[Closed] Petrol Prices........

I don't like ratcheting up fuel prices indiscriminately. Because people will only change when they are absolutely forced to, and they will only make the minimum. The end result will that everyone apart from high earners will be just about struggling to manage. Which is pretty crap for quality of life.

It works economically, but not in social terms. Just like a free job market where employers reduce salaries to the bare minimum.

I would rather see a positive incentive to avoid fuel usage. So give you something good if you improve rather than something crap if you don't.

To be fair TJ, I've been asking you this very same question every time we've discussed public sector wages and pensions, and you've never once come up with an explanation on why I should pay more tax to subsudise your lifestyle

And the answer is the same, we all pay the tax even bikebouy's parents.

there is a responsibility attached to those rights. A responsibility to appreciate that their future situation may change and a responsibility to fork out for that change should it arrive.

Ok, so let that change arrive, and let them take that responsibility - thats not what we're talking about is it though, we're talking about the government forcing that change on them because "thats whats best for them"

the proletariat should know their place!

Drac - If I give you a tenner, and you give me a fiver back, then have you paid half your own wages 😉

Molgrips - spot on, even as a right winger, I agree fully with that.

[b]Its funny that those on here who are normally the first to critisise regressive taxation seem to be the first to defend fuel taxes... [/b]

molgrips - like others you are ignoring the other side of this

Use the money raised from increasing the cost of petrol to smooth the way. Ie subsidise public transport, maybe subsidise village shops, maybe some transitional relief for food transport, that sort of thing.

I am also talking about a gradualist approach over 25 years

Zulu - I see debating reasonably got beyond you

TJ - I see you're still not going to answer that question on why I should pay more tax to subsidise your lifestyle 😉

its a reasonable question - and its one that you asked of someone else.

TJ can you answer what would happen if just the UK raised fuel prices. Would we still be able to export goods and services competitively?
Would the poorer section of society be able to pay for food? that would be hit by transport costs.
What about those in Fuel poverty?

Bikepawl - we would have a large pot of money to smooth out undesirable effects such as you mention

we would have a large pot of money to smooth out undesirable effects

😯

😆

TandemJeremy - Member
Bikepawl - we would have a large pot of money to smooth out undesirable effects such as you mention

But there has been a change already. Look how many people now drive cars which easily get 50+mpg and when the decision is made on which car to buy, a huge part of that decision (for most people) is the running costs. The Government has already put measures in place via the 'Road fund/tax' and fuel duty to discourage gas guzzlers and unnecessary 4x4 use. It's had a limited effect but has made many manufacturers produce vehicles which have far less emissions.

It's a shame that only a tiny % of the taxation goes towards more sustainable energy use or research and it's cloud cuckoo land to think that [b]any[/b] government is going to set aside the money gained to use in any transition. Even then, they will screw it up. Edinburgh trams anyone?

It will be a natural and measured change when it eventually happens and will be dictated by prices rather than any direct social engineering.

there's been a good alternative means of individual transport around for a very long time. it's called a motorcycle or scooter. they're more efficient ( unless built specifically for fun! ), and are well suited to the travel of single individuals, which still comprise most car journeys, but look at the take-up rate. a lot of people could ditch their cars and move to them if they wanted to, and it would make riding them safer for everyone if they did.
chap who sits next to me at work, who i discussed this with yesterday, conceeded that the price of fuel was changing his behaviour. he lives 30miles away in a little hamlet - his choice for sure, but he's started putting his bike in the back of his van, and cycles in the last 1/3 of his journey 3 or 4 times a week. he was remarking a few weeks ago at the amount of money that this was saving him straight away. i wonder how long it will be before he thinks about selling up and moving closer to work. there are plenty of nice places to live within the range of our workplace that will be viable for him.
another chap at work is looking at not replacing his old nail. they ( him and his misses ) have a 'nice' car, but work very close to each other, and he's started riding his bike in too.
rising prices will change the way people look at things, but usually the only way to effectively chnage behaviour is to hit people's wallets. people's choices are being effected now. it's a good thing. who really sees the sense in us spending 'our' time propelling ourselves around the countryside in little metal boxes, when we could be doing something more enjoyable, and instead of frittering all this money away, spending it sensibly on champange and hookers?

there was an article on the battery swap tech for electric cars a year or so ago in Wired. trials in isreal and denmark IIRC. renault were involved with a modified version of the megane. problem looking for a solution i think TBH.

if you intergrated the ( much improved one hopes ) train network with push bikes, motorbikes and rental services you could actually preserve a lot of people's choice.

sooner or later though bikebuoy your wife's parents are going to have to move. they have a choice right now. i might like to drive a ferrari but i can't afford one. should the public at large fund ferrari as a public enterprise so we can all have one?

