Some in the financial commentariat say that Bernanke must stop printing money and weakening the dollar by 2012, or food and gasoline inflation will put Obama out of work.
It does cause me to roll my eyes when I hear (fellow) Obama-bashers use opportunistic arguments like 'Americans need gasoline to get to work.' Well sure, but I wonder what fraction of our passenger-miles in motor vehicles is really about getting to work. I do a lot of bicycling after the morning "rush hour"; how many of those people who pass me are going to work, versus going on an unnecessary shopping trip, or just looking for an excuse to get out of the house? I could be attributing my own slouchy driving habits to other people.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that half of driving is just entertainment, thinly disguised as transportation and phony necessity. Isn't there cheaper entertainment available in this modern age?
If you walked up to the average gasoline pump, where a driver is staring with disbelief at the numbers rolling by, and asked, "How much do you spend per mile to buy, finance, insure, license, repair, and depreciate your Brontosaurus?", would he even venture to guess the order of magnitude?
The AAA estimate was updated recently, but gasoline has gone up even more since they did their estimate. They came up with 59 cents per mile. On average, people drive 15,000 miles per year; so they piss away $8600 per year on the ol' brontosaurus. Just imagine if, instead of the hyped-up gadgets for cars these days, you had a large-display meter like a taxicab has, showing you the dollars evaporating in front of your face as you drive 15 miles to the Walmart to save a few cents on store-brand paper towels and elbow macaroni.
I do wish that Small-Government partisans (my folks, usually) would stop deifying the automobile. If my informants are telling the truth, gasoline taxes only pay for 20-25% of the cost of highways; the rest is paid by general funds. Therefore, the average righteous, freedom-loving, motorist is a bit of a welfare queen. (As opposed to bicyclists who are 100% welfare queens.)
Did automotive-freedom-loving Libertarians ever stop to consider that under-taxing gasoline and having toll-free highways makes motoring America's most socialist institution? And that's not even taking Government Motors (GM) into account.
It does cause me to roll my eyes when I hear (fellow) Obama-bashers use opportunistic arguments like 'Americans need gasoline to get to work.' Well sure, but I wonder what fraction of our passenger-miles in motor vehicles is really about getting to work. I do a lot of bicycling after the morning "rush hour"; how many of those people who pass me are going to work, versus going on an unnecessary shopping trip, or just looking for an excuse to get out of the house? I could be attributing my own slouchy driving habits to other people.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that half of driving is just entertainment, thinly disguised as transportation and phony necessity. Isn't there cheaper entertainment available in this modern age?
If you walked up to the average gasoline pump, where a driver is staring with disbelief at the numbers rolling by, and asked, "How much do you spend per mile to buy, finance, insure, license, repair, and depreciate your Brontosaurus?", would he even venture to guess the order of magnitude?
The AAA estimate was updated recently, but gasoline has gone up even more since they did their estimate. They came up with 59 cents per mile. On average, people drive 15,000 miles per year; so they piss away $8600 per year on the ol' brontosaurus. Just imagine if, instead of the hyped-up gadgets for cars these days, you had a large-display meter like a taxicab has, showing you the dollars evaporating in front of your face as you drive 15 miles to the Walmart to save a few cents on store-brand paper towels and elbow macaroni.
I do wish that Small-Government partisans (my folks, usually) would stop deifying the automobile. If my informants are telling the truth, gasoline taxes only pay for 20-25% of the cost of highways; the rest is paid by general funds. Therefore, the average righteous, freedom-loving, motorist is a bit of a welfare queen. (As opposed to bicyclists who are 100% welfare queens.)
Did automotive-freedom-loving Libertarians ever stop to consider that under-taxing gasoline and having toll-free highways makes motoring America's most socialist institution? And that's not even taking Government Motors (GM) into account.
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