taxes, gas prices, VLAC

[Mike Arman]

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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