"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

But SUV/light-truck sales have inched up from 45% of total vehicle sales
to
49%, so we'll screw ourselves again soon, either way. Foreign oil
producers
were getting $700 billion/year from us not long ago. They know we're too
knuckleheaded to impose a big gasoline tax, so the Russians, Iranians, and
Venezuelans are counting on us to come through for them, once again.


And where would that big gasoline tax go pray tell?

Wes

Right here in the U.S. of A., as opposed to what will happen if we *don't*
put a floor on prices -- which is to send the equivalent amount to Saudi
Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, the U.A.R., Kuwait, etc., etc.

Put a $4 floor on prices, using an adjustable tax (phased in over, say, two
years), and it will keep a lid on demand that will force the oil producers
to play at a much lower different supply/demand equilibrium; keep more of
the money in the US; shift the market so that US car builders have a market
for fuel-efficient cars; create a market for alternative energy; etc.

Other than that, there will be lots for short-sighted people to bitch about.
And they will. There's little chance any of this can happen in the US. Most
likely we'll just go through the same old cycle again, in which we buy
bigger cars and trucks when prices are low, then prices go up and we all
bitch, and US car builders tank again. Then we'll find other people to blame
for something we did to ourselves.

We doom ourselves to this cycle. The market is just behaving like markets
do, despite the mostly futile efforts of OPEC to control prices. They almost
never succeed at that and they're failing big-time right now. But the market
will do it for them, once economies bottom out of this slump.

--
Ed Huntress