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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| The Joy of $8 a Gallon Gas |
| 2008-07-11 |
| Excerpts from TFA: If MoveOn and Barack Obama really were going to bravely confront America with hard, necessary truths, they'd tell us how great $4 gas has been for us. With public transit use nationally at a 50-year high, Public transportation is usually inefficient; that is why it is usually subsidized by government, and that is why liberals want to raise taxes to further subsidize it ... traffic dropped 2.1% in the first four months of this year across the country. That mileage reduction -- along with people driving smaller cars, and more slowly, to save gas -- could mean that 12,000 fewer people will die in traffic accidents this year, according to a study by professors Michael Morrisey at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and David C. Grabowski at Harvard Medical School. Air pollution has been reduced enough, according to UC Davis economics professor J. Paul Leigh, to prevent 2,200 respiratory-related deaths over the last year. Less eating out and more walking and biking could mean a 10% reduction in obesity, according to Charles Courtemanche, an assistant economics professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. And, apparently, higher gas prices also keep econ professors employed. Cheap gas is unfair. Driving creates huge social costs in the form of traffic, health-damaging pollution and global warming that aren't suffered solely by the person buying the gasoline. All human interaction or action has social costs. High fuel prices have a social cost, but not to you, Joel Governments usually set up idiotic systems to offset such social costs (emissions trading, ethanol subsidies, taco truck regulations) instead of forcing individuals to pay for their own mess by adding a tax to remedy the imbalance. That kind of tax -- the most fair kind, really -- is called a Pigovian tax, and its use is why gas costs $8 to $10 a gallon in Europe, where they have fewer road deaths even though they drive like complete idiots. Taxes are inherently unfair. They are the most basic form of tyranny. They drain people of resources and they transfer resources from those who know how best to use the money, their very resources and their substance, to those with an agenda on how to use the resouces. If the U.S. were to slowly jack up gas taxes until we're in the $8 range, life would be better. We won't need to increase taxes to get to $8 a gallon. A liberal congress in 2008 will be enough to do so. Why is it that actually advocating tyranny ( increased taxes) is seen as an exercise in intellectual thought? Transferring resources from the owner to the usurper only changes the agenda for the owner. The tyrant is always waiting to gain your resources. Does it make liberals feel good to advocate transferring even more money to bloated state and federal governments? Inquiring minds like mine wanna know! We'd not only be safer and have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, we'd probably be happier too. Studies show that the only thing that consistently increases personal happiness is social interaction; This is a false premise. Joel thinks that Americans spend their spare time driving around and refusing to interact with other human beings. What people will do is continue to interact and demand lower energy prices. ... high gas prices have led to real estate prices falling faster in suburbs and exurbs than in cities, No Joel; real estate prices in "exurbia" and in suburbs have fallen because of the greater profit margin of building more expensive houses, which were bought then flipped. When the supply became too great, the prices plummeted. And gas had zero to do with that. ... so we may soon have more content downtown-dwellers. Those same studies show that the thing that makes people least happy is commuting, and telecommuting is way up this year. I hate commuting, too Joel. The only thing worse than commuting would be riding a publicly funded bus or mass transit system because we did not have the choice to do otherwise. We could use the tax revenue to fund public transportation. And we'd go back to the days when driving a car was a way to show people what a rich jerk you were. In other words, we would no longer need SUVs for that. No, Joel; you are acting like a rich jerk who apparently needs a Pruis and a Cooper Mini to show iwhat a jerk you are... Sure, $8 gas is unfair to poor people, but so is all of capitalism. Rich people get more of the globe's resources. No one has a right to cheap gas any more than he has a right to other things needed for a full and productive life, like an iPhone or a weekly newspaper column where you can tick people off. Actually, Joel, person for person, the rich can only consume only so much of the "earth's resources" per capita. We spent 50 years using government money to build the freeways that led to the driving-centric, mall-rat lifestyle I grew up with, so it will surely take decades more to restructure our society into something better. And as bummed as I am to pay a lot for gas, it's a fair price for improving society. I also think government should look into some kind of heavy taxation on Facebook usage. No, Joel: we didn't use government money; we used taxpayer money; money the people wanted spent and money which was used ostensibly for national defense, the main purpose the the original interstate highway act back in the 50s. The government has no money of its own since it is unable to produce anything of value for sale. Governments only take and spend, according to politics, which is why an improved society will be one that refuses to further feed the bloated monster government has become. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #12 Translation: Things would be a whole lot better if we were to just go back to living on the Government's plantation, doing what the government tells us to do (for very little money since Gov't will take most of it in taxes) so that the Government can get rich off the sweat of our brow. Didn't we already try that with a good segment of our population - back in pre-civil war days in the 'old south'? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-07-11 18:15 |
