We have nothing like that in gasoline. So let’s implement one. We can do this by adding a tax to gasoline and rebating all of the collected tax back to the people uniformly. Collect $1-2/gallon. Every quarter, write everyone who filed a federal tax return an equal check.

People who ride their bikes get a subsidized bike. People who drive an SUV 30 miles a day pay more per gallon than people who drive a hybird 15 miles a day.

Americans will say NO to any proposal to hike gas tax. However, if the question is framed:
Would you rather pay $.18/gallon gas tax, or, rather get $2k per person per year ($8k for family of 4) in tax rebate while paying $7/gallon gas tax (note you have some control over how much gas you uses)?

I think Americans would do the math, and choose the latter.

I don’t think Americans would do the math, and even if they did they’d still choose the former. Americans consistently behave against their own economic interests. And even if they did do the math and choose the latter, our political machine lacks the ability to do the math and make those choices. Politicians are not mathematicians or economists, as evidenced glaringly by McCain and Hillary both proposing cutting the 37.4 cent federal gas tax until Labor day, at the same time as they’re both saying we need to address our CO2 output and global warming.

And while the idea of no income tax is mildly appealing on a personal level, the regressive nature of fuel taxes isn’t something I condone. Fuel taxes should have been increased when gas was < $1/gallon in the late 90s, to pay for improving our infrastructure and supporting development of alternatives. But it’s way too late for that now.

A year from now I bet you won’t be able to find a ribeye under $10 a pound.

The Tim’s post mostly concerns only the added cost of gasoline for moving farther out from a town/city center … essentially living where you have to drive to everything. But what if you don’t have a second car?

My husband and I currently only have one car that we use for mostly pleasure. I stay at home with the kids and can walk to most everything I need since we live in a town center. My husband can bike to work, or work from home. We currently rent. We would like to buy a house in the next couple of years, but the cost of a second car (cost of car, insurance, maintenance, gas) really kills the equation for living in the suburbs or the country … essentially anywhere but a town center.

However, the cost of living in a town center is more than we can/want to spend… if we buy. But to rent in a town center costs MUCH less than buying … and we don’t need to have a second car.

Therefore, we’ve decided that we will continue to rent in places where we can get by with only one car, and save a pile of cash… which collects interest if invested wisely :).

And somewhat related to this, we just watched a documentary last night about oil and our society. It paints a rather bleak prediction of what we should be expecting in the coming years: A Crude Awakening

http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/index2.html

After seeing that documentary, we both feel even more strongly that we are making a good decision.

Here’s my thinking on this subect:
1) There is no such thing as an “offensive offer”!
2) And there’s no such thing as an “offensive asking price”, either.

Both are just dreams – with a low (but not nil) chance of coming true!

And that’s only for the first generation of batteries. Subsequent generations would recycle the nickel, just as the lead in ordinary car batteries is recycled.

And he calls renters losers…..

I own my home, although have rented in the past and have nothing against those that rent regardless of their reasons, unlike some people…

“I don’t like living in rental accomadations, that’s all. I have nothing against renters, everyone is a renter at some time in their life.”

So you have nothing against renters except that they’re losers? Seriously, I think you would get *far* more people interested in what you have to say if you didn’t automatically offend a particular segment of the readership. Why on earth would you go on *any* forum and say that some of the readers are losers, and then expect they the readership in general pay attention to your arguments?

Pretty much everyone on this blog thinks you’re an angry person with a house you can’t sell. They, and I, like to push your buttons on this issue because you’re an offensive individual, and pushing the buttons of offensive people is kinda fun…

Honda FCX Clarity

The lots and Boeing parking lots are glutted with 1-3 YO used cars, some with 15 miles on the odometer. Try this search: Autotrader.com; 2005-2007, any brand, $7000-9000. You’ll come home with an almost new car, still on warranty, and if buy it from a stable large dealer [they already did the CARFAX investigation for you].

I paid $7800 for mine and it based at $20,000 new; I’ve drove it a year and half, I love it. Its a 4 cylinder, but around 150 HP, roomy for 6′4″ adults and unlike a battery car; it has a trunk too….lol

Go Green — Buy a Used Car. It’s Better Than a Hybrid

I’d love to have a hybrid, but unfortuantely none of the existing ones meet my needs. I’m looking forward to the future when we (hopefully) have a wide selection of plug-in electric cars t choose from.