Typical Nu-Labour solution innit TJ?

we'll tax you to ****, then put in a hugely complex system of administration and paperwork of a means tested benefit, employing thousands of civil servants, just to give you back some of the money we've taken off you 👿

Tell you what - how's about you just don't bother in the first place, and let us decide how we'd like to spend our money?

But judging by the hour it took me to drive 7 miles last night there's still way too many people prepared to travel short distances by car all the time. I would have cycled but I had to go to City-Link to pick up a parcel and I didn't know how big it was.

Zulu eleven

Do you really want to resurrect those poxy threads which have been done to death [b]AGAIN[/b]???

This thread isn't about public sector pensions, or that type of political agenda 🙄

Yet another top down totalitarian masterplan from the Oracle. Is their any question that you dont have the answer to at your fingertips TJ? Any of those solutions involve leaving me the hell alone?

Woody - its a fairly simple question of psychology, that Mcboo lays down quite nicely in is his post above.

<bows out>

Yet another top down totalitarian masterplan from the Oracle. Is their any question that you dont have the answer to at your fingertips TJ? Any of those solutions involve leaving me the hell alone?

What do you propose instead?
Electricity is made mostly from mineral hydrocarbons.
Road fuel is made mostly from mineral hydrocarbons.

The idea that we can simply switch to electric cars and carry on as we are is a utopian fantasy.

Zulu

I realise what 'it' was and I actually agree with your sentiments but I'm going to do the same as you and bow out before it degenerates even more and TJ becomes increasingly frustrated at others inability to agree with him.

All this high minded future thinking rather misses the point.

Currently our economy is based upon free movement of goods and people. The cost of this movement is stifling growth and needs to be looked at.

A short term cut in fuel duty (or the VAT on fuel) could help us avoid a double dip recession

I agree in the longer term society need to address it reliance on individual transport but we need to address the current economic issues first

Woody - its a fairly simple question of psychology

Indeed it is. do you believe in fairness and sharing or do you believe might is right and that those with the power can grab as much as they want of the resources leaving the people without power to scrabble over what is left.

Mcboo

What is your solution to the impending energy crisis?

TJ

You really are wasted on this forum.

You should be sat on a mountaintop (without web access) and world leaders can come and consult you when there is a major issue which needs addressing. 😉

Drac - If I give you a tenner, and you give me a fiver back, then have you paid half your own wages

Use your simple format it's a case of you give me £2.50 and I give myself £2.50 out of my previous months wage. Like I said many a time we all pay tax not just those in the private sector. By purchasing certain goods and paying taxes we all pay each others wage. It's people love the "I'm a tax payer I pay your wages argument".

What is your solution to the impending energy crisis?

build more power stations, there's no shortage of fuel.

coal? - loads of it.

gas? - loads of it.

oil? - loads of it.

uranium? - loads of it.

and given half a chance:

thorium? - loads of it.

isotopes of hydrogen? - practically limitless.

And to keep the hippies happy: chuck up tens of thousands of wind turbines, piss about with some wave-power prototypes, and wear hemp-fibre trousers.

build more power stations, there's no shortage of fuel.

True. However, there is a shortage of fuel that can be extracted at current prices. We can carry on burning hydrocarbons (if we want to have a very warm planet) but expect to pay a lot more for it.

build more power stations, there's no shortage of fuel

The guff emitted on this thread alone could power half of China's industrial output for a month. If only we cold harness it

Mcboo

What is your solution to the impending energy crisis?

Thats the thing.....I dont have all the answers, I'm not Thomas Jefferson. So I dont presume to shout about subjects I'm only half informed on and tell everybody else how to live.

right - so you will shout me down in a pretty offensive and patronising manner because I have an[i] opinion[/i] on how to solve the impending crisis but you actually have admitted to no knowledge or even opinions to offer instead.

How do you know I am wrong?

Nor am I telling people how to live - I am suggesting a way forward to make the transition easier.

Hey you might be right. But could you be wrong? About this, or anything?

so you will shout me down in a pretty offensive and patronising manner because I have an opinion

I don't like ratcheting up fuel prices indiscriminately. Because people will only change when they are absolutely forced to, and they will only make the minimum.

