Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

And nowadays Joe Sickpack is being told "These illegals are using your taxes for their own good" while simultaneously being told "These corporations are using your taxes for your own good". And at the base of it, other people using your tax money without asking you is mostly conceived as a bad thing.

hah "Sickpack"

which is exactly what a fuel-tax does

How so? Wouldn't the single Hummer drive and the family of 7 with the Suburban both suffer the same from higher gas prices?

Actually the single Hummer driver would suffer less because his vehicle would only be used to visit strip clubs and football games.

itll take more than a single hummer to get a family of 7

The solo Hummer driver would be paying more to shift his arse a mile than it would cost to shift each of the 7 arses in the suburban, besides there are more efficient ways of shifting 7 people around than a suburban they just exist predominantly in Europe and Japan. The British card market is dominated by Renault Scenics, Citroen Picassos, Ford C-Maxes, and Vauxhall (GM) Zafiras.

Yeah, but of those 7 people, at most 2 are adults with jobs. And with that many kids, it's more likely Mom stays at home. So the number of incomes is the same.

I suppose it might work to combine a gas tax with a transportation tax credit per dependent. So you raise gas taxes by $3 a gallon, but then the revenue from the tax is divided equally per person and given back in the form a tax credit per person and dependent when you file your taxes. You could jigger the formula a bit (say 80% of the revenue is given back, the rest is put into alternative energy research - and maybe dependents under 12 only count as 0.5 adults for tax credit purposes (since presumably they don't need to drive as much)).

That family is still choosing to drive a suburban rather than something more efficient, largely becuse the US auto industry has convinced them they need to shift a couple of tons of steel round with them. If they were able to buy say a Ford S-Max (also a 7 seater) they could get 29.8 mpg (US) urban 45.2mpg (US) highway. The point is that if fuel taxes were higher people would be offered cars to suit that are already being made, by US companies, in other countries.

I agree with you there. And even with the offsetting tax credit, there would still be a strong incentive for the family to buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle, since the tax credit isn't based on how much you spend on gas, but simply on the number of people you need to transport.

Btw I am missing the whole "gas taxes" thing and I can't find it anywhere on the thread. How did this come up in the first place?

Um, I think I'm probably guilty of that. Though I don't think it's totally unrelated to the topic at hand, since we were talking about Detroit's problems, which in part stem from the fact that they have to market one set of vehicles to the low-gas-prices market in the US, and a different set in Europe and other markets.

They should just finally release the car that can run on a teaspoon of water. Everybody knows they have it.

who killed the electric car it was me i confess

let's have a floor on gas prices. And a ceiling on income. And a calorie restriction on pizza. And a ceiling on the hourly rate for lawyers, while we're at it.

I am weary of punishing the market at the pump in order to fix this. First of all it puts the responsibility on the consuming public rather than the producers. I think one of the main reasons why gas guzzlers have been so successful is because they are perfect status symbols -- they are big, flashy, expensive, in music videos, etc. and the fact that they are so costly I think adds a tremendous amount to their appeal. Particularly in a culture which worships material wealth and unyieldingly idolizes the wealthy class.

Frankly I don't think the public is in a poor position to act rationally when making consumer choices. They/we are consistently bombarded by programming on a number of analogous levels that affect the choices we make and this infuses the act of purchasing with a distracting emotionality. The industry has a huge advantage over consumers in this matter and now that this has backfired they need to pay the price.

Oops I mean "Frank I do think" in the second sentence. Crap, shoulda proofread..

who is Frank

http://www.theneitherworld.com/us/castleforrester/mst3k/ptqe.jpg

front cover of my paper today:

R.I. unemployment rate climbs to 9.3%
By Lynn Arditi

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate last month climbed to 9.3 percent, the highest since 1983, as job cuts in the private and public sectors coursed through nearly every part of the economy, a government report released today shows.

Factories, offices and retail stores, among others, slashed payrolls in October, eliminating 2,400 jobs, according to the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. The ranks of the unemployed last month swelled to nearly 53,000, the highest on record.

Rhode Island’s October unemployment rate is identical to that of Michigan, where Detroit’s Big Three automakers this week pleaded for American taxpayers to help their industry as prospects of receiving federal rescue aid dimmed.

what are the odds of the Mets changing the name of their new ballpark before April now?

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/2008/02/25/Cjkg94Q8.jpg

California right on up there with ya, Ed:

Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento -- California's unemployment rate rose dramatically in October to 8.2%, its highest level in 14 years, the state Employment Development Department reported today.

The figures were released at the same time that President George W. Bush signed into law a $6-billion extension of unemployment benefits that provides as many as 33 weeks of additional assistance for Californians, whose benefits would have run out.

California's increase from 7.7% in September was larger than the national increase in joblessness; the U.S. unemployment rate jumped four-tenths of a point, to 6.5%, in a tally reported earlier this month. California's unemployment is the third-highest in the United States, exceeded only by Michigan and Rhode Island at 9.3% each.

The state's economic picture "continues to be difficult," acknowledged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement. "As our state unemployment rate rises, my administration continues to work hard to generate jobs and help re-train people who have lost jobs in our hard-hit industries."

The slowdown in the state's economy worsened in October as job losses spread from the hard-hit construction, real estate and financial services areas to retail sales, said Howard Roth, chief economist for the California Department of Finance. The monthly drop in payroll employment by 26,400 jobs was the worst since January.

yeah but RI must enjoy this brief moment when they are #1 in something

You guys ever seen a sinkhole forming? Or a river bank caving away during a flood? That's what's been happening to the job market for the past few months.

