Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| stillnotking wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Whether or not they will drive less is debatable, though when something is more expensive people tend to use it less. That part is not debatable. |
Gas prices haven't affected American driving habits since the 1970s, and even that downturn was caused by a lack of supply rather than a lowered demand. When gas gets more expensive, people don't stop driving. They just complain, suck it up, and try to save money somewhere else.
We're addicts. Do junkies stop shooting up when the price of heroin skyrockets? Nope. They just steal a few more TV sets. And the drug dealers don't go out of business, either. |
Well maybe the price hasn't gotten to pain threshold.
And higher gas prices would encourage people to switch to more fuel efficient vehicles. Notice how GM and Ford suffered. |
There probably is no pain threshold as such. I'm not sure you understand just how fully dependent our economy is on oil. To cite just one example, if the price of gas went to $20/gallon, every supermarket in America would close. Not adapt, not make less money, not change their business model -- close. What they'd be replaced with is difficult to envision, but they'd take most of the processed-food industry with them.
Encourage people to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles? Sure. It'd probably encourage them to buy more local goods and ride more bikes and a ton of other laudable but essentially inconsequential things. To continue the heroin analogy: tripling the price of heroin would encourage junkies to buy more grapefruit juice and Tagamet, but they'd still be junkies. |
Americans made greater Sacrifices than 20 dollar a gallon gas during WWII.
So we don't know how Americans will adjust. Gas taxes could be phased in.
More fuel efficent vehicles, like Hybrids , plug ins , flex fuel vehicles maybe even hydrogen.
I bet making taxing imported oil would get the US to make oil from coal.
And with the money from higher oil taxes the US would have money to invest in stuff like Futuregen.
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