In a message dated 03/22/2000 3:38:11 PM Pacific Standard Time,
105671.471@compuserve.com writes:
<< When our friends across the seas see us complain about paying half as much
as they have been for years we come across as whiny little prats. I think
it reflects badly our image as the most prosperous economy in the world.
And we do little to evoke sympathy from them.
Now hang on a minute...the vast majority of any price difference in US fuel
and any other fuel is the tax levied by the government. I am not for one
minute about to apologize for not contributing directly to the pockets of our
lawmakers, or indirectly to those too lazy or stupid to fend for themselves.
Furthermore, I believe that the historically low price that we have been
paying for gasoline in this country has had detrimental effects on our
economy, society and ecology. The sorry state of mass transit in San Diego
(and St. Louis and most other american cities for that matter) is a direct
result of the very low price we have been paying for motor fuel. The urban
>>
Detrimental effect on our ecomomy? 80+% of everything manufactured and sold
in this country moves by trucks which burn fuel just as expensive as our
gasoline...the rest by trains burning the same fuel....without affordable
fuel we wouldn't have the economy we have and be the most prosperous country
in the world.
Detrimental effect on our society? Too many backseat getting too many little
sisters knocked up? Or too many truck drivers and train engineers
intimidating the left coast sissies?
Detrimental to our ecology? In this you are probably right, but I have no
idea how to fix it any faster that we are now. If we all still lived in
caves and caught our food on the run the air would certainly be cleaner, but
then you wouldn't be reading this, and if you are past your mid-thirties,
you'd be dead.
Gee..the sorry state of mass transit is the fault of the free market?
YEAH!...way to go bayeeeee! Perhaps if mass transit were designed to appeal
to productive Americans instead of supplying a place for low-lifes to prey on
the rest of us, it would work better. Yeah, I want a bus ride to
downtown...no, I have no reason to go there because I dont live there, shop
there, or work there...but all the buses lead to downtown?..Ok, no problem.
It's definitely the price of fuel that's the problem, not a bunch of stupid
beaurocrats that build a horse to look like a giraffe.
Just my opinion, but I refuse to apologize for prosperity and lack of
taxation.
Robert Houston...give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish
and he sits in a boat all day and drinks beer.
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