Expensive gas - a changing America
Actually, I am not sure we can say that we now have expensive gas in America. Gas prices have gone up to where we are getting close to the price much of the industrialized world has paid for decades. I remember driving around in a rented Renault Twingo in France twelve years ago and marveling at both how expensive gas was and how fuel efficient the little Twingo was.
This clearly spells the end of cheap gas, however, in America. Changes will be made, either slowly and painfully as each family adjusts or more quickly but equally painfully by big government. I would favor a mixed approach, but even that will be expensive and painful for some.
At any rate, Paul Krugman has some interesting observations about the problem.
Labels: fuel conservation, politics
posted by Clemens @ 11:48 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think the comment about associating crime with high density living is spot on.
So, therefore, this is where some leadership can speed up the transition to a more dense America.
1.) Start putting more police in higher density neighborhoods.
2.) Approve high density and mixed use building oriented around mass transit (no buses, buses are stuck in the same traffic cars are)
I honestly think most (young) people would not object to city living (I feel like I sort of did that in Salamanca)
The solutions are going to be expensive for sure but it will be even more painful if we don't act now. When gas is 9 bucks a gallon we will say "Why didn't we start this when gas was only 4 dollars?"
Of course, given how slowly we tend to respond to things like this, I would say we can look forward to saying the same about 9 USD / Gallon gas when it is pushing 12 bucks.
--Joey
Yes. Of course, if we really meant what we say in our worship of market forces we would simply let nature take its course and let gas go up to whatever Big Oil wanted to charge. With none of this nonsense about dropping the gas tax. In fact, it should be doubled. NOW.
Then again, where would Detroit be without all that liberal insistence on mileage caps etc.
BTW, I had a great time when we visited you and Miss Ems looking at all the weird little cars. Every American car manufacturer has at least one little fuel miser that they only sell in Europe (e.g. the Ford Ka). Any time they want they could bring them to the States. But the profit margins here would be too low. They would still go broke.
Oh well.
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