Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers | 68 comments (68 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers (none / 0)

What's your solution for the poor, especially the rural poor, who are still driving say a 1988 Ford E-150 getting 24l/100 and can't afford any of this?

Sounds like yet another bail out for middle class stupidity more than anything else.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 12:07:18 PM EST

Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 0)

Discussed here and here. What is your solution? I don't think anyone has proposed one yet.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:12:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 0)

Mass transit.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:49:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 0)

How much of it? From those threads:

Drew has linked to maps by the NYT on the impact of oil prices by county. The county that spends the highest fraction of its income on gas is Wilcox County, Alabama. Wikipedia has the census data on Wilcox County: 13 thousand people on 2500 square kilometres. The County seat is a town of 2250 and maybe one other town in the county has more than 500 people. Google maps satellite pictures show a mosaic of shades of green and ochre indicating it's divided up into farms. I'm guessing maybe up to 1/2 of the population of the county lives in the towns and he rest live on farms, with houses a kilometre away from each other in some areas?

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:54:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 1)

A lot. The US is easily 50 years behind most of the rest of the OECD. Not that anyone in the US noticed.

In France, you can get from anywhere to anywhere by some combination of bus, train, subway, tram or ferry.

In the US, this is simply not true. And not just for very rural places like you mention, but damn near every urban/suburban/exurban area as well.

Incidentally, if you all were looking for exhibit a in what the resident German conservative, Martin, was calling Salon Socialism, this is it.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 03:09:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 1)

I've found the Northeast to be much better than France, at least those parts which I'm most familiar with. That's especially true for rail which is virtually non existent outside the major intercity lines, but even if you take buses into account. I've gotten to even small towns in the exurbs and beyond by rail and bus in the Northeast. In France I've had to rely on parents and friends with cars or hitchhiking. I don't drive so I tend to be rather aware to this sort of stuff.

by MarekNYC on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 03:22:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rural poverty and oil prices (none / 1)

It actually often is possible, but the information is very badly organised ; as a result even the locals don't know about it (more so for the locals since in rural areas they always have a car). And you might end up in the school bus. Two buses a day happen quite often.

And France is of a rather low density compared even to the NorthEast of the US.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 09:08:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers (none / 1)

"What's your solution for the poor, especially the rural poor, who are still driving say a 1988 Ford E-150 getting 24l/100 and can't afford any of this?"

An essential point is to separate the issue of having a low income from the issue of using excess oil. It is true (and will become especially apparent this winter in the American Northeast when the high cost of heating oil causes people to literally freeze to death) that low income people suffer first. That's one of the problems of being poor.

Society has support programs for poor people, inadequate as they may be. But it's a two-way street, so to speak. If one chooses to live in a rural area, and the cost of transportation becomes unaffordable, then the obvious answer is to travel less. That's how it was in the bad old days, and that's how it will be in the future (until our long-promised flying cars arrive).

If you read about people who lived in Kansas, say, even as recently as the 1930s, one thing that stands out is that they Just Didn't Go Anywhere. For example, read "Letters from the Dust Bowl" by Caroline Henderson. They went for weeks without visiting their "nearby" town, and years without leaving the state.

Even in the 1950s it was a big deal to go from, say, Denver to Steamboat (Rabbit Ears Pass was paved in 1950), and my well-off grandfather went to Europe exactly two times in his life: Once as a soldier in the first world war, and once as a tourist.

Basic solution to expensive transportation: Don't transport stuff.

by asdf on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:21:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers (none / 0)

I note though that these issues tend to come up solely through the lens of the middle and upper-middle class interests.

And I wonder why this is...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:50:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers (none / 0)

I've been following your theme in the comments, but you are missing the point I was trying to make.

The objective of my suggestion was not to compensate people for doing things that were ultimately anti-social, but to lower the cost to society in general.

That there may be some who are bigger winners than others is not the central concern, in fact every policy we have is slanted this way. Take the most popular one by the Republicans, a tax break for some activity. Right now there is one which proposes a break to buy health insurance. Obviously those in the 35% bracket get more value than someone who pays no taxes. So the aim that the tax break will make health insurance more affordable is a fraud. It's a giveback to those who least need the help.

However, getting gas guzzlers off the road faster will lower demand in general which will benefit everyone since fuel prices will go down as a result (or at least rise more slowly).

Sometimes you have to create unequal incentives to promote a greater good.

There is nothing stopping you from proposing a modification of my plan that would cover those whom you highlighted.

Your objections are just another variant on the libertarian viewpoint that people should suffer from their own misfortunes, even those beyond their control.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 05:17:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers (none / 0)

Not so. But the well-to-do (and this includes the US middle class) should not have their consumption (and mistakes) subsidized by (ultimately) the poor in China whose labor is used to finance that consumption and those mistakes.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 10:23:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Quickie: Crush Gas Guzzlers | 68 comments (68 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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