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Originally Posted by Fatt
People often forget that the U.S. mass transit system is so inefficiently, that cars are still the backbone of travel. It may sound like those pennies are just so frivilous, but it is the difference between gas increasing 1 cent and 5 cents at a time. People could argue that there will be fewer five cent increases than one cent increases, but there will not be five times less increases :eyebrow:
A lot of people argue that Americans pay so much less for gas than it's international counterparts, but at the same time, they don't have many alternatives for travel. That is why Americans tend to consume three to four times more gas than people from other countries. I'll still argue that Americans could revert back to bicycles, but that is a very dramatic change, especially for the fattest country in the world  |
I agree. Five cents doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that five cents times thirteen gallons of gas equals sixty-five cents rather than twenty-six cents with only a two cent raise. My dad has to drive about forty-five minutes in order to reach his job. He's put in 17 years and he can retire with full benefits when he turns 50 (unless something very odd happens).
If the U.S. had better public transportation then it wouldn't be a problem. It doesn't, and I don't think a guy in his mid-40's wants to ride a bike up what could almost be a mountain at 5 a.m. for five days a week. Also, the town I live in is a small, dinky town where jobs are so limited that people are fighting to get a summer job at a fast-food restaurant.
I don't know, I think that oil companies are price-gouging b/c they saw how dependent we are on oil after the war started. For all we know, it could be like the diamond situation that was on 20/20 years ago. I just want to avoid as much price gouging and paycheck reduction--as someone mentioned earlier--as possible. I wonder how bad this would affect the price of stamps.
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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