Comments on: People Unclear on the Concept

By: Crispy on the Outside » Archive » Good Stuff Eatery 1, WTOP 0

Crispy on the Outside » Archive » Good Stuff Eatery 1, WTOP 0 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:26:57 +0000

[...] me about WTOP. I’ve heard WTOP radio reporters slant the news to their liking before, and others have criticized the station’s blind embrace of all things regulatory at the expense of [...]

By: UCrawford

UCrawford — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:05:36 +0000

supercat,

No, but their governments probably don’t force them to dilute their gasoline with other garbage.

Their gas is the same quality as ours. No significant difference at all.

By: bobzbob

bobzbob — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:04:11 +0000

#27 – they get better mileage because the government forced them to buy more expensive gas!

Oil schocks are predictable. The US should have implemented a tax policy that ensured continuously rising, but reasonably predictable gas prices. This would have allowed people and industry to adapt to using less oil in an efficient and reasonable fashion with significantly less risk.

By: bobzbob

bobzbob — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:59:24 +0000

Yet you managed to make your way on it for a year and half, so calling it a failure seems extreme. So it seems by your report that MART got you where you were going, just not always on time, or even frequently late. Since this is held as an example relative to Dorgan’s proposal, we can by extension assume that Radley thinks Dorgan’s proposal will reduce gas prices, but it won’t do it on time. Fair enough.

Its even more ironic that you complain about government failures ON THE INTERNET, which is an example of a smashingly successful government program.

By: Highway

Highway — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:26:16 +0000

#22 regarding US NHTSA crash testing

That’s definitely a law problem. But overall, their crash testing (EuroNCAP) seems equivalent to the actual worthwhile crash testing that’s done in the US (IIHS). US Government crash testing (NHTSA) seems to be thought of as outdated, something I can readily believe.

And if the problem is a law problem, how much would you want to wager that those laws don’t get changed due in large part to lobbying on the part of US automakers? Safety boojums make a nice cover for protectionism.

By: SJE

SJE — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:00:28 +0000

Bobzob: I guess you havent travelled on the MART that often. I did for a year and half. If you have a busy schedule, its not feasible with the delays, cancellations, etc.

By: bobzbob

bobzbob — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:36:05 +0000

Wow- MART runs a commuter rail system with hundreds of runs 365 days a year day in day out, then they have a day’s delays on lines due to weather or a traffic accident and this is held up as an example of “failure after failure” of government? Which is MOST of them? Of course no one has ever heard of a private company misrepresenting information to consumers either or having a computer system that doesn’t work. OK, if these are your measures of failure then you have to admit that every day that MART gets someone to work on time, or the lottery has accurate info or every government computer system that does work is an example of success of government. By the measure you have defined here then government is overwhelmingly succesful.

By: Elroy

Elroy — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:39:37 +0000

This same radio host has probably done stories on how Americans are “addicted to oil”. The market has finally done what the government has been unable to do for decades. People are driving 4% less this year than last, GM is idling 4 truck plants and trying to unload the Hummer division. People are buying smaller cars and doing all the things that reporters have been suggesting in their typical “addicted to oil” stories and now they run stories about the cost of gas being too high. They finally got their wish. We are driving less and they still aren’t happy.

By: supercat

supercat — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:36:03 +0000

//You do know how old most major European cities are, don’t you?//

A lot of the cities are considerably bigger now than they used to be, are they not?

By: supercat

supercat — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:41:39 +0000

And they don’t get such a good mileage because the government helped them in any way to get cheaper gas; on the contrary.

No, but their governments probably don’t force them to dilute their gasoline with other garbage.

By: Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:40:12 +0000

God, I need spellcheck.

By: Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:39:49 +0000

Maybe people are (At long last!) realizing they’re not as free as they thought they were. Or they’re squalling because Mommy too her titty away. Or both.

By: e. brown

e. brown — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:31:21 +0000

LOL dave. excellent job of smashing the (presumably smallish) head of the guy who also told us ‘the reasons the europeans have more disposable income is ’cause their medicine’s free’.

By: DaveW

DaveW — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:10:21 +0000

Steam McQueen: remember people that most countries in Europe have a highly evolved public transit system that actually goes to the places most people want to go. Why? Because they built the transit systems FIRST and then the cities around where the stops were.

Interesting. I knew the ancient Romans were pretty good about engineering aqueducts and roads, but I had no idea they were so good at building mass transit systems. You do know how old most major European cities are, don’t you?

By: perlhaqr

perlhaqr — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:27:00 +0000

Highway: I certainly would love to see more European-style vehicles here. Maybe I’m biased watching Top Gear, but they have a ton of cool little cars there, from a lot of manufacturers. And what do we have dominating the market? GM crap big cars, Dodge crap big cars, and Ford crap not-as-big cars. Even the Japanese cars we get are not the smaller ones they make.

DOT crash standards are to blame there. We can’t import those cars. It’s illegal.

By: matt

matt — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:18:37 +0000

SJE : you should have said that in the first place then. to me ‘going on quite happily’ doesnt translate to ‘their economies are doing ok’

By: Mike Leatherwood

Mike Leatherwood — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:48:29 +0000

France is pulling out of military excercises because of the fuel costs. http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_french_navy_060908/
To say that large taxes help buffer price increases is attributing to cognitive dissonance of having high fuel prices in the first place. Just because their fuel costs have gone up less in consumer % should not advocate increasing taxes.
Only a decrease in regulation can decrease fuel costs. Thats it. Jack up the supply.

By: SJE

SJE — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:35:46 +0000

Australia is also “younger” than the USA, and has a more privatized system of medical care than the USA.

By: SJE

SJE — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:29:09 +0000

Matt: I didnt say that the CONSUMERS were happy paying $8-$10/gallon of gas. My point is that Europeans seem quite happy despite that price: the economy ticks along, people live, go to work, go on vacations. Even Australia, which is more like America in terms of large and spread out, survives on gas that is about twice what the US consumer pays, and has an economy that has been growing at U.S.-type rates for many years.

In other words, expensive gas is not a sign of the end of the world, or the collapse of the economy. We will deal.

By: Steam McQueen

Steam McQueen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:27:10 +0000

WRT Europe’s high prices… remember people that most countries in Europe have a highly evolved public transit system that actually goes to the places most people want to go. Why? Because they built the transit systems FIRST and then the cities around where the stops were.

FWIW I would also like to point out that while their fuel is more expensive, in general they have more disposable income because they don’t have to pay for health care.