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So Much for the Recovery

#201
bassybill said:
I know that's the theory and it's certainly possible. I can't think of any specific examples where increased revenue has been specifically attributable to a lowering of tax rates, though. If anyone has such an example it would make interesting reading and be very pertinent to the topic of discussion here.
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This will lead to politics. You may search to find answers, as many will. The Laffer curve theory is quite logical. I suspect we'd all subscribe to it given enough time to be objective. . It's just a matter of where it is set. Even then, how do we really know?
 
#203
Not to be impolite with you, Bill, but I still would like to know why I, a Polish, have to pay 23% of tax on any goods or commodity, 70 years after the WWII ended, because the British govt believed high taxes were good and invented the VAT, the "temporary" solution? ;)

If the VAT were not there, I'd pay $5 per gallon instead of 6.20. IMHO, high taxes hit John Doe, Jan Kowalski, but Mr Big that really controls the economy has his own army of lawyers to avoid high taxes. Do you really believe high taxes are good?
 
#207
Right you are Big Daddy. A month ago it was the far east being the cause in the spike in fuel prices, I didn't know yaks and oxen burned so much fuel, then it was the protesting in Egypt because the fuel needs to "pass through" the Suez canal...now it's Libya...Next week it'll be because someone needs a Midol :scowl:
 
#208
bassrique said:
This will lead to politics. You may search to find answers, as many will. The Laffer curve theory is quite logical. I suspect we'd all subscribe to it given enough time to be objective. . It's just a matter of where it is set. Even then, how do we really know?
Click to expand...

The Laffer curve is quite logical, although simplistic.

Problem is - you have no reason to believe we are on the downward slope (as opposed to the upward slope) side of the curve.

Remember - Laffer posits a maxima in tax revenue at a certain threshold... and one can be above or below that threshold. If below, raising taxes increases revenues and decreasing taxes lowers them.
 
#210
iamlowsound said:
That is not true, landfills produce a lot of
Methane, but not that much. Energy from waste, EFM, is not efficient enough to produce that much energy. Currently the best EFM technologies have an efficiency of around 30%.

lowsound
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I just looked up a few numbers on methane produced by a landfill and the amount of electricity that can be produced. For Waterloo Region in Ontario at the Erb Street Landfill. The region has ~400,000 people serviced by two landfills. The Erb Street is the larger of the two, servicing around 250,000. Their state of the art system can produce 4MW of electricity, that can power 4000 homes and at four people per house, that is 16,000 people or 8% of the population. Hardly enough energy to power the population.

lowsound
 
#211
burk48237 said:
No but you can drive 600 miles and the last half of it will be on two lane hwy at 55 mph. Detroit to Onotonogan MI. And I wouldn't have any problem with it if you called it by it's proper name, Soccer, instead of football. Football isn't a co-ed sport. :D

I do understand what your saying. My problem is not with the fact that the price of gas is going to increase. My problem is when elites cause the price to increase because of the goal of artificially accelerating reductions in consumption in the name of some agenda. We don't need a moratorium on all off shore drilling right now, it's not scientific and it certainly isn't in the best interests of the people who consume fuel.

I do believe their is a class/elitism component of this stuff as well. The urban wealthy are not near as effected by transportation cost as the rural or suburban middle class. When they go long distance they fly and increase in fuel cost doesn't effect their lifestyles as much. If you watched during the last big gas crunch here it effected the pleasure boat industry tremendously. But not the big boat business. I would not be at all if some elites prefer this. Less water skiers and bass boats bothering them on the Yacht for the weekend. :eyebrow:
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Damn Burk, I didn't expect you to pull out a post railing against class warfare. :D
 
#212
Ray Salamon said:
If you'd actually pay attention, you'd see that they catch fire up in the engine bay, because the fuel pump is up there in most of the vehicles. When that gets ruptured in an accident, fuel starts to spit out on the heated headers, engine block, heads etc. Of course it's going to ignite... Most (if not all) cars on the road have fuel cut off switches in case of accidents...
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No, I'm specifically referring to fires in the rear of the vehicle. I fully realize that engine fires are not the result of the fuel tank.

The first race I saw with the fuel tank flow stopper ball bearings, someone had a fuel tank fire. The ball bearing had failed. At the local dirt track here, they have to have up to date safety fuel tanks for most of the classes. A rock rendered a brand new tank useless, even though it was one of those "practically indestructible" models. It boggles my mind how someone can call something rupture proof, or leak proof, and then it fail right off the bat.
 
#214
A little bump on this thread with a question that has to do with the OP's statement about gas. Hopefully someone with a better understanding of the markets/oil and gas business will know the answer to this.

I've always noticed that in articles/reports about the price of a barrel of oil, they say oil for such-and-such delivery, which is usually a month away, is x amount. Why then does the price of gas usually start to go up immediately? If I remember right the price of oil really started to shoot up around the middle of February... but at the time the reports of the climbing price of oil would say "oil for March delivery", yet gas prices started to go up at the same time. Undoubtedly there's a lot more to it I don't know, but I just never understood why the price of oil goes up for delivery a month from now, yet gas prices go up today.
 
#215
Don't know what the commodity people do but when I sold gas at the retail level we indexed our price to what it would cost to replace the fuel, not what we paid for it. We'd get regular notice for the price of fuel and change our price if needed. We usually waited for a .10 cent change before we did anything.

We lagged on lowering because we still had to pay for the fuel we bought. If we sold it at a lower price than what we paid we couldn't stay in business. It's very unpredictable.

This was aviation fuel in a small town, so we held inventory for a longer time than an auto service station in a large town would. That makes a difference too. Lots of factors. Bottom line is we set price to try to make a profit and stay in business based on everything we knew, not just the future price of oil.
 
#217
Bassman316 said:
A little bump on this thread with a question that has to do with the OP's statement about gas. Hopefully someone with a better understanding of the markets/oil and gas business will know the answer to this.

I've always noticed that in articles/reports about the price of a barrel of oil, they say oil for such-and-such delivery, which is usually a month away, is x amount. Why then does the price of gas usually start to go up immediately? If I remember right the price of oil really started to shoot up around the middle of February... but at the time the reports of the climbing price of oil would say "oil for March delivery", yet gas prices started to go up at the same time. Undoubtedly there's a lot more to it I don't know, but I just never understood why the price of oil goes up for delivery a month from now, yet gas prices go up today.
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The refineries all work in conjunction with each other. Recently (within 3.4 years) there was a fire (and maybe an explosion) at a refinery in Oklahoma, I believe the name was Almo or Alamo. This company centers its business in the mid and southwest primarily. The next day here in Pennsylvania EVERY gas stations prices rose almost $.10 a gallon. And I'm talking Sunoco, Exxon, Lukoil, Gulf, BP, Mobil, Chevron, etc..There are no Alamo or Almo dealers in PA. And that was no coincidence. Anytime something happens at any refinery there's an increase. I am not surprised by the recent increase because I knew once the dust settled BP was going to get a "payback". Amazing how the talk of increased usage in the far east and the Suez canal/conflict in Egypt isn't being talked about anymore.
 
#219
CrispyDelicious said:
Not a major problem if can drive cross-country on half a tank of gas :hiding:
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Harhar :D

Granted the distances aren't great on a day to day basis, but here in the capital area it is all stop and go traffic. Not the most economic way of traveling. Plus the public bus system is a disaster so very few people use it.

Since my car uses about 17 liters per 100km in stop and go traffic, which means about 13-14 miles per gallon, I'm not too happy about the gas prices.
 

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