Disagree, based on my choices and some others around me who've chosen to go to 1 car/no car so they can spend the money on other things. I could still afford to run a car but the balance for me isn't worth it. As suggested before RFL changes and petrol prices have influenced what people are doing so using a stick does help people make better choices.

WRT the "grandparents living in a hamlet" issue I think we need to look at taxes like the congestion charge, taxing company parking etc. to minimise that impact. But really I'm just going to repost JTDs missive from page 4 again as I don't think enough people have read it.

I have no problem with increasing fuel duty, it's just that it's a blunt tool for acheiving its aims.

It disadvantages the rural poor, primarily as investment in public transport and other infrastructure lags taxation..... as these areas are always at the bottom of the funding pile.....

Although the taxation has driven those with resources to 'upgrade' their cars, for those truely struggling the 1st thing to suffer is the maintenance of their cars.... leading to higher consumption + emmissions...

how about..more local taxation... paying for road use... within the metropolitain areas... where the infrastructure is in place rather than taxes which feel punative to those who live in areas without...

[notreallywantingtogetdraggedintothis]
really? you're having a pop at tj becuase he works in the public sector and he's also suggested increasing the pace of change through increased taxation? tax is used to alter behaviour all the time.
you don't actually seem to be making much of a point?
[\notreallywantingtogetdraggedintothis]

I post this in the youth employment thread but I think its very apt to this thread. I* acknowledge that the age of cheap cheap fuel is behind us but by increasing the prices more than we have to its going to cut a whole generation of young people out!

Myself and my girlfriend graduated from University last summer 2010. She graduated with a 1st class degree and I graduated with a 2.1 but top of my year.

We are both fortunate enough to have found jobs however there is not the luxury of being able to choose a job in the exact location we want as there are just not enough people recruiting for my particluar skills close to where my girlfriend works.

The result is that I have to either drive 50miles each way to work every day or live apart from my girlfriend (meaning we would both have to rent seperately). As well as this graduate salaries have dropped as there is more and more graduates for fewer jobs.

If fuel was to keep going up at such a rate then one fo us would have to quit theyre graduate scheme and get a "lesser" job near by. I know it is our choice to live together and want these jobs but seriously is there not a chance we could end up with a skill shortage as less and less people can take the career path because they cant afford to get to the jobs.

Many villages and small town communities have been lost to the car for years, without the additional issue of holiday home ownership.

The real issue is that currently, nobody needs to do anything on their doorstep.

Nobody uses the village shop because in 15 minutes you can drive to an aircraft-hanger sized supermarket with acres of free parking, bargain prices and vast, vast choice of produce from all over the world. So the local store, 5 minutes walk down the road has become an unappealing option, and it has closed down.

People don't need to join in with the community they live amongst, because another 15 minute drive takes you across town to where your friend lives. So you don't meet your mates down at the local for an evening out, because you don't have local mates. They're scattered everywhere, so you all meet in the city centre where it's most convenient for everyone. So the local pub closes down.

We don't need to live near our families, because they're all only 15 minutes away by car.

People don't work where they live. The car has allowed for us to travel to find work. Though commute times historically haven't changed much from what I've read, the ever increasing speed of modern personal transport has ensured distances have. So the half hour commute that got the worker of yesterday to his job a few miles away by foot gets the worker of today 30 miles down a motorway. So our work colleagues are scattered all over, again widening the distance over which our social circle is spread.

We have the situation where kids can't afford to live in the village where they grew up as it's been bought out by people who don't work, socialise or shop there. There's more to living in a community than occupying a house in it, but that's what's happening now. People haven't got any interest in their surroundings. Not because they're ignorant or unpleasant, but because they've no need to.

A good friend of mine comes from rural Oxfordshire, where her parents still live. She's only in her mid 30s, but often returns from visiting her folks saying how the village has changed. How you never see anyone to chat to anymore because there's nobody around. How nobody knows their neighbours and how the once open gardens her friends played in have been fenced off behind electric gates beloved of rich city types who've moved to the country to escape 'people'.

When we're all driving everywhere from our front door, we need never take a single step out into the community in which we live. Our knowledge of community is just a village green or some hanging baskets we see flash by through the window of our car.

I myself live in a small semi-rural village on the outskirts of a major city. I moved here because my car made it viable.

