taxes, gas prices, VLAC
Mike Arman
armanmik at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 13 11:33:50 EST 2005
In Europe, the biggest part of the price of gasoline is taxes. In the US, a
significant part of the cost of gasoline is taxes. Venezuela sells diesel
oil to their fleets of fishing boats for cost - about 22 cents a gallon,
which kind of gives them a competitive advantage.
We had a revolution over here about taxes once. Seems we were going to have
to pay a tax on something (what else is new?) and were not going to get any
benefit from it from the taxing authority (no pun intended, and what else
is new?).
The underlying problems are 1) government, which is the science of who gets
what, when and how, and 2) voters, who believe that ANY government has
their best interests at heart. Governments have an insatiable appetite for
tax money, and they will promise the voters absolutely anything in order to
get re-elected, and then the voters get upset when they discover they are
going to have to pay for these wonderful government benefits.
People just do not understand economic cause and effect, and governments
don't either. Each side is afflicted with selective blindness and
preconceived notions. When you add some international instability, a few
wars here and there in the oil-producing regions, speculation on oil
futures, growing demand from developing nations and a healthy dose of
simple greed (and don't forget fear and loathing), yes, gasoline is going
to be expensive, and is going to not only stay that way, but get even more
expensive.
A smart government (an oxymoron if there ever was one) would realize that
the price of energy has a direct bearing on the prosperity of the
citizenry, and would therefore try to LOWER the cost of energy - prosperous
citizens with higher incomes pay more tax dollars into the treasury.
Everybody wins.
Dumb governments tax the source of wealth (energy to develop the country,
run the factories, keep the people warm in winter), and thus reduce
everyone's standard of living, and their own tax base at the same time.
Poor people don't pay taxes, they have no money.
We need to seriously develop alternative sources of energy. If we even
talked seriously about having a "Manhattan Project" to accomplish this, you
could watch the price of oil plummet. OPEC would be frightened to death
that we might succeed, and their prices would drop because they would be
saying "why are you wasting money looking for alternate energy, look how
cheap oil is." If we DID succeed, suddenly OPEC would be flat out of
business, and oil would go begging at any price - because no one would need
it any more (ahh, sweet revenge!)
All in favor of a little disruptive technology, say Aye!
(My next Audi should be powered by gravity waves or something - no more
gasoline needed!)
Best Regards,
Mike Arman
(Audi V8 . . . it isn't just a car, it's an ADVENTURE!)
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