Re: Ask for Green Cars

The problem with raising the gas tax is that it will essentially be another
sales tax, the kind that hurts working class people the most.  Where I live,
there is NO decent public transportation. Many people must travel 30, 50 or
more miles round trip to work daily. Adding $1 per gallon to gas taxes will
hit them in absolute dollars the same as it will hit the millionaires.
Without public transportation, it will just further oppress working class
people.

If there is an imbalance in the incentives for public vs. private
transportation, it should be remedied by making public transportation more
accessible, not by making private more expensive. In fact, that could
motivate the mass transit folks to RAISE their prices even more. It is
similar to the complaints in the early 1990's that welfare paid almost as
much as low wage jobs, so instead of raising wages to deal with the
imbalance, THEY CUT WELFARE! Which then allows the to depress wages even
more.

Actually all of this is moot. As long as their is capitalism, all these
discussion consist of helping them camouflage their exploitation.



Alan Spector



-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Dassbach <dassbach@mtu.edu>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: Saturday, May 13, 2000 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: Ask for Green Cars


>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bruce Podobnik" <podobnik@lclark.edu>
>To: "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 5:05 PM
>Subject: Ask for Green Cars
>
>
>> As many of you undoubtedly know, there are a
>> variety of new, less-polluting cars that are on
>> the verge of being mass-produced.  However,
>> the large US, European, and Japanese auto
>> manufacturers who have developed these
>> cars are uncertain as to the level of consumer
>> demand that might exist for low-emissions vehicles.
>
>The popularity of SUV is due to two factors: the stupidity of the average
>consumer and the manufactured demand by the auto compnaies.  SUVs, as
>trucks,  are not subject to CAFE so they can guzzle gas with impunity.
>Moreover, they are high profit vehciles - they use very basic existing
truck
>technology (in most cases) making them cheap to manufacture while auto
>compnaies can add all types of options to up the prices.  Hence, it is
>little wonder that US companies in particular have pushed the SUV and pick
>up truck and the average consumer, who has about as much mental
independence
>as a chipmunk on a treadmill, has bought them in ever increasing numbers.
>
>As long as gas prices remain ridiculously low in the US ( by world
>standards) Americans will be manipulated into buying these useless
vehicles.
>The only genuine solution, as far as I am concerned, is to gradually raise
>gas prices to $2.50 (and eventually more) a gallon through taxation and
keep
>it at that level (hence insulate it against shocks) by decreasing taxes as
>prices go up and increasing taxes as prices go down.  The money could be
>used to fund, for example, national health care.  Europe has demonstrated
>that  high energy prices are not a hinderance to economic growth and
>expansion.  Whjat is determental is sudden and rapid changes in prices.  It
>is about time that energy in the US approximate its real cost.
>
>Right now, low emission, high mileage cars are not popular in the US -
Honda
>couldn't sell it gas-electric hybrid and had to offer rebates and
discounts.
>(I doubt if Toyota will do any better with its hybrid) Other technologies
>such as TDI do not make sense as long as fuel prices are so long becuase,
>with diesel and gas at the same price it is hard to justify the added
>expense of TDI.
>
>So, we can rant, rave and scream as much and as often as we will. As long
as
>energy prices remain low, Americans will continue to buy large, polluting
>and fuel inefficent cars.  This is a simple fact.
>