Early this year, due to the rising costs, I decided to go car-free for the first time since I was 17. Even though I've been a cycle commuter for years, happy to leave the car on the drive most of its life, actually being car free was still a bit of a shock to the system.

Having lived here for nearly a decade, only now do I notice the lack of a local shop selling anything beyond Happy Shopper white bread, tinned spaghetti hoops and Jammy Dodgers. If I want to be able to cook a decent meal and stay ahead in the never ending battle against scurvy I need to travel further than I realistically can on foot.

Only now have I realised how hard it is to have a social life within walking distance, with the couple of remaining pubs struggling to keep their doors open as nobody goes in them anymore. I notice how pedestrian unfriendly a place it is, despite being a settlement that predates the car by centuries, with the roads having been widened to accommodate heavy through-traffic, making the crossing from one narrow pavement to the other scary at best, impossible at worst.

The public transport here isn't as bad as it could be, I discovered, once I looked for the bus stops I'd never noticed before and got my car addled head around the patchy timetables I swiftly had to teach myself how to read having never needed to look at one in my life.

Luckily I now work from home, so a commute isn't on the agenda for me. But I'm still glad of the bus sometimes as cycling or walking along the only road serving my area isn't too much fun, being a 60mph racetrack with one narrow pavement, mostly carrying traffic that's just passing through and has no interest or even acknowledgement of the community through which it travels daily.

I see parts of my surroundings now that I'd never noticed before. I now feel like I actually want, no, need to 'live' where I live - not just sleep, bathe and check my emails of an evening. But it's really hard as the facilities just aren't there right now. My friends and family are still scattered all over the place. My various clients, when I do need to visit them, are now a bus and train ride away, while potential clients near my home could well be accepting the services of people that have driven from right where my train's headed.

Only now have I realised just how far away I actually live from my daily life, and just how ridiculous and unsustainable that actually is.

I don't want to sound like some lefty, rose-tinted arse harping on about the days when everybody knew Alfred the friendly local shop keep, our door locks were made out of mulled vinegar and the only entertainment we all needed was a yearly dance around the maypole and a high-spirited jig in the church hall.

I just found that the day I got rid of my car, living where I do instantly became a whole lot less viable. And it made me realise that if the time does come where more people are forced to start getting rid of their cars, there really is going to be massive, massive social change right across our little island. Some changes will be very bad and we will hate them, and some will be a great deal better. But they will happen, because right now, what we're doing, the life we've all bought into and will defend to the death as our god given right and the only true way of life is absolutely, utterly batshit mental.

From JTD yesterday

...(there's no shortage of fuel)...However, there is a shortage of fuel that can be extracted at current prices...

Even oil from tar sands/shale is profitable at the current trading price of around $115/barrel.

and the world is stuffed full to bursting with the stuff.

why do we think we're about to run out?

...if the time does come where more people are forced to start getting rid of their cars, there really is going to be massive, massive social change right across our little island. Some changes will be very bad and we will hate them, and some will be a great deal better. But they will happen...

Things will change slowly, we'll hardly notice.

Ie subsidise public transport

Ok, TJ, I'm definitely with you in principle, but I try to be as pragmatic as possible. Do you have any idea how much subsidy would be needed to make a large impact on services?

Trains - rail network is at capacity - trains are pretty much rammed at commuter times so you need more trains which means more track and routes. This is mind-buggerinly expensive even for a small improvement. There's no one specific line that would achieve much, you need widespread investment over a long period which is even more astronomical. Beeching's axe has turned out to be one of the moral and social crimes of the century, although he wasn't to know that in fairness.

Busses - much easier investment but the service often isn't much good compared to driving. So you need more express services which means many more busses which is also expensive, although not as much as rail.

But there are many other issues - you'd want bus services for the local section of a journey and train for the longer bits, really - that would take fantastic planning too.

I admire your sentiments - I'm very much in favour of public transport - but I don't think you've thought through the implications of what you are suggesting and how it could be made to work financially and politically.

(PS don't just tell me I'm a poor deluded fool here, if you disagree I'd like some constuctive debate acknowledging my points 🙂 )

Well molgrips - remeber I am advocating a gradualist approach and a change in living patterns as well - less movement of people.

Yes there is plenty of money able to be raised on fuel to improve public transport. Public transport is much cheaper per person per mile than a car.
Politically of course you are right - you only need to look at this thread to see how any attempt to rebalance our transport away from cars to anything else is seen

It is coming - and in our lifetimes. cars will be only for the rich again in 25 years if possible at all. we have choice - we wait until the changes are forced upon us or we plan for them and anticipate them to alleviate the worst effects.

