How Not To Save Detroit

I got to the point. You contradict yourself and babble on for 50 posts without saying anything that makes sense.

Sure and there were some very rich and powerful men who became even more rich and powerful from that. But you the way you presented your argument those subsidies were not interference but when the subsidies to rail ended that was govt. interference? Or maybe you just don't have a clue what you are arguing.

That is silly. The rail magnates had moved their wealth to resource extraction

-> oil, mining chemicals. The rich wanted a vast network of roads built so that they could drive their fancy cars on smooth roads. They needed to have the public get on board the idea of the automobile so that the public could be taxed to pay for this massive infrastructure expenditure. This huge undertaking of road building is socialism at its finest.

You are all mixed up. What you just called a "problem" is the government making happen exactly what you have said you wanted to happen. The issue isn't whether government is good or bad or capable or incapable adept or inept. The issue is who controls government. The government did exactly what it intended to do. And the outcome was exactly as you have argued it should have been. Yet you insist the government messed it up. That is some pretty confused reasoning.

-jim

Don't worry, I understand. You're afraid to read this book because you might learn something that conflicts with your preconceived notions.

And THAT'S the bottom line.

I'd rather not waste my time with conspiracy theories about general motors etc that I long ago looked into and determined false.

And yet drivers pay the government far more than they would have to pay for roads otherwise. So much so that road funds are consistantly raided for other purposes in government in addition to the wasteful nature of any government operation.

So are you advocating privatizing roads? Or maybe eliminating transportation all together? Or does "otherwise" just mean nothing at all? Your claim is that you never say anything about what should be. That makes your whole stream of babble all pretty meaningless don cha think?

I'd like to see you come up with actual facts to support that claim. The fuel excise tax is just seed money. It is distributed to the states with requirements for matching funds. It is only a small part of the total cost of maintaining and building the transportation infrastructure. And that cost doesn't include the vast sums of money spent on defense which is mostly used for the sole purpose of insuring that foreign oil reserves are controlled by players who will "play ball" and sell it cheap.

-jim

Brent wrote:

It sounds to me like you haven't a clue how it really works. You imagine it works one way but in fact it really works exactly as you wish it would. You just don't know it.

What are these "Federal funds collected from drivers" that you refer to? . The federal highway trust fund comes all pretty much directly from the oil companies.

The payers of the federal highway tax are pretty much exclusively a handful of large corporations. 90% of the tax is paid by a few oil companies and then there are additional tiny percentages paid by tire and truck manufactures. As far as I know none of these "TAXpayerS" are complaining about drunk drivers. Nor are their paid taxes supporting enforcement against drunk drivers. However a large number of US citizens do complain vocally about drunk drivers and they do petition their government to do more to keep drunks off the roads. But in spite of citizens who might want the money used for other purposes the Highway trust fund is almost entirely devoted to building and maintaining roads. Nor does the highway road use tax in any way cover the majority of the cost of building roads. The fact is most of the money devoted to building roads comes from state and local revenue sources and the federal trust fund dollars are just seed money - it is not the total sum spent on roads by a long shot. Your whole complaint is based on misinformation. Now what is probably confusing you is that congress has on occasion used state enforcement of various safety issues such as DUI and seat belts as part of the criteria for how the Federal trust fund money is divvied up among the states. But that doesn't mean money is diverted for those purposes. The money is still spent on road construction. If a state doesn't comply it gets less money and all the other states get more money, but it still goes to build roads.

SO you are wrong when you say those taxes are not being used for road construction.

That makes no sense. The supply of oil is a fixed quantity.

It doesn't sound like you even know what free market is. A free market is where the seller names a price and the buyer either takes the price or walks away.

Why would any one sell at $40 a barrel when they can easily make just as much selling at $400/brl and at the same time not deplete their supply so fast?

Are you under the delusion that the USA owns all of North, South and Central America. Or maybe you have calculated that it would be cheaper to attack Mexico or Canada rather than Iraq? At any rate won't that be the exact same foreign policy you were calling bad a little while ago?

-jim

That's the best you can do? You should be able to slam me with facts and cites yet, that's what you do in addition to making huge leaps to assign me arguments. grow a clue.

LOL... oil companies pay for the roads now... LOL. I can't stand to read any more of your trash.

Read this moron:

"Each year, highway users pay billions of dollars in highway excise taxes, which end up in the Federal Highway Trust Fund."

