how long before fuel prices drop?

Some calculations are easier in the old money - try doing eighths or
thirds or sixteenths with only 100 pennies in the pound! Having 960
farthings to play with had something to be said for it. Inflation was the
reason the old coins were no longer viable - nothing at all to do with
rationalising anything, really. Just another spin-job.

As long as your banana is the same size as mine, and we agree to both use
either the length or the width, all is well.

 

Aardvark added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I visited London with an Army friend while on leave from duty in
West Germany the summer of 1971. I loved the city and her people.
As it happened, Great Britain was in the midst of the conversion
from old pence et al to new pence on the decimal system. I didn't
understand that nor was I able to recognize the difference in the
coins I was receiving in change, so you can imagine I was often
embarrassed by giving people the wrong amoung of the wrong
currency.

BTW, I speak binary, octal, and hexadecimal as well. I never
thought about bases 20 and 12 but I suppose I could have picked
that up also back in 1971 if I'd known I needed to.

Interesting comments you've made, I snipped most but did read them.
Thanks.

 

Aardvark added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I suppose so. I doubt that anyone thinks they have enough money,
make enough in wages, salary, or pension, nor pay as little in
taxes as they'd like. And, no matter the country, there is no
easy way to turn things around if the pols act contrary to
citizens wishes except maybe to simply vote against the
incumbents everytime on the theory they are flat on their asses
and take your chances on new blood.

But, I don't think so.

That isn't the question. The question is, or ought to be, how to
get the free market system to generate the tax revenues and not
businesses or citizens under the load of confiscatory taxes. It
can be easily shown by anyone with even a smattering of knowledge
in economics that tax revenues ALWAYS go down when tax rates go
up, but ALWAY go up when tax rates go down.

I leave this as an exercise for the reader to prove.

NO! It does NOT cost you zero! Who in Hell do you think is paying
for the doctors, nurses, hospitals, equipment, everything? The
damn tooth fairy?! Government have NO money except that which
their citizens willingly or unwillingly cede to them. Period.
And, absent running a currency printing press, governments also
must make trade offs in spending. To spend more on "free" health
care, one must for example, spend less on nation defense as ALL
the NATO countries have done.

Have any of the millions of good people in Europe ever considered
what their government might've done if the 9/11 attacks had been
on Big Ben, The Eiffel Tower, the Venice Canals, the Holland
dikes, or any or the thousands of extremely valuable targets that
have stood for hundreds or even thousands of years? Please tell
me how you would do that after you gutted your strategic and
tactical military after the end of the Cold War, which of course,
never really ended.

I'll take a very mildly regulated free market system and LOW
taxes every time to free health care, free unemployment
insurance, free retirement benefits, free anything. We call these
things "entitlements" because people have become accustomed to
thinking they are somehow owed a living, but they're not.
Somebody with higher means than they are really paying for all
this "free" stuff.

 

Whiskers added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I've been following this sub-thread a bit and find it fascinating
but have somehow missed how this has anything to do with the topic.
Isn't the issue what effect taxation and currency value what is
being discussed? Conversions are simply mechanical calculations in
the final analysis.

 

I intend to keep the dimensions of my banana between myself and those who
choose to indulge in specialised indoor activities with me, thank you
very much

 

It's called 'thread drift'. Welcome to usenet )

 

May you never contract a chronic illness, be severely injured, or outlive
the proceeds of your assets.

 

Sorry about that. I should have stated the following: it costs me zero at
the point of use, although I have already paid for it in statutory
National Insurance deductions from my wages all my working life (I think
N.I. contributions are 7.5% of gross pay or £80-something, whichever is
the lesser and there is a lower level of income below which it isn't
deducted).

 

Whiskers added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I have but I have taken prudent steps NOT to outlive my assets.
That is called being financially responsible and NOT living off the
government dole while pounding sand at Americans about how free
everything is to you.

Who in Hell do you think is really paying for this, never saw an
answer. In your case, I hope your socialist "free" system survives
the global economic meltdown. Your country has already pumped the
equivalent of over $400B into your faltering economy in just the
last 7-10 days and yours is but a small fraction of ours. Who is
going to pay for that? I know it ain't you because you're living
off some other productive person's income.

