Petrol and Diesel prices. How to fight back...

[JordanD]

Why not protest the high taxes you pay on your gas? Besides the Arabs YOUR government makes the most profit off your gas purchase with all the taxes they tack on. Sure, it looks good on TV when congress grills the oil company big wigs about oil prices but the major oil companies are making less per gallon then the governments who tax it are.

That sounds all well and good until you think about the fact that the taxes we pay on gas go to pay for things like maintaing the roads. The roads in the U.S. are already total sh*t, so what's going to happen when we have even less funding to fix them? That's one of the reasons I think this gas tax holiday that McCain and Hillary are proposing isn't a good idea.

[Airfoilsguy]

That sounds all well and good until you think about the fact that the taxes we pay on gas go to pay for things like maintaing the roads. The roads in the U.S. are already total sh*t, so what's going to happen when we have even less funding to fix them? That's one of the reasons I think this gas tax holiday that McCain and Hillary are proposing isn't a good idea.

Agreed, the gas tax holiday is a crapy idea coming from politicians who know nothing of economics. I say we should lower the gas tax and tax something else road related. Maybe do something like they do in Europe and tax cars that have engines that displace more then 2 liters. (I know, that would suck if you collect cars like I do)

[FlyingPhotog]

MasterCard reports that on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend gas sales by volume were down 7.5% compared with the 2007 equivalent day. That's pretty amazing.

Never buy gas on Friday or the weekends, holiday or not. The cheapest days of the week are tuesday & wednesday. And I'm proud to say I carpool to work.

We went from Dallas to Austin over the holiday and it was cheaper for us to fly WN (non-rev) and rent a car than for us to drive round trip.

[Airbus_A320]

That sounds all well and good until you think about the fact that the taxes we pay on gas go to pay for things like maintaing the roads. The roads in the U.S. are already total sh*t, so what's going to happen when we have even less funding to fix them? That's one of the reasons I think this gas tax holiday that McCain and Hillary are proposing isn't a good idea.

Another good solution would be to quit trying to run the world and giving out foreign aid, using that money instead to take care of the roads and other things at home. Unfortunatly, that doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon

[JordanD]

Agreed, the gas tax holiday is a crapy idea coming from politicians who know nothing of economics. I say we should lower the gas tax and tax something else road related. Maybe do something like they do in Europe and tax cars that have engines that displace more then 2 liters. (I know, that would suck if you collect cars like I do)

\
Seems like a good idea. What cars do you have so far if you don't mind me askin?

[Bok269]

Agreed, the gas tax holiday is a crapy idea coming from politicians who know nothing of economics. I say we should lower the gas tax and tax something else road related. Maybe do something like they do in Europe and tax cars that have engines that displace more then 2 liters. (I know, that would suck if you collect cars like I do)

The gas tax holiday is short-sighted because A) once it goes back into effect prices will return to normal (assuming oil companies don't compensate for their added expense by raising pre-tax prices) and B) it negates the one blessing of this whole mess-it will reduce consumption. There is nothing good about petroleum other than the fact that everything runs on it. High prices will get people to reduce consumption and look for alternatives, which in turn helps the environment and helps keep us from sending money overseas.

Politically, however, it's a great move-because your average American is extremely short-sighted and is looking for a short term break-not a long term solution.

[brianw999]

...and to move to a lighter vein....

Sky News has announced that petrol stations are to start showing porno films on screens at the pumps. !!

Now you can watch someone else getting f****d at the same time as you !

[JordanD]

...and to move to a lighter vein....

Sky News has announced that petrol stations are to start showing porno films on screens at the pumps. !!

Now you can watch someone else getting f****d at the same time as you !

good one.

[Airfoilsguy]

...and to move to a lighter vein....

Sky News has announced that petrol stations are to start showing porno films on screens at the pumps. !!

Now you can watch someone else getting f****d at the same time as you !

Its just a matter of whos doing the pumping.

[flyKSU]

There are some E-mails like this for us in Norway going around as well, with the same plan, just that it is Statoil and Norwegian Shell that is encuraged to be boycotted. I don't believe in this idea myself, and even though we pay the highest tax on fuel in the world (close to 90 percent of the actual price are taxes) i don't think this would have any influence what so ever.

The prices for gas in Norway are now pushing 14 NOK pr. liter (£1,39 or $2,75) and on monday mornings the prices are allso often higher than 14 NOK. I think the average price now is like 13,80 NOK or something like that...

[Will M]

Try here for instance , 200.9 cents per litre for unleaded 91 octane !!
NZD $2 = USD$1.56 , EUR 1.01 , GBP 0.82

[brianw999]

82p a litre Will ?

Bugger, I remember 82p a litre. Some guy called Noah was banging nails into a lump of wood around then I think.

[DAL767-400ER]

Try here for instance , 200.9 cents per litre for unleaded 91 octane !!
NZD $2 = USD$1.56 , EUR 1.01 , GBP 0.82

Great, that's 33% less than what it costs here in Germany. That's it, I'm moving to New Zealand .

[AA 1818]

OK - what scares me is that here in the U.S. we bitch about it getting so high, but no one even considers that they pay a bloddy pound-and-a-crown in the Netherlands and in the UK for petrol. I guess it's just because we are so unaccostomed to it. Anyway, I wanted to committ hari-kiri today when I filled up my tank. $52.54!!!! WTF? I remember when gas used to be 89 cents/gallon.

[DAL767-400ER]

Pfft, try €83.78 for one filling. And you know what's even more depressing? When my father tells me about the good times he had as a young man driving powerful Opels and Mercedes' all over Germany in the 70s, and paying only 0.50 DM for 1 liter of Premium. And yes, that's German Mark, or about €0.25, for a litre of gas! Nowadays the price is 6x higher, and I'm afraid we haven't reached the top yet.