All is saved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15735478

All you'll need to do to power them up is eat a candy bar, or drink a coke.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15305579

Nor am I telling people how to live

😯

I was banging the same drum 10 years ago TJ, not much has changed since then. Since i started working in the oil industy, i see a different side to the "oil is running out" picture. Without going in to much detail, i have to hand various facts which indicate that we have quite away to go before we run out of oil. Its expensive to get at for sure, but there's plenty left. Cars gone in 25 years? Maybe, but not because of a shortage of oil.

Its a going to take a couple of generations before we are weened off from cars and i suspect in some goverment think tank thats the plan. Can you imagine the ramifications if you were to drive people off the road over the course of ten years? For instance, at £5 a litre of fuel, im looking at £300-400 to go visiting my parents. I simply couldnt afford that and i rather doubt that public transport would be in place within anything like 10 years. Where would that leave me and anyone else in that position? Now, you could in hindsight say that shouldn't have moved so far away, but you know what they say about hindsight. What about when people start moving from the rural areas to be closer to work? At £5 a litre thats going to be a typical knee jerk reaction for some, you'll have a lot of wealth being transffered in and around urban areas and i think it would create a big rich/poor divide.

I did raise a point the other day that oil is running out, fast. While motor vehicles emit roughly 8-10% of the total CO2 emissions, they use 40% of the oil on the market.

This is probably why the private car is bearing a disproportionate amount of taxation when compared against other emitters of CO2, after all, no government wants to mention the term "Peak Oil" and feed a frenzy of public disquiet and economic turmoil.

In my opinion, a larger proportion of fuel tax revenue should be directed towards sustainable public transport subsidies. And yes, I'd willingly see some other public spending cut to allow this to happen.

On a larger scale, the idea that renewable, nuclear or even fusion power is going to simply step in and render fossil fuels redundant is bunk. You're going to need energy to build all this stuff before it starts producing energy so even if fusion power really is 30-50 years off, you're still going to need to ensure that you have 50-70 years of economically viable fossil fuel resources left (assuming an extremely ambitious 20 year takeup completion for non-fossil fuelled energy and transport).

As much as I miss my old 2.5 V6, I'm not sure that reducing petrol prices at the pumps is the right way forward, as I've already said, I'd rather see more tax revenue being put into public transport.

I did raise a point the other day that oil is running out, fast.

but it just isn't.

(not 'fast' anyway...)

we've got enough 'pumpable' stuff to last about 100 years - at the current rate of consumption.

but we've got much more than that lying around in enormous shale/sand deposits.

(see: Alberta)

limited processing capacity for this tricky stuff will cause prices to rise slowly, slowly forcing us to use less.

extracting oil from the shale/sand is environmentally catastrophic (locally), but nobody cares.

(I care, because i have a beard, and read the guardian - so obviously i cannot possibly be part of the problem. but most people really don't giveashit.)

Okay, easily accessible oil is running out fast. The stuff that wasn't viable for oil companies to extract and sell for less than $80 a barrel mostly what's left as you have to either extract it from hard to reach environments or you need to process the crude correctly to remove the impurities. Neither option is cheap.

You can't just see a price spike on a Monday, design and build a specialized extraction process and refinery on a Tuesday and start selling petrol from these sources on a Wednesday. The lead in times are measurable in tens of years.

Demand in the far east is ramping up at a rapid rate, the level of demand in China and India will very soon be the same as the US. When demand increases, the market price will inevitably rise.

Even oil from tar sands/shale is profitable at the current trading price of around $115/barrel.

and the world is stuffed full to bursting with the stuff.

why do we think we're about to run out?

How much do you think oil will cost when all we have left is tar sands, the arctic, and deep sea wells?

I say again. We're not short of oil. We are short of cheap oil.

Public transport is much cheaper per person per mile than a car

How'd you get that figure? If you look at the cost of laying on existing facilities then that could be correct, because we have a privately run transport industry that won't run economically non-viable services.

If you were to replace car usage with PT then you would have to service areas where population density is too low to make it economically viable.

As for changing living patterns - do we all have to move to the big city? That's going to be crap for quality of live and result in even more urbanisation. The industrial revolution was bad enough for the countryside, this wouldn't help.