 

Whiskers added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I speak and understand Usenet. I also understand better than most
the macro economic issues behind the rather strange way oil and gas
prices seem to be diverging. BTW, there was a rather wild swing in
crude prices amidst the 1,000 point Dow rollercoaster ride on
Friday. Since we are talking about oil, it was as high as $86 but
closed on Friday at $78. It is harder to get updates on the weekend
but I'm sure the futures market absent the speculators is still
running strong right now.

 

Aardvark added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

OK. Under that definition, mine are pretty much free also. My
company pays the big hit but I have co-pays that I often don't
see for months until medical billings come back from my insurance
and the co-pay can be calculated.

Let me remind you again, that my government isn't conceptually
any different than yours in one regard. And, that is that there
is only so much money in the budget to go around. Fiscal
conservatives like to brag that they don't allow deficit spending
but modern day ones surely do. It still goes by the name of
"print money", but of course, no money is physically being
printed, it is being borrowed. And, in our case, we also can no
longer say that it is OK to have a large national deficit because
we owe it to ourselves. Yes, Americans still buy T-Bills, but the
bulk of what has grown by my estimated - not officially
acknowledged - from under $4 trillion in 2001 to over $9T 6 weeks
ago to what I estimate is north of $16T now. Man, what a ride.

We have several coincident taxation systems that are involved
here, Aardvark. One is the IRS, Internal Revenue Service, which
is the main means of providing individual and business tax
revenue to our Federal government. Then we have the retirement
entitlement program called Social Security where employees and
employers each contribute half of about 6.6% or so until they
retire. Finally, we have Medicare augmented by private insurance
to cover doctors, hospitals, testing, and prescription drugs. The
IRS system is progressive meaning that we have "brackets" where
when one reaches certain threshold amounts of income their
marginal tax rate jumps up by X%, so it is hard to predict what
our equivalent would be to your numbers.

I can, however, use myself as an illustration. I am retired but
not yet on Social Security. I will go on that at age 62 next
year. I won't go on Medicare until 65. Since I am no longer
working, I am also no longer paying Social Security taxes nor is
my former employer but my IRS marginal tax rate last year was
around 17% as I recall. Considering what our citizens
collectively demand of our government, including a half trillion
dollars worth of military might, I think we get our money's
worth.

Let me offer another alternative view so we don't argue. Usually
our Republican presidential candiates promote some sort of
privatization of the entitlements on the theory that people will
seek the lowest prices if they have skin in the game. While the
Democrats usually promote some sort of universal or socialized
medical system. This election cycle is no different. The two
candidates real plans are FAR different than their rhetoric,
naturally, but if I had to peg it, I'd say that Sen. McCain's
plan is a modified version of a flexible spending account where
he proposes to give people $5,000 to spend as they please while
Sen. Obama's plan is a lot more like Canadas universal healthcare
system. I can't really say it is exactly the same because of the
fine print involved.

Now, are either of these guys gonna offer me "free" anything?
Nope, ain't gonna happen. I will have to pay, as will everyone,
one way or another. What my goal is will be to try to ensure that
we maintain a progressive taxation system so that those in the
middle class pay less than the poor and the wealthy pay more than
the middle class. That is only fair in my mind. However, getting
that to actually work without a tax code that is over 66,000
pages long has proven to be impossible so far.

And with that, I wish you a pleasant Sunday and I apologize if
the stick I shoved in your eye was excessively sharp. I think we
both misunderstood each other because the definitions and
measurement parameters needed to be stated.

 

It has been both fun and educational. The stick must have hit my glass
eye, so I didn't feel a thing (said glass eye having been supplied free
at the point of insertion by our NHS *).


* I don't really have a glass eye- that was an attempt at humoUr

 

Forgot to mention: for every employee N.I. contribution there is also an
employer's contribution which is always larger. By how much I forget, if
I ever knew.

 

Their *taxes* pay for social programs full stop. Gas taxes are a small
part of that. The price of gas is due to the lack of british supply of
oil.

 

The UK doesn't produce enough oil on it's own so it has to import from
Arabia. So just by that, it's more expensive. The US is lucky enough to
have two adjacent countries that produce enough oil to fill most of it's
needs. I have no idea about refining capacity in the UK.

 

So the price of gas has some magical bearing on the income tax of the
people buying it why? sounds like the nonsence conservatives spout about
lowering taxes (for the rich and corporations only) when they want to get
elected.

