."
They usually end up saying they wish more people would do that. (Stop and nap - not kill kids)

12AX7 · « **Reply #36 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:32:53 PM »

Quote from: dcrog on April 09, 2007, 06:25:43 PM

If you do you do realize that it will soon go to $1.50 afterward. Don't you?

Or maybe that's just the way that my luck runs.

HA! Me too- it'll be back down to $0.94 / GAL if I sign up.

ivan · « **Reply #37 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:38:46 PM »

Quote from: 12AX7 on April 09, 2007, 06:31:59 PM

I try not to look at the prices. I know I have to have the gas; so there's really no point in making myself sick about it. I just let it fill til the pump cuts off; hang the nozzle and split. I don't even look at the total.

When I do that, I don't have to look at the total: I know it's $75. For some reason, all the gas stations in my neck of the woods cap off at $75. If I want to fill up an empty tank, I have to do 2 transactions (or do it the old-fashioned way and give the attendant my card, which defeats the entire purpose of paying at the pump. If I'm gonna walk all the way over there and stand in line with the crackheads paying for gas with their petty-thieved nickles and dimes, then I damn well expect someone to check my oil and wash my windshield. Dammit.)

Yeah.

dcrog · « **Reply #38 on:** April 09, 2007, 06:49:15 PM »

Where I'm working right now I drive about 37 miles one way. I've driven much further depending on what/where we are building something.

It's nice having a company truck and gas card though.

milifist · « **Reply #39 on:** April 09, 2007, 07:00:34 PM »

Been doing a lot of work up in the mountains lately. 140 miles one-way in an 1985 Ford econoline van. It has to use 89. Big money there.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #40 on:** April 09, 2007, 07:09:03 PM »

An economical solution I just came up with involves taking one of those electric scooters and charging it with the outside outlets at work. Actually, that's the whole idea right there.

milifist · « **Reply #41 on:** April 09, 2007, 07:12:00 PM »

Heh. The only scooters on the road around here are the DUI guys. Naturally, motorists aren't nearly as considerate to them as they are to the bicycle nuts.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #42 on:** April 09, 2007, 07:31:11 PM »

Then put a beefier motor into one of those electric wheelchairs. Nobody'd fuck with you if you were in an electric wheelchair, would they?

12AX7 · « **Reply #43 on:** April 09, 2007, 07:48:38 PM »

I'd be trying to draft, lol.

You know; just to make em feel like they're going faster.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #44 on:** April 10, 2007, 03:32:50 PM »

Even more disturbing is how the prices of Hostess snack cakes have risen. I now pay $3.89 for a box of HoHos.

12AX7 · « **Reply #45 on:** April 10, 2007, 09:11:09 PM »

I pay $4, but I get the Ho's boxes AND the Hostess's.

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