Read it and weep future billionaires of america

[Jaguar]

Some of them will. And that's the whole point of a fuel tax.

kentonio, remember when you were posting in favor of local food? Like, three days ago? This is the proper market solution for reducing pollution from hauling stuff around. And yes, you do it by hauling less stuff, and laying off truckers, and having them go work in something else.

Why on earth do you become enamored of every last kludgey, ridiculous solution that the left comes up with to achieve its ends, and then complain about the ones that achieve those same ends in economically efficient ways?

[kentonio]

Why wouldn't those fuel costs be passed on to customers? How many people are going to stop having their goods hauled if the cost goes up?

It basically ruined small transport businesses by making the huge haulage firms who can deliver large shipments and negotiate bulk fuel deals the only ones who could afford to keep prices down. Even for the larger firms those costs as you say are passed onto consumers, usually other businesses, which then raises the price of everything which drives other businesses out of operation.

[kentonio]

Some of them will. And that's the whole point of a fuel tax.

High fuel taxes have been used here for many, many years as a means of raising government revenue, not for changing behavior.

kentonio, remember when you were posting in favor of local food? Like, three days ago? This is the proper market solution for reducing pollution from hauling stuff around. And yes, you do it by hauling less stuff, and laying off truckers, and having them go work in something else.

That's an absolutely terrible idea. Things like local food are nice if you build an infrastructure to support them, but just crushing the transport system and hoping things work out ok is economically suicidal. It also has nasty side effects like limiting peoples ability to drive to work or reducing the distance they can afford to travel to look for work.

Why on earth do you become enamored of every last kludgey, ridiculous solution that the left comes up with to achieve its ends, and then complain about the ones that achieve those same ends in economically efficient ways?

I'm not enamored of local food stuff, I just think moving a smallish proportion of food consumption over to locally produced would be a good thing to do all around where practical. We also have pretty horrifically wasteful food habits in general anyway, and in the long term that's pretty much certainly not going to be sustainable. It's not something I massively care about though to be honest. Destroying a countries transport system however is something that should scare the **** out of pretty much everyone.

[Jaguar]

OK, so you're just not a very big environmentalist. I see. I don't know what the correct fuel tax is, either.

I just know it's the correct policy to handle environmental damage from gasoline usage.

[Wezil]

Truckers.

[kentonio]

OK, so you're just not a very big environmentalist. I see. I don't know what the correct fuel tax is, either.

It's not that I'm not an environmentalist, just that I (at least try) to be a realist about it. If there were currently viable alternatives to oil based fuel then I'd be all for transitioning but to build a system where people can afford to transition over to not using petrol and diesel vehicles is going to take decades.

I just know it's the correct policy to handle environmental damage from gasoline usage.

The problem is that the theory only really works properly when its used to discourage fuel use, whereas where it reaches transport/haulage it only serves to punish vital industries. The food and goods in shops has to get there somehow.

[Jaguar]

Do truckers' carbon emissions count for less than those of other carbon emitters?

Why not price the carbon emissions at their actual estimated cost to the environment - whatever those may be?

[kentonio]

It depends if you consider non-essential transport to differently to essential transport. There are other ways of doing it, with things like vehicle ownership taxes and road taxes and suchlike which can be tailored to more targeted results. Fuel tax just feels like too blunt an instrument.

[Jaguar]

It depends if you consider non-essential transport to differently to essential transport. There are other ways of doing it, with thing
+s like vehicle ownership taxes and road taxes and suchlike which can be tailored to more targeted results. Fuel tax just feels like too blunt an instrument.

No, it's exactly the right tool for the job. We want people to pay compensation for their air pollution. That's it. We don't want to micromanage the entire transportation network, and decide whose travel is more "essential." This, right here, is why leftist states fail.

[kentonio]

No, it's exactly the right tool for the job. We want people to pay compensation for their air pollution. That's it. We don't want to micromanage the entire transportation network, and decide whose travel is more "essential."

Actually we do, unless we think that people taking unnecessary journeys carries the same economic importance as vital goods transportation. Considering the direct effect of taxing haulage on consumer goods pricing, I don't know how you can arrive at that conclusion.

This, right here, is why leftist states fail.

You're better than that.

[giblets]

It basically ruined small transport businesses by making the huge haulage firms who can deliver large shipments and negotiate bulk fuel deals the only ones who could afford to keep prices down. Even for the larger firms those costs as you say are passed onto consumers, usually other businesses, which then raises the price of everything which drives other businesses out of operation.

If the bigger firms can do things more efficiently by delivering bulk shipments, what's the problem with having smaller firms go out of business?

[kentonio]

It's not always bad but it can mean things like less choice for the consumer, less specialized options etc. it's just another variation on supermarkets vs small stores. Small business is also a great driver of economic mobility of course.

[N35t0r]

You're better than that.

No, he's entirely correct. It is impossible to micromanage things at that level.

Back at home, the government, in an attempt to improve the balance of trade, has to vouch for every single import authorisation. The result is, obviously, a huge backlog in requests, with more influential/connected people/businesses getting preferential treatment. There have been several bisenesses that have had to shut down due to lack of certain supplies, and a big whole lot of shipments that sat in customs warehouses for months, and then had to be returned to the seller (so the money still leaves the country, only nothing gets in in return). And while the government claims this is only happening for goods which are produced in the country (or that could be produced), there have been shortages of several medicines, such as insulin.

[kentonio]

No, he's entirely correct. It is impossible to micromanage things at that level.

Of course it isn't, it isn't even particularly difficult when you use a system such as vehicle ownership taxes rather than fuel tax. You can describe it as micromanagement all you like, but setting different tax bands for commercial and non-commercial road usage is not exactly complicated.

Back at home, the government, in an attempt to improve the balance of trade, has to vouch for every single import authorisation. The result is, obviously, a huge backlog in requests, with more influential/connected people/businesses getting preferential treatment. There have been several bisenesses that have had to shut down due to lack of certain supplies, and a big whole lot of shipments that sat in customs warehouses for months, and then had to be returned to the seller (so the money still leaves the country, only nothing gets in in return). And while the government claims this is only happening for goods which are produced in the country (or that could be produced), there have been shortages of several medicines, such as insulin.

Which is a completely different thing that what we're talking about here.

[Jaguar]

This sounds completely unrelated to the problem of "vehicles create pollution," so it seems that you'd want to do... whatever it is that you're proposing, regardless of whether there's a tax on pollution or not.

So, what is the "problem" that you're trying to solve here? Obviously it doesn't have anything to do with pollution, or else you'd tax all pollution equally.

It's that, apparently, people aren't driving to the right places. Are they driving to their friends' houses too often? Are they visiting restaurants that are too far away from home? Are they choosing workplaces that are too far from their children's schools? Are they hiring plumbers whose workplaces are too far away from the homes they work at?

If so, how do you know this? And if so, is this "problem" so crippling that we simply must start a Bureau Of Deciding Which People Are Driving Too Frequently so that we can fix it? Should we hire a bunch of high-wage, highly-educated people to study the problem, and pay them lots of money, and give them a nice office in downtown DC near Mount Vernon Square?