 

Aardvark added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I got the joke. <grin> Glad you're not pissed at me. I came on
too strong. It's just that here in the Colonies, we are strugging
with the very core of things like is healthcare a priviledge or a
right? Should healthcare be something that government provides as
a part of its services or should the private sector continue with
help from the government to reduce costs? One can make similar
comparisons on about all the major social issues as well as core
national defense things like should we continue in Iraq or
withdraw? Should we make Iraq pay or let them use their oil
profits to rebuild their own country, etc.

It is the notion that things coming from the gubmint are somehow
really free that gets my goat, Aardvark, because at least here
there is a view, supported by studies of human behavior, that
once people get hooked on "free" anything from their city,
county, state or Federal government, they tend to want it for the
rest of their lives.

An easy example is our Social Security system which was never
envisioned as a true replacement for pensions but rather
something to help older Americans during a time of economic
crisis. And, the retirement age was calculated by actuaries to
allow for just a few years of benefits before they died.
Constrast that with today's life expectancy of 80 or 85 which
means drawing benefits for maybe 20 years. Then there's the very
idea that SS is a trust fund implying that people actually bank
their taxes and the match by their employer and we see people
asking to just be given their money at retirement. Well, there is
no trust fund. That was a euphemism at best. It has been
estimated that when the Baby Boomers like me get on the dole
beginning in 2010-2012 there will be only 2 people working for
every one drawing benefits, a clearly unsustainable system. So,
the pols will have to raise taxes, raise the retirment age,
reduce benefits or all three. Any of these things are really bad
for the economy.

Healthcare, though, is far more expensive.

But, to bring this thread drift back to oil and gas prices, I
should mention that our gas tax system may be different than
many/most/all of the European Union country's notions. I really
don't know. Our Federal gas taxes were origiginally tacked on to
pay for building and maintaining highways, including the
Interstate highway system. Today, though, with fuel efficiency
rising but miles driven/year rising even faster, the pot of money
for building and fixing roads and bridges is woefully inadequate,
so the Feds are piloting a program that will require GPS tracking
systems in cars as a part of a crash, speeding, and driving meter
black box that they can use to assess road taxes on miles driven
at the CAFE the car is rated at.

Many/most/all, certainly mine, states asses sales taxes at a
fixed percentage so they rise and fall with retail prices.

The point being that having a moderate tax that is fixed in
cents/gallon but a sales tax that rises and falls with the
elastic retail price leads to difficulties in comparing gas
prices here to any other country's system and also makes it that
much tougher to correlate price changes at the well head with the
gas pump.

I'm happy that you've found this discussion, especially my input,
stimulating. I have, also, and I've learned a lot.

Have a good one!

 

Aardvark added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

Similar to our Social Security system with taxes employees and
employers the same.

How can you fully fund an entire medical system on taxes as low
as around only 15-20% or so? And, don't your fellow citizens find
that a flat tax, i.e., a fixed percentage is regressive since it
falls most heavily on the poor and the so-called rich get to
skate? There is great disagreement on these concepts here but
most people believe that a progressive system where rate
percentages rise in lumps as overall gross income rises ensures
that the poor pay little or no taxes, the middle class is treated
fairly and the wealthy can do the patriotic thing and pay more.

Economics that our government and business employ have studied
the effects of raising or lowering overall income, retirement and
healthcare costs or lowering them as well as dividends and
capital gains. And, while presidential administrations are simply
loathe to admit what their own economists are saying, independent
economists tell the truth:

Raising taxes has ALWAYS resulted in, eventually, lower NOT
higher revenues to the Federal government. As I hinted at
earlier, the wealthy from made or inherited fortunes based at
least partially on capital gains have long been able to see these
changes coming and adjusted where they get their money from to
minimize their taxes. It is estimated that some 7-8 trillion
dollars with a "T" is hidden in some sort of legal off-shore
fund, bank, or something and the amount would go up if taxes on
capital gains or a soak the rich scheme goes into place.

Contrast, the effects on revenue from the first Bush
administration to Clinton to the 2nd Bush administration for just
a moment and one can see that today's president's policy of
lowering marginal tax rates, but cutting capital gains from 28%
to only 15% has actually increased revenue. During the middle of
Clinton's administration, the top 5% of income in the U.S. paid
about 40% of the IRS taxes but today, the top 5% pays over 90%.
How Sen. Obama expects to increase the overall tax on people
making more than $250,000 to fund a tax cut for the other 95% and
not have revenues sink rather than rise is beyond me. This isn't
a partisan comment, it is simple economics and looking at
history.