. Can you imagine the ramifications if you were to drive people off the road over the course of ten years?

Which is why I am advocating a 25 year timespan.

awhiles - we do not have plenty of oil. We do not have plenty of uranium, we do not have plenty of gas. we have a couple of decades left at current cosumption and consumption is rising then we are into very difficult and expensive to get oil

Molgrips = public transport is cheaper - much cheaper - every time you look at it from any direction.

As for changing living patterns - do we all have to move to the big city?

We are going to have to change - its inevitable as the cost of energy rises

... we have a couple of decades left at current cosumption and consumption is rising then we are into very difficult and expensive to get oil...

it may be difficult, and expensive, but we're already using 'difficult' and 'expensive' oil.

£100/barrel was enough to justify drilling in the deep ocean in the gulf of mexico.

£100/barrel was enough to justify strip-mining really rubbish stuff. you can't pump it out of the ground, you have to dig it out.
(and then process the hell out of it)

£100/barrel was enough to get oil-men sniffing around in the arctic.

and if that's the price we're prepared to pay, and the trouble we'll go to, then there's a LOT of oil.

it's almost as if some people want us to run out of oil - and the sooner the better...

as far as anyone can tell (good guesses mostly), if we're not at peak oil nowish, we're not far off. But i don't believe that production will fall off a cliff the moment we reach 'peak oil'.

production will reduce slowly, the oil price will rise slowly, we'll change our ways slowly accordingly. We really will be fine.

but right now, petrol prices are high because of tax.

There is some interesting stuff on [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Demand_for_oil ]WIKI[/url] which depending on its accuracy, makes interesting reading re anticipated supply/demand.

the problem that seems to be being ignored is food, there is a huge petro-chemical input into modern food production, the UK is not self sufficient. Increasing oil prices mean increasing food prices.

Make of that what you will.

Molgrips = public transport is cheaper - much cheaper - every time you look at it from any direction.

So, if someone puts on a bus from some small village into town, and there are two people on it - how is that cheaper than having two cars drive in? The bus gets what, 5mpg? And you have to pay the driver and everything. Each passenger pays £1.20. And the next bus is empty.

Do you see what I mean? If you want to increase coverage much more than we currently have, you need to start subsidising - and that subsidy could get massively expensive. Otherwise how do you decide which routes to run?

The problem with tax on fuel is that it doesn't take into account a persons income.Generally the more you earn the more tax you pay.
Fuel duty is a blanket which covers everybody,regardless of income.
This is not a fair way to collect tax as wealthy people wouldn't notice £2 a litre petrol.Camerons "we're all in it together " is untrue.

well its not like fuel tax is a particularly tory policy, and labour doubled the fuel price escalator during their time in power. it could probably be proven fairly simply that richer folk pay more on fuel than poor folk (they travel further and drive more thirsty cars) therefore they do pay more.

Additionally, if someone's in the highest earning tax bracket, they have to earn £2.80 to pay for a litre of fuel, whereas someone in the normal tax bracket only needs to earn £1.68. if you add onto that the fact a bimmer 7 series will only do 25mpg, but a typical focus will do 50, a 'fat cat' is paying 3.3x as much as someone poor for the same distance travelled.

Sounds like a progressive tax to me

TBH burning oil seems a bit nuts, when it's such a finite resource and so useful for other things.

That's some right dodgy reasoning right there. They have to earn more to pay for EVERYTHING. Plus you've worked it out as if they pay %50 on everything, haven't you? When they don't. And they don't all drive BMWs.

Unless you were consciously being silly.. your post is just about daft enough to be deliberate, but it doesn't have the necessary joviality..

they have to earn that much extra in order to travel the extra distance.. It was taking things to extremes, but I don't understand why people think its necessary to have 2 progressive taxes on top of one another. if you take the tax earned by the government on a 40% tay payer's liter of fuel (£1.77 of £2.33 or 76% of the money earned) I'd argue that its probably already penal enough

It's not a progressive tax.

Person #1 is.. a mechanic, on modest income lives in a small village. The local garage goes out of business, so he needs a new job. The only one available is 30 miles away, but he has to feed his family so off he goes, 60 miles a day.

Person #2 is a rich city banker. He gets pushed out of his job because he crossed the boss one time too many, so he gets another job. It's in the financial district, same as usual, so his commute is the same. 60 miles a day for him is nothing.

So how is that fair? Each pays the same amount of tax ON THEIR FUEL PURCHASES although not on their income.

