[ale] [OT] cartoon on BP spill blame

[Michael Potter]

I had a BMW Z3 in 1997.  My friend had a Geo Metro.

My cost per mile for tires was higher than his cost per mile in gas.
His cost for tires was just a little bit less than the cost of tax on my tires.

I am not exaggerating.

My opinion is that the government should not set artificial milage
requirements for the automakers.
The government should just tax gas such that people will make better
choices for which cars they buy and which cars they drive.
Automakers will respond to people's preferences by building cars that
get better gas milage.


On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Tom Freeman
<tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:
> Well, the majority of the race seems to lack the desire/ability/
> education (pick one or more blame points, or add one) to make much of
> any choice except on the basis of upfront cost.
>
> How often have you had the conversation with somebody about to, or
> justifying the purchase of a SUV where the _only_ cost that they
> consider is the cost of the fuel to drive it somewhere? Funny thing is,
> fuel cost is a fraction of the total cost of driving, yet the cost of
> fuel drives the whole dynamic because it is visible.
>
> My Mazda 6 is getting about 30 mpg overall at the moment. With fuel
> running about $2.70/gal, that works out to about $0.09/mile. Capital
> cost happens to run about, wait for it, $0.09/mile (I was able to pay
> cash - it will be higher if you have to finance). I haven't figured the
> maintanace on this car, but the last one worked out to perhaps $0.06/
> mile over 270,000 miles. Add in insurance at something near or better
> than $0.05/mile (in my case - YMWV), and you might see the cost of
> driving is at least three, probably four times the cost of fuel -
> assuming that all the costs are accounted for. Plus the cost of
> maintaining the roadway is almost impossible to account for here, as
> there are multiple sources of funding (including but not limited to the
> road use tax on fuel.)
>
> What I'm trying to suggest is that "price saver" mentality isn't the
> only force in play here. There is also the hiding of costs through
> various mechanisms The bright people around here can probably add two
> or three more cost hiding/transfer mechanisms in further discussion.
>
> Jim - I do so agree that we need to own up to our participation in the
> whole process, and not foist the responisiblity off onto somebody or
> something else. My driving habits drive the need for more oil wells,
> oil wells will leak/spill oil even if handled with the highest degree
> of professionalism, so part of the "fault" of the catastrophe in the
> gulf is mine. The owners/stockholders of record at the time of the
> blowout have a larger, more direct responsibility since they own the
> entity which acted in a less than perfectly professional manner. (If
> you want the profits - you should take responsibilty for the oopes
> also. IMHO)
>
> On 06/18/2010 11:25:55 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> I am willing to pay MUCH more on my plane tickets if the extra $$
>> goes
>> to
>> improve service and reliability and safety, etc.
>>
>> We have developed too much of the walmart mentality for my tastes.
>> cut
>> costs
>> to save $ with no regard for the quality (or lack) or damage it does
>> to the
>> surrounding.
>>
>> We _so_ need to start evaluating our own individual participation in
>> the
>> process around us.
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Greg Freemyer
>> <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> > Damn,
>> >
>> > I guess we should blame the passengers if a commercial airplane
>> > crashes due to poor maintenance and pilot error.
>> >
>> > Greg
>> >
>> > On 6/18/10, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2010/05/31/mike-luckovich-
>> june-1-cartoon/
>> > >
> <<snip for brevity>>
>
>
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