| #11 Great bumper sticker: Vote For Any Democrat If You Want $10 Gas! |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-07-11 17:44 |
| #10 It occurs to me that Joel here is also arguing against personal ownership of motor vehicles and against the capability of an individual to travel where he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. In the Old West it used to be a hanging offense to steal horses. A horse was a man's life blood. A horse was his muscle. A horse was his freedom to travel where he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted. Stealing a man's horse was equivalent to stealing the man's life and ability to make a living in some cases. If you stole a man's horse anywhere outside of a 15-20 mile radius of civilization you were probably condemning the man to a slow, lingering death due to dehydration in some areas. Stealing a people's ability travel freely puts the citizens of this country in the same boat as Soviet Russia and China. Nazi Germany limited freedom of travel for its non-party member citizens as well. Is that what you want, Joel? Really? A society where freedom of travel is restricted to the very elite and the very rich? Where travel is restricted except to a special few or those possessing the proper "papers"? 'Cause that's what you're really saying here from my POV. |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2008-07-11 17:32 |
| #9 Wonder what joel thinks about denver stuffing all the homeless onto buses so that all the convention goers, and the people who actually ride the bus to work, will have to drive? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-07-11 17:30 |
| #8 Just another elitist dickweed who believes that everyone else should suffer for the greater glory of his great society. Hey, Joel, what kind of car do you drive - or do you get chauffered around town wherever you go being the hotshot columnist? Do you take an airplane whenever you go back to NYC to visit your buddies at the Gray Lady or do you take a private jet chartered for the LAT? |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2008-07-11 17:22 |
| #7 But boy does he not want to admit it. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-07-11 13:02 |
| #6 First of all, why isn't this piece of crap under 'Opinion', where it belongs? Secondly, does this idiot live in a bubble? If the government deliberately set out to raise gasoline prices, there would be a revolution the next day. Raising gasoline and diesel prices raises the price of EVERYTHING ELSE, since everything can't be grown or produced locally (try growing oranges in Grand County, Colorado, home of the "Icebox of the nation", the town of Frasier). The increased cost wouldn't be added only once, but once on raw materials, on interim products, on final products, on wholesale delivery, and on retail delivery. Finally, the schmuck at the end gets to pay the higher price all these added costs pile on the original price of the product. Quality of life goes down, because a larger portion of the average income has to be spent on essentials - food, clothing, housing, utilities and transportation. Things not absolutely essential are eliminated. So are the jobs manufacturing, transporting, and selling those non-essentials. Unemployment goes up, and so does the cost of government. Thomas Sowell would give this idiot a failing grade in Econ 101. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-07-11 13:00 |
| #5 We spent 50 years using government money to build the freeways that led to the driving-centric, mall-rat lifestyle I grew up with This is what it boils down to...an Oedipal hatred of the older generation who actually built things and got things done. Failure and underacheiving fuels resentment. Deep down Joel must realize that the (to us unknown) man who drove the steamroller to tamp down the bed of the freeway contributed more to America and to civilization than all the words that Joel could ever hope to write. |
| Posted by: JDB 2008-07-11 11:30 |
| #4 Seems this people don't know basic economics: when transportation of goods becomes impossible then everything has to be produced locally. If you want to know what happens to standards of life look at what hapened at the fall of Roman Empire when nobility was less affluent than your average roman citizen and people starved to death by the tens of thousands. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-07-11 10:23 |
| #3 So Joel walks to work I take it? In LA? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-07-11 09:32 |
| #2 Sure, $8 gas is unfair to poor people, but so is all of capitalism. Given that the LA Times is in a death spiral with their east coast cousin, you can grasp the writers wish to live in an alternate reality. However, like your usual limousine socialist, they choose not to live in Cuba, North Korea, or other |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-07-11 08:57 |
| #1 We really have idiots writing for newspapers now. It's sad. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-07-11 08:45 |