You still double counted the tax on your original post btw.

sounds like a good argument for person#1 to settle his family nearer a centre of population so that if he does loose his job in the future, the likelyhood is that he can get something reasonably nearby, and use public transport to get there, if he can't walk or ride a bike, therefore saving himself a few quid running the car...

The problem with tax on fuel is that it doesn't take into account a persons income.Generally the more you earn the more tax you pay.

No. Income tax and NI are linked to income. Taxes like VAT, alcohol duty, tobacco duty, inheritance tax and council tax are not.

The more fuel you use, the more duty you pay. Just like if you eat more biscuits, you pay more VAT.

which tax did i double count? from your raw earnings on a liter of petrol you get taxed

fuel tax
vat on the fuel cost and on the fuel tax
income tax/national insurance on : the fuel tax, the vat on the fuel tax, and the cost on the fuel.

the nature of income tax being progressive effects, by its very nature, everything you purchase. Why would you need another progressive tax on top of that? aside from being impossible to implement, if the first tax isn't progressive enough, the better thing to do is just make that tax more progressive, but if you go down that road too far you end up without enough incentive for people to earn money as too much of the additional earning is burned away..

The more fuel you use, the more duty you pay. Just like if you eat more biscuits, you pay more VAT.

yes, but in order to pay for the fuel duty, you need to earn more (as a high rate tay payer) than a low rate tax payer would. the effective tax is higher, as your earnings are taxed more

yes, but in order to pay for the fuel duty, you need to earn more (as a high rate tay payer) than a low rate tax payer would. the effective tax is higher, as your earnings are taxed more

The total tax take is highest for the poorest quintile. Higher-rate tax payers are better off overall.

Edited, ignore me.

The problem with person no.1 is that it's currently viable to work within a large radius of your home, so all the mechanics in that huge area compete for the same work and some end up doing serious miles. Cut the viable area and everyone travels less.

TBH burning oil seems a bit nuts, when it's such a finite resource and so useful for other things.

A few hundred years from now, they are gonna be sooo jealous of what we took for granted.

Probably not- by then we'll most likely have fusion so electricity will be cheap, non-polluting and reliable. And we'll have electric cars with batteries that will do hundreds of miles between charges.

So the idea of burning oil with all the pollution that goes with it will look archaic and ridiculous.

TJ said so.

The total tax take is highest for the poorest quintile. Higher-rate tax payers are better off overall.

Arithmetic means aren't a good measure of the tax take in the highest quartile as it has an unbounded upper limit. It's a crude but reasonably effective measure for the lowest three quartiles but not for the fourth. I compared my actual income tax (as a % of income) with the mean and it was significantly higher.

During the bad weather last winter in Edinburgh people managed to get to work, shop etc.
It just was a lot more inconvenient but people had no alternative other than to walk, car share and catch the bus.
This just goes to show that people will find a way to get about without constantly relying on the car if they are forced to.

Driving in the UK 9/10 is easier and cheaper than the alternative.
This must change now.
When there is not enough natural resources in the world to go round and our economy is too poor to buy them we need to be in a position to cope.

Soon one of the bad boys will be in every car and home.

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer ]Free energy[/url]

Honest.

The total tax take is highest for the poorest quintile. Higher-rate tax payers are better off overall.

It's surprising how many intelligent people still think higher rate tax applies to all their earnings. Personal finance is a bit of a gap in education.

Molgrips - I think you're being a bit soft on Beeching (though obviously he only carries the can for a Government decision). Most of the rest of Europe seems to have managed to retain subsidised transport, and I'm assuming they didn't do it suddenly in the last 50 years or so. Looking outside the island might have offered an alternative long term perspective.
I still find it odd and slightly melancholy that there are multiple branch lines locally to me that my Dad can remember using to go to college, work etc.

Arithmetic means aren't a good measure of the tax take in the highest quartile as it has an unbounded upper limit. It's a crude but reasonably effective measure for the lowest three quartiles but not for the fourth.

The unbounded upper limit is only relevant to the fifth quintile.

I compared my actual income tax (as a % of income) with the mean and it was significantly higher.

Your income tax may be a higher percentage, but other taxes will be lower. That's the whole point of calculating total tax take - it refutes the notion that higher-rate tax payers pay more overall. They don't.

