BBC: Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices?

[arenean]

From today's BBC:

Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices?

[Trajan]

1. It's a bread versus gas issue ...

Families are maxed out on expenses .... further gas price increases, apparently in support of greater and greater oil company profits, is a painful hook in the craw ....

What is really important - Why do Brits eat crappy food ?

Now THERE's a story !

[Fumesucker]

2. ...

[stellanoir]

3. In a quick scan of the article

I didn't see any mention of the fact that the Brits and most nations in the EU have fantastic Nationalized Universal Health Care.

If we had a fraction of the services that their high gas prices afford them, we probably wouldn't be so totally irked at the oily buggers enormous profiteering, tax evasion, and rampant environmental degradation.

Sorry if I missed it but I'm sort of on the fly this morn.

[AndyTiedye]

6. And a Much Better TRAIN System Than We Have

Even though privatization has made the British rail system a shadow of its former self, it is far better than ours.

[stellanoir]

7. Aaand. . . the Chunnel too !!!

Yeah public transit in general is far superior over there.

Over all quality of life analysis tend to place the Scandanavian countries and Australia and NZ far above what we've become.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Yes, when I rode the trains in the UK, I compared them unfavorably to the ones in Japan, and yet

despite their inadequacies, the combination of trains and buses makes it possible to get just about anywhere in the country without a car.

In 2006, on my first trip since 1967, I was supposed to rendezvous with a group in Hereford (we were attending the Three Choirs Festival), and when I looked up the schedules on the Internet, I found that there were trains leaving every hour from London's Paddington Station. The same type of thing happened on my next trip in 2007. I had to get to Bath for a conference, and again, trains left every hour from Paddington, which happens to be the terminus of the two trains to Heathrow Airport.

On the second trip, my last stop was in Salisbury, and I planned to take the train into London and the Tube out to Heathrow, but the landlady at my B&B advised against it. She said that I would hit London at rush hour, which was a bad idea. Instead, she advised me to take a train only as far as Woking and to catch the bus that leaves Woking Station for Heathrow every half hour.

And that's in a country whose transit system is pathetic compared to Japan's.

Which makes us doubly, triply pathetic.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. Because we almost universally make ridiculous vehicle purchases

Just look at the things we stick V6 engines in, just look at the size of vehicle childless adults and couples can be seen driving. Look at the people driving enormous trucks that will never haul any oversize cargo except the occasional big-screen TV.

Why? Because men buy these stupid vehicles with appeals to masculinity, women with appeals to safety and both with appeals to vanity. Buy a fucking Ford Fiesta, Honda Fit or Hyundai Accent etc or shut the fuck up. It just cost me all of $40 to fill my Accent. More than it once was - but still trivial.

[oneshooter]

9. Buy a fucking Ford Fiesta, Honda Fit or Hyundai Accent etc or shut the fuck up.

Can't find any of them that will carry 800lb of tools and building materials. My Ranger will, and will also tow a small trailer to carry a cement mixer and materials.
Until you can invent a smaller vehicle that will do the same to replace it with then you can "shut the fuck up".

Also my truck is paid for. I can not, at this time, afford another vehicle.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

13. To be fair

The above poster was referring to people with large trucks who never haul anything. I'm sure that he wasn't singling you out.

You use your truck for your business. I'm in Oklahoma and I see a lot of couples (with no kids) that have his and hers Suburbans.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. I'm not talking about people who USE a large vehicle

I am talking about people like my neighbor, a single childless woman who works in advertising and commutes with little more than a handbag - yet drives a seven passenger SUV and complaints incessantly about gas prices.

[MedicalAdmin]

15. Sounds like my neighbor.

I laugh at him every time he complains about gas prices. Then I call him a dumbass for buying an expedition and only every driving by himself on pavement. That entire vehicle is a shrine to his ego.

I commiserate with my other neighbor who is a plumber (and a great guy) about fuel prices because he works for a living and his truck is integral to that work. Those who NEED the vehicle get my sympathy. Those that don't get my scorn.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. her explaination is...

she needs it for skiing, except she says because gas is so expensive she can't afford to ski.

[MedicalAdmin]

18. Bwahahahahaha.

That is Mt.Everest level stupid. I need it for skiing but I can't afford to ski because I have it... the stupid, it burns.

She doesn't need it to ski - puhlease. These strap onto lots of cars.

[BR_Parkway]

5. It should be pointed out that with our military expenditures to keep us

flowing in oil figured in, we pay more per gallon than anywhere else in the world to be certain.

[OwnedByFerrets]

19. You are correct. If you figure in the REAL cost of our gasoline

is around $10 a gallon.

http://books.google.com/books?id=SD2WCRgsw94C&pg=PT110&lpg=PT110&dq=thom+hartmann++the+real+cost+of+gas&source=bl&ots=5jzxkzKMOd&sig=xgf0BE33Urrb6EuisiN9QAoZVlY&hl=en&ei=NSfLTfrfOOrq0gHr69jUBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

"The real cost of a gallon of gasoline to Americans is(as of this writing) four dollars at the pump, four dollars in income taxes for our military, two dollars to help pay for that fraction of our health care that is covered by goverment treating people whose illnesses track back to gasoline combustion and its attendant pollution. The total is about ten dollars a gallon."

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Interesting question. I recently saw the Brits pillage Fordham and

Mason and pitch eggs and Prince Chucks car. They sure seemed angry about something. I think it was about prices of something, so considering all the arrests and police nastiness and all, it seems they might be able to piece it all together. I mean they seemed more angry, all things considered.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. No, it wasn't about prices of goods

It was about tax avoidance by companies (Fortnum & Mason's parent company is one example), the new government tripling student fees(the protest that took in Charles's car), and cuts in public services, again by the new government - the union march that took place on the same day as the F&M protest (which wasn't actually pillaged at all - it was a sit-down protest).

As the article says, someone called for a fuel price protest at the weekend, and hardly anyone bothered to come.

[pscot]

12. They challenge our sense of entitlement

After all, as Americans we have an inalienable right to unlimited happy motoring.

[djean111]

16. Because your petrol is expensive due to taxes that go for social services.

Or what social services are still remaining. Our petrol is high because of profit-taking - and we subsidize the profiteers.
Do some research next time.