I am weary of punishing the market at the pump in order to fix this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "punishing the market", but if you mean "punishing consumers", then I agree. I don't think consumers should be punished. That's why I'm saying return the revenue in the form of a tax credit. I also don't think the industry needs to be punished. The industry did what it needed to do in order to survive in the market that government created by guaranteeing low gas prices for the past couple of decades. The industry gave consumers what they wanted to buy. I don't think it needs to be punished. We need to realize that we have allowed the industry and a national infrastructure to grow up around the assumption of cheap gas prices, which may have not been the smartest thing to do.

Frankly I don't think the public is in a poor position to act rationally when making consumer choices.

arent you the dude that cant keep track of the balance in his own bank account?

let's have a floor on gas prices. And a ceiling on income. And a calorie restriction on pizza. And a ceiling on the hourly rate for lawyers, while we're at it.

How about a moratorium on market fundamentalism?

a floor on gas prices is a retarded idea tho

I can sense the intelligence level of this conversation rising already.

better the government push alternative energy development and fuel efficiency through investment and legislation than taxes which seem unnecessarily circuitous and punitive

not to mention politically perilous

OK, that's a reasonable argument. But to me, it seems that in the current environment, government spending more on alternative energy is trying to push the stone of Sisyphus up a hill - whereas raising gas taxes is bulldozing the hill. If the cost of conventional energy sources (ie. carbon energy) is raised over a certain threshold, then the economics of alternative energy suddenly becomes compelling. Until that threshold is reached, alternative energy, barring some miraculous breakthrough, is going to remain a tiny niche, no matter how much money government pours into it.

Frankly I don't think the public is in a poor position to act rationally when making consumer choices.

arent you the dude that cant keep track of the balance in his own bank account?

― Lamp, Friday, November 21, 2008 2:59 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest

And I am a college graduate. Just call me exhibit A.

you may be right it just seems so silly on the face of it to me

hay guys gas is wicked expensive huh better get crackin developing some alternatives no - but you made it cost so much - huh what no ridiculous get back to work

besides at this point there seems to be widespread recognition that oils cheapness is completely unreliable an unsustainable

xp

If the cost of conventional energy sources (ie. carbon energy) is raised over a certain threshold, then the economics of alternative energy suddenly becomes compelling.

how does a floor on gas prices achieve this?

i am v. v. much in agreement with you that we've "allowed the industry and a national infrastructure to grow up around the assumption of cheap gas prices" but a price floor seems like a political and administrative nightmare to implement. easier to at the very least scrap existing subsidies in place for coal, oil and natural gas suppliers.

how does a floor on gas prices achieve this?

Seems self-evident to me, though perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question.

besides at this point there seems to be widespread recognition that oils cheapness is completely unreliable an unsustainable

I hope this is true. But I don't think this undermines the case for a price floor or higher gas taxes. If anything, if a political consensus can be achieved for higher gas taxes, that is going to accelerate the transition away from carbon fuels, which would be a good thing. There are lots of reasons to not want our economy to be dependent on carbon fuels besides the idea that they are going to get more expensive anyway. For instance, the environmental costs, or the national security risks of being dependent on energy from politically unstable regions.

a price floor seems like a political and administrative nightmare to implement. easier to at the very least scrap existing subsidies in place for coal, oil and natural gas suppliers

I haven't thought about the logistics, but it seems like the gasoline tax that we currently have is collected without too much of a bureaucratic nightmare. I agree totally about scrapping the subsidies.

i dont think a floor on gas prices addresses the larger point you were making about the economics of alternative enrgy i.e. gas prices are only a portion of what makes things like wind or solar power or hybrid cars or w/e nonviable currently.

and lol market fundamentalism but i'd rather see increased fuel tax than a price floor

I haven't thought about the logistics

I can sense the intelligence level of this conversation rising already.

we have a winner.

It's true gasoline is only part of the picture. In terms of foreign imports, I think it's probably the biggest part of the picture though - since we have large domestic supplies of natural gas and coal. So the issue is a bit different there. But I would not necessarily be against similar taxes on other carbon fuels as well.

Perhaps a simple tax would be easier to implement than a floor. Though I don't think the floor would be literally a floor on the price charged at the retail level - instead I would imagine that the tax level would be set quarterly or monthly based on projected retail prices over the following period in order to maintain the floor approximately.

So there would be one nationwide gas tax per gallon changed quarterly, so naturally the "floor" would fluctuate from day to day and state to state depending on local market conditions.

I really don't know how you could legislatively implement a floor and have it get through the courts. Which was the point of my sarcasm upthread O. Nate.

Taxes are way easier to implement. And easier to raise, I presume.

Can you even have a floor (or ceiling) in muni utilities?

lol PG&E

I don't think the implementation I sketched out would be too complicated to get passed. It seems workable to me. What's the weak link?

Not sure about utilities - though that's a different can of worms.

Meanwhile, in other news, the stock market likes Geithner:

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081121/business_us_markets_stocks.html

either that or the volatility is related to the day traders bingeing into the weekend

Yeah, that's true - a 6% up or down move on a given day is kind of just noise in this market.

given that hedge funds are not even 50% unwound yet, there's gonna be market volativity for awhile.

And I'd guess this rally is based on hope (i.e. new kid on block) given the horrible fundamentals and lagging indicators that we've been seeing.

i bought more berkshire

― bnw, Thursday, November 20, 2008 2:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i win!