No, I like my handle and you are taking it waaaay out of context. (but you already know that)

Passive aggressive, anyone?

making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer, largely due to the environmental cost of the 30 pounds of nickel in the hybrid’s battery. Of course, the hybrid quickly erases that carbon deficit on the road, thanks to its vastly superior fuel economy.

Enjoy your Prius, but be aware that “making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer, largely due to the environmental cost of the 30 pounds of nickel in the hybrid’s battery”

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-06/ff_heresies_09usedcars

dn’t lk lvng n rntl ccmdtns, tht’s ll. hv nthng gnst rntrs, vryn s rntr t sm tm n thr lf.

blv t s mst ppls sprtns t n dy wn thr wn hm. n th lngr trm (7+ yrs), t s gd fnncl mv.

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How’s the house sale going? Sold it to a disgusting dirty renter yet? They’re total losers aren’t they? Rhetorical question, of course…

Ever think about changing your offensive, non-civil-conversation-inducing handle?

Mny n th cty mng wth 1 vhcl. lmnt 1 cr frm yr mnthly xpnss, whch cn cst t lst $500/mnth (ncldng dprctn, mntnnc, nsrnc) + gs (nthr $200 ?)nd yr Cty hm byng blty ncrss drmtclly nt t mntn y r nvstng n n pprctng sst (n th lng trm).< hrf="#" clss="rplyt" nclck="rplyt('48751','∓#91;trll∓#93;',''); rtrn fls;">Rply – < hrf="#" clss="qt" nclck="qt('48751','∓#91;trll∓#93;','Whn y lv n th Brbs mny fmls nd mltpl vhcls. \r\n\r\nMny n th cty mng wth 1 vhcl. lmnt 1 cr frm yr mnthly xpnss, whch cn cst t lst $500\/mnth (ncldng dprctn, mntnnc, nsrnc) + gs (nthr $200 ?)nd yr Cty hm byng blty ncrss drmtclly nt t mntn y r nvstng n n pprctng sst (n th lng trm).',''); rtrn fls;">Qt

Just look at all the tremendous investments over the last three years in prospecting. We went over 20 years with SERIOUS under-investment in exploration (mining and energy companies ratcheted down prospecting budgets to a pittance starting in the early ’80s), and the industry has only recently begun to make up for that. Heck, until a couple years ago the last time Saudi Arabia had done oil prospecting was the ’60s. We have also seen more investments in the last few years for improving mine production around the world than we saw in the 20 years prior.

In any event, commodities are the last hurrah of the credit bubble (i.e. the last bull market for hedge funds and investors to speculate), and it is set to come crashing down as the credit crunch picks up more speed into 2009.

Just how many Chinese consumers will be buying cars when plants are shutting down by the thousands and laying off millions as global demand for goods falls through the floor?

We didn’t test drive any other cars…we just checked them out at the last Seattle car show.

Americans will say NO to any proposal to hike gas tax. However, if the question is framed:
Would you rather pay $.18/gallon gas tax, or, rather get $2k per person per year ($8k for family of 4) in tax rebate while paying $7/gallon gas tax (note you have some control over how much gas you uses)?

I think Americans would do the math, and choose the latter. On my website there’s a petition and more detailed information:
http://taxmygas.blogspot.com/

This is the post I ran some numbers about this choice:
http://taxmygas.blogspot.com/2008/05/so-lets-run-some-numbers.html

Absolutely – great point. I think I’ve mentioned on this blog before that we moved to Mercer Island last month, but I don’t think I mentioned that we moved from Medina! I was born on Clyde Hill, went to MIHS, but the most relevant point is that my late mother drilled into me over and over the real estate mantra of “location, location, location”! It didn’t really factor into our decision to relocate, but we both work from home and my wife essentially commutes once a week to / from SeaTac ( I go to Redmond once or twice a week).

With respect to a comment I made a week or so ago about software and medical technology being key to the continued growth of “Cascadia”, we had a neighborhood meet-and-greet at our neighbor’s this past weekend and when I brought this up, 4 out of 4 of the women worked in health care and 4 out of 4 of the men worked in software. Spooky.