"Politicians later seized on fuel taxes as an area where taxes could be collected for deficit reduction. On November 5, 1990, in an effort to reduce the deficit, President George H. W. Bush approved the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, which increased the gas tax another five cents - half going to the Highway Fund and half going to deficit reduction. President Clinton increased the gas tax by 4.3 cents when he signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 on August 10, 1993. The total tax to 18.4 cents per gallon. However, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 redirected the 4.3 cent hike to the HTF."

Also noted is your attempt to restrict to the HTF when my argument is not so restricted, but is to all taxes applied to motorists combined.

I don't know if you're just stupid or enjoy playing stupid usenet games. In either case I have no interest in educating you or playing.

No WE pay for it with every gallon of gas. Now about 75 cents.

Well no actually you don't. You may be paying some state taxes at the retail pump, but the federal tax is nowhere near 75 cents and doesn't work at all like a retail sales tax. The federal tax is paid by just a handful of large corporations based on what they produce at the refinery. Yes the tax is tied to transportation fuel use, but the connection to your individual fill up is lot looser than you may think. The whole business that the tax is collected from drivers is a fantasy. If you fantasize that you are paying that federal fuel excise tax when you fill up your tank, then you might just as easily fantasize that you are collecting a depreciation allowance or paying an oil lease fee when you pump gas into your car.

The tax and what the tax is used for (road construction) was largely set up due to lobbying by oil companies in the 50's. You heard that righjt, it was their idea. Prior to creating the highway trust fund in the Eisenhower administration the taxes on fuel and oil were paid by the oil companies and went to the general revenue fund and could and were spent on anything congress wanted. The idea behind the Federal Highway Trust Fund was to accomplish exactly what Brent say he wants. That is to make sure that the money was spent on highway construction with no chance that it would be diverted to other uses. The oil companies were behind it because the tax (which they at that point realized would be levied anyway) would be more than offset by the increased sales that more and better highways would bring. The current system is set up to do exactly what Brent claims he wants - make sure the politicions have no chance to pork barrel this money.

This whole system which was working well as long as Americans were using oil like it was water, but the system is now unraveling. Last year $8 billion dollars had to be transferred from the general fund to the highway fund because the drop in transportation fuel production and use meant a huge shortfall in revenues for road construction projects that were already committed to be paid from the highway fund. That is last year 25% of the federal dollars for highway fund came out of general fund. And the sharp decline in transportation fuel use and production comes at a time when the Highway system is getting old and needs even more repairs. We have a situation where people are driving less with more fuel efficient cars and consequently the availability of funds for highway maintenance are growing less and less and most of the states are in no position financially to make up any of the difference. That means the dream of good smooth roads that would encourage more and more fuel use are now has become a bit of an albatross. As the road conditions deteriorate that only contributes to a decline in fuel use and thus a decline in the ability to maintain them. In short - the start of a downward spiral.

-jim

By that logic sales/use tax is paid for by retailers, since they write the big check to the government. lol.

BTW, you might want to read this:

"Opposition to the gas tax continued into the early years of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who took office on January 20, 1953. The Governors Conference passed resolutions, while the auto, highway, and oil interests worked Capitol Hill to bring an end to the tax."

So much for them being 'for' it.... lol.

lol. buyers of a product pay ALL TAXES on that product. If no buyer is willing to pay cost + taxes + some profit nobody makes the product. That includes taxes on product lost to explosions, leakage, spoilage, theft and so on. It includes corporate income taxes. All these taxes have to be paid from the revenue gathered from selling product. If the company doesn't have a net profit the product doesn't get made.

The only time you can argue that a company pays taxes that are not passed on is when company A and company B make the same the product and only company A is taxed. Then company A has to compete with B on price so the taxes come out of the profit. Otherwise A and B pass on the taxes.

I did. Let me guess, you're gonna get 'creative'.

Governors != oil companies. DUH.

No, read it again. They COMPROMISED. That's not being 'for it'. You have a problem with the english language apparently.

Damn you just filter everything you read don't you? They were for building roads and having no taxes on their product. They compromised on having the taxes go only for roads... which like government always does, it eventually disregarded that.

The fleecing is being done buy the state.

That's not my reasoning. Can you ever make a post without putting words into someone's mouth. Seller's object to the taxation because often it is designed to encourage a different product or reduce consumption of their product. DUH!

Just extend your strawman further....

It's just politics and semantics. The employer is going to need to pay X for labor. How you slice X doesn't change the bottom line that an employer needs to get labor worth at least X. If X is so heavy on taxes that it is not worth the employee's time given his -net- income, the employer will not be able to find willing workers unless he raises what he pays, but since he won't get that back from the employee then nobody is hired. DUH.

Costs are not only the direct payment of taxes, moron.