Incidently, I took special pains to notice gas prices on the way
to and from dinner last night at a restaurant about 9 miles or so
away where the route was different in each direction. ALL of the
gas stations were selling regular gas for $2.88 or $2.89. I was
astounded until I thought about how this may have happened.

It is, in my view, NOT a price fixing conspiracy. I believe after
thinking about it some that this commonality to meet local
competition is most likely the result of the major oil companies
selling gas to franchisees is doing computer tracking of prices
and advising their customers, the small business gas station
owners, where to set prices to maximize profits during volitile
price periods as well as ensure that no one gets an unfair
competitive advantage.

In ending, it looks to be another wild week on Wall Street with
oil and securities futures prices here and in the major world's
exchanges sharply up overnight. And, Great Britain has apparently
decided to inject another $80B or so equivalent in pounds into
your market to increase liquidity. I can't track this as well as
here due to much less media attention to your economy or anywhere
else in Europe but the total is getting near half a trillion U.S.
dollars.

Do you have any idea how large GB's economy may be vs. the U.S.?
I'd like to say 10% but that is purely a guess, not even a SWAG.
But, to the extent that 10-20% may be in the ballpark, half a
trillion is REALLY large compared to the announced infusion of
capital and the bailouts here. I think the true number here is
many times that, though, perhaps as much as $7-9 TRILLION dollars
if our Treasury were to use the SEC's own mark-to-market
accounting system to value the total amount of toxic loans being
backed up.

Hope this new info on taxes and gas prices is of interest to you.
If you'd like to elaborate on your systems, I am all ears.

 

chuckcar added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

My view was, and still is majorly, that gas taxes in GB are
designed to both bring in revenue that can be used for socialist
programs but also to discourage driving large, fuel inefficient
cars in the crowded cities. This is similar in my myopic view to
the central European countries. Aardvark has provided some
insight into that which will prompt me to do more investigation.

In your view, how much does gas cost you today vs at it's peak
and how much do you think are taxes? Can you cite the trends in
crude prices from wherever you get your oil from? See below but
I'm interested in getting smarter on the global effects of crude
prices, taxation, and currency value fluctuations on retail
prices. For now, I simply cannot believe that the reason gas
prices are more than twice ours - if they really are - is due to
higher crude prices. The world's highly competitive oil producing
countries just won't support such a variation without individual
country taxes being a big part.

I have other sources of info on taxation schemes in Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands,
and similar G7/G20 countries but nothing for Japan and China
directly. However, my "intelligence" still suggests that overall
taxation for gas, the presumed root of retail price differences,
ranges from 40% to maybe 60% or more of the retail price as it
was when gas was about $4/gallon equivalent.

This entire economic model is now destroyed by the currenct
economic crisis gripping the entire world exactly coinciding with
the apparent demise of the oil speculators seemingly resulting in
lower oil and retail gas prices. So, unless European Union gas
taxes are really a percent of wholesale or retail and not a fixed
amount makes a BIG difference.

And, I have completely lost track of whether EU countries still
assess taxes based on car size,weight, engine size and power
and/or if value added tax systems are still the norm. If all of
my assumptions are at or near the mark, then comparing prices
between the U.S. and Europe becomes a complex macro economic
problem and not just a fluid unit and currency conversion
problem.

Anyone have any real facts here? Aardvark?

Now, as to oil supply in the EU, depending on the country,
domestic oil reserves are indeed small but far worse than U.S.
dependence on OPEC is Europe's growing dependence on Russian oil.
Should Putin engineer a resurgence of the former KGB-run USSR as
many fear, he could easily hold Europe hostage until it abandons
NATO and any alliances with the U.S.

 

chuckcar added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

Can't speak for you entirely, of course, but I thought you got oil
from Russia as well as/instead of OPEC. As to the U.S. we get
relatively little oil from Canada and South America and our own
reserves are barely 1/8 of our appetite.

At the time of the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo, the U.S. was importing
less than 25% of it's oil. Today, the number is 68% and rising,
believed to be in the 80% range within a decade so your thesis is
false on it's face, I'm afraid.