I already live 4 miles from work. I wish that more people evangelized living closer to work, because that has many good side effects. Everybody halving their distance from home to work would have a similar effect to having everybody double the gas mileage of their cars, but people talk about mileage more than distance from work for some odd reason.

Would Americans rather have cheap gas than $2k/person/year income tax rebate? My guess is most americans would rather have income tax rebate, then they can find ways to reduce their gas consumption. I’m polling on my website, let me knoww.

I did a calculation that says by taxing gas at $7/gallon (similar to japan/europe), there’s revenue to abolish income tax. Not that i’d want to abolish income tax, but tax rebate for middle/low class would sure come handy to compensate high food price/energy price.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/realestate/commercial/09amazon.html?ref=business

The transition is slow for sure, but so is any fundamental shift like this. In my experience, tech companies have many people who work from home. Most often several days a week rather than fulltime and especially people with long commutes. We have SF workers who WFH 2-3 days a week because the commute is "chocolatey" enough that they are more productive that way. As this becomes more and more common place I see it taking over for everyone. Telecommuting all of the time is difficult, telecommuting some of the time is much less difficult (orders of magnitude almost). Flexible hours of operation and not being in office much will negate any long commute times or sitting in traffic, which is what the real problem is. Most people don’t mind a longish drive, with little traffic, a few times week. And even at pricey gas it would not be a big hit. Its the daily grind in stop and go traffic that gets you.

The jobs outsourced are those where it is cost effective. The same goes with telecommuting. I’ve worked with outsourced teams and there are many problems and hidden costs. Their being located outside of the physical office is the least of them.

Amazon likes to stay downtown because that is where recent grads like to live. Once they get kids, those workers aren’t interested in being on-call anyway, so they leave Amazon and take a job in the burbs. So Amazon will be very happy in SLU because there is a never ending supply of new grads willing to be on-call. The Amazon software jobs that don’t require being on-call are in India, Bulgaria, etc.

I live in Silicon Valley right now, which can best be described as one enormous, endless suburb. Downtown San Jose has as many big buildings as Bellevue, but with twice the population of Seattle. I live near downtown, but it does not help me very much since the companies (including the one I work for) are all over the place. If you want to see what the future of cities is going to be like for tech heavy areas, this is it. Dead downtown full of hotels and a few random office buildings, and miles upon miles of 1-3 story buildings spread out everywhere and housing every big name tech company you’ve ever heard of.

Future trends will tell you that rather than moving in-city being the wave of the future, moving anywhere and commuting over your internet connection will be what happens for most white collar workers. I think people placing long term bets on things moving to higher density and closer downtown are not looking at the big picture. Fuel is getting more expensive and information is getting cheaper, that is all you need to know.

$600/mo for 12 months is $7200/yr. Assuming the wage goes up by 3%, and you use an interest rate of 6%, the value of that annuity is $240K. Double that for two incomes and add gas.

People can’t actually afford to pay that in cash, so they buy at the closest distance that they can afford. But the value per mile is such that when close-in housing becomes affordable, no one is interested in outlying areas. That’s why outlying areas fall so much faster than close in areas.

Sorry but I have to call BS on this one. I worked in one of those midwestern plants that you are talking about. It was my first job out of high school in Indianapolis Indiana. My Teamster Union wage in 1990 was $4.25 on hour for night shift. I also had to pay the union a negotiating fee that was somewhere around $50 a month.

When the Union talks about $26 dollar an hour jobs they are talking about guys with 20 or 30 years on the job. What they fail to mention is that those guys sacrificed the younger workers salaries to hold onto their wage and bennies. I would have to be crazy to be in the teamsters because I was never going to make $26 an hour. They would just keep padding the older guys benefits and salaries at the expense of new workers. When my uncle worked at the same plant in the 60s he broke the all time packing record and got his ass kicked by the Union reps for making it harder on other workers.

You analysis is correct as far as it goes, but it assumes that gas will always be available at $4/gal. If you assume that cost of gas will go up at 3% per year, then the actual value is $126K. If you put a dollar value on time saved, then the difference is much larger. That value of time saved is why Medina and Mercer Island prices are what they are.