Probably not- by then we'll most likely have fusion so electricity will be cheap, non-polluting and reliable

By then, fusion electricity will only be twenty years away from commercial use. 😉

During the bad weather last winter in Edinburgh people managed to get to work, shop etc.
It just was a lot more inconvenient but people had no alternative other than to walk, car share and catch the bus.
This just goes to show that people will find a way to get about without constantly relying on the car if they are forced to.

There speaketh an urban dweller.

what about those who, by the nature of their work (and bearing in mind that somebody has to do those jobs) has to work in a rural area?

I speak as someone who worked for the Forestry Commission, living in a village with a community of less than 200, eight miles from the nearest other village, 25 miles from a supermarket, 35 miles from a train station, post bus and school bus only. butcher and grocer van visited the village once a week.

school bus travels 17 miles to nearest "second school" - to get to the bus stop in the morning, a number of the outlier kids had to travel three miles each way miles to the bus route - they lived on sheep farms.

So, should they have moved closer to urban area's?

I worked for the commission, they were the ONLY employer in the village, other than the pub (largely reliant on tourist trade), the village shop/post office and the cafe (reliant on tourist trade).

Petrol at £5 per litre? Where's your alternative transport options?

A number of the farms don't have mains electricity - they are reliant on wind and back up generators - electric cars simply not an option.

Come on TJ - its nice sitting in the ivory tower living in the centre of Edinburgh, with your Billion quid tram system.

where's the options for other people at 5 quid per litre for petrol? [b]somebody[/b] has to look after the sheep, [b]somebody[/b] has to work in the forests, planting the trees and shooting the deer.

People living in [b]truly[/b] rural area's have NO option but personal transport.

or would rural sheep farmers children be taken into care to ensure they can get an education in your socialist utopia?

The unbounded upper limit is only relevant to the fifth quintile.

Apologies I misread your first post, however the point still stands regarding the efectiveness of the mean when you have an unbounded upper limit.

Your income tax may be a higher percentage, but other taxes will be lower. That's the whole point of calculating total tax take - it refutes the notion that higher-rate tax payers pay more overall. They don't.

I didn't compare income tax rates, I compared my effective income tax rate to the mean value of the total tax rate of the lowest quartile and my income tax rate was higher. I'm not trying to argue that there isn't a high tax burden on the lowere paid just that using an arithmetic mean isn't a good measure when you have one group that has an unbounded upper limit.

Apologies I misread your first post, however the point still stands regarding the efectiveness of the mean when you have an unbounded upper limit.

I'm not trying to argue that there isn't a high tax burden on the lowere paid just that using an arithmetic mean isn't a good measure when you have one group that has an unbounded upper limit.

Which applies to some people in 1 out of 5 quintiles.

Given that most people in that quintile will be at the lower end of the range (less than 1% of the population earn > £150k), we're talking about a pretty trivial point here - it's unlikely there are enough outliers to significantly skew the sample. Remember that a small number of people in the 5th quintile will be paying the 50p tax rate, balancing out the smaller % of income they pay in non-income related taxes.

Z11, they having been farming sheep for millenia, cars have been around for a hundred or so years and in the mass market for a few decades.

Remove cars people will adapt. end of. You may not like the adapation but you will cope.

Mrmo - yep, no problem, if we really want people to go back to victorian standards of living, education and health, then thats great.

Do you recall Hannah Hauxwell?

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/my_heart_and_soul_are_still_up_in_the_dales_1_2436328

Do you really want to impose that sort of lifestyle on people in the UK in the 21st century?

You may not like it but if we don't sort out personal transport then that is where we are going.

I dont think anyone here is under any illusion that we have to reduce energy consumption, we take that as a given. Whats under disussion is the time scales i guess. TJ, forgive me but you did say ramp up the cost of petrol/diesel to £5 a litre over 10 years. I dont believe 10 years is enough to implement an alternative. Look at the proposed high speed train service, HS2. As a concept began around 2009, if it gets the go ahead, its proposed to open around 2018.

You mentioned about cars that are capable of 100mpg, with rising fuel costs i suspect manufacture would be quick to respond, maybe a car capable of 200mpg? or 300mpg? Rasing the fuel cost wouldn't have stopped people from using their car less, just made them ditch there un-economical car for new car. You'd be back to generating the same tax from fuel as before, but then have to deal with the scrapping of the un-economical vehicles.

Trains - rail network is at capacity - trains are pretty much rammed at commuter times so you need more trains which means more track and routes.

HS2 by 2018?? hahaha! 2025 realistically.