Oh gee, the broken clock is right for a second.

It has everything to do with what is being discussed.

How about you start a business selling new cars, nice ones, say BMWs, for 53 cents each then. Of course it's true. There has to be a profit for a business to exist outside somesort of socialist, bailout, or other model that involves theft.

Back to redirection.

Translation: A view of economics that doesn't endorse theft.

Theft.

Again, a theft model. But it's drivers who get less than what is stolen from them.

LOL. the problem is you're a statist and can't think in any other way.

That's complete bullshit. State run education is designed to create people who believe in the state. You're a good example of it. That's why it exist. The state doesn't want people who can read or think, for then they become 'simpletons' who question the state. They question if what the state is doing is 'good'. The state schools always want to make people that they trained to think that smart people support the state and dumb people question the state. I see the training took in you.

Nobody argued it was a 'sales tax' moron. Do learn how to read some time. And there is a direct relationship as the costs of the tax MUST be recovered or there will be no gasoline to buy. All businesses have to recover all costs, including taxes to stay in business.

No, they understand how to play a politically managed economic system so that they don't get totally screwed. Taxes are not 'investment' no matter what your god-king says. Investment in a political system is 'contributing' to elected office holders so they take someone else's money, property, resources to benefit you.

I was simplifying it for you, moron. But it's pretty clear you worship the state and think that a small group of men can manage everything. Only fools fall for such a thing.

A compromise. that's not being 'for' something. That's reaching some point that isn't as bad as where it started and cutting your losses.

Of course you have no cite that this is what they 'wanted'. Show that they 'wanted' this by producing a cite that shows they were demanding it before the government was aiming for fuel taxes to go into the general fund. Otherwise, it's just a counter proposal to make something that was going to happen anyway, less bad.

LOL. in 1906 gasoline was mostly a nasty waste product...lol. gasoline powered autos were crap, electrics and steam was where was at. oil companies agenda... lol.

No, it was intended to balance the budget as part of the general fund as previously cited.

I can't take this any longer.... you just make shit up as you go along with huge filters twisting everything you read into what you want it to say. Glory to the state! Get some cites or go away.

Sorry, that's the Ovonic battery. A nickel metal hydride design. The battery they were developing was simply a refinement of the same.

If you ignore the costs of building and maintaining the tunnels. Anything you have to tunnel for, whether road or subway, is going to be expensive.

The Federal gasoline excise tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, and works just like a retail sales tax.

...then you're well grounded in reality.

Hate to tell you this, knowing it will make you all upset and all, BUT the things YOU are claiming is "IMPOSSIBLE" along with that goofy pud yanker running GM (according to what he said last week) after the bankruptcy filing, the Japanese have running - - TODAY... Not in the 100 years the goof from GM predicted. TODAY! Play with these numbers that are PROVEN, the car running at OVER 200 MPH went over 350 miles on a charge. We might guess that IF you actually held it down to say 100 MPH you might go a bit over 400 miles on a charge. The shit YOU are trying to say is "100% IMPOSSIBLE." Now the Japanese did that with an existing L-ion battery made in Japan. However the Chinese has a batter with almost TWICE the capacity., I know. I know it's IMPOSSIBLE" just like aerodynamically it is IMPOSSIBLE for the bee to fly. PLEASE send an emergency telegraph to Japan telling them that it is IMPOSSIBLE.. Eliica.

REMEMBER 100% IMPOSSIBLE! ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BE DONE!

"The Eliica (or the Electric Lithium-Ion Car) is a battery electric vehicle prototype, or concept car designed by a team at Keio University in Tokyo, led by Professor Hiroshi Shimizu. The 5.1 m (17 ft) car runs on a lithium-ion battery and can accelerate from 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in four seconds (faster than the Porsche 911 Turbo at the time).[1] In 2004, the Eliica reached a speed of 370 km/h (230 mph) on Italy's Nardò High Speed Track. The team's goal is to exceed 400 km/h (250 mph), breaking the record set by today's street-legal gasoline-powered vehicles." And WIPES a Porsche in a drag race.

The artivle is a bit dated from 2003. Since then it has made 400 kmmh, and gotten 350 miles on a charge.

Matthew how long have the subway tunnels in New York and Chicago lasted? Expensive to maintain? The CTA spending big bucks on them? I put this right up with the claim that the electric CAR is "IMPOSSIBLE."

It appears you are unfamiliar with the geology of both cities. Chicago was built on a swamp. NYC is on islands. This should give you a good idea of what the problem with tunnels is. That problem doesn't sleep.