Oh for fuck's sake

[andrewducker]

There's a BBC News story here saying that the government shouldn't put up petrol taxes...because theey'll hit the poor harder than the rich.

OF COURSE THEY WILL!!!!!

All taxes, except for ones that are (in some way) means-tested, hit the poor harder, because the poor have less money.

If the tax didn't affect people by making it harder to drive everywhere all the damn time, it would be a tad pointless, especially when this is something the government has said it's supposed to encourage.

Oh, the stupidity.

Comments

[ninox.livejournal.com]

Bah depressing. When I got the new job, I wanted to give up the car. Problem - it would take 4 hours to get there by pulic transport and I could only arrive after 3pm. Getting home is more problematic.

The initial thought was move somewhere where one of us can give up the car, so it may be somewhere in between. Still no transport. Also very little chance of us working anywhere closer to each other.

Stay a little bit too far away to cycle in and the road is too dangerous to attempt it.

Various methods have been tried to replace carbon based fuels, some are suitable for the cities, but none that I know off are any good for country life. Even looking at the so called green cars - the batteries are not any where close to environmentally friendly and the road I drive would rely heavily on the fuel.

Occasionally I have caught the train up north, but the times aren't suitable for my work patterns, still need someone with car to pick me up and I find myself trapped in Ayrshire. NOOOO!

Speaking of Ayrshire they now run a biobus - you get a discount for passing on your old cooking oil. Great idea with low useage, but think of the global problems if it takes off on a larger scale? Grain crops are already on the increase, but not necessarily as food. All these options usually have the nasty glossed over side - icky horrid solar panel chemicals that are impossible to dispose of and short lived in power cells, the problem with suicidal birds in wind farms (maybe that is just evolution). Fuel issues are always going to be one of compromise.

Roll on the nuclear transport?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The problem is for people to realise which side of the compromise line they are on. Whether they are the ones who can remain and other people make compromises for, or if they are the ones who should be making a compromise themselves.

Unfortunately it's hard to get people to step back and think about whether they need are car in order to get into/out of their rural home/work that is impossible to get to otherwise... or whether they need it to get two minutes down the road to the shops.. and even then, some people are simply not going to understand what you're saying to them. Trying to convince people that what they have now is a luxury, even if they think it is a fundamental right and freedom is going to be something governments will be doing a lot of over the next few decades.

Hell, even the government is planning building projects that assumed continued growth, continued fuel usage. Look at the plans for heathrow, for building motorways - if less people fly and drive, those plans are going to look pretty stupid. But then, this is a government whose long term plans involve no contingencies for running out of oil, and an expected price of $70 a barrel.

It's funny - more than most things, all the discussion on the news about running out of oil, and food, and water - that's what makes me feel like I'm living in the future. Not being older, or the year being 2008, or computers. I grew up reading slews of dystopian SF of varying quality, so here we are :-D

[ninox.livejournal.com]

Yup I agree with that. Cheshire is home of the great 4x4 driving nation where someone will pull out, drive 200 yards down the road and drop the kids off. I often find it amusing that despite the cry of diminishing accessible oil reserves and ever increasing fuel bills, people still opt for the large fuel guzzling 4x4s or american imports. I often chastise my parents for excessive used of vehicles. My mother in all honest should give the car up, but it would take more than a crowbar to part her.

I thought that there was a muffled cry within parliament to try and restore old community values to cut commuting and therefore cut the transport issues. I can't for the life of me see how this is achievable. Policies like this are the most difficult to reverse.

Luxury is strange concept. I appreciate I do live a life of luxury - I can afford to travel and visit friends, or eat whatever I choose when I choose without thinking about it. I am am not rich by local standards, but still comfortable. I will usually be the first to admit that it is something I take for granted. I suppose to much of the world the average working class brit is often equivalent to how we perceive the sheiks. Money - or what it has become today - I find a harder concept to come to terms with.

Dsytopian futures and promises of tomorrow. Technology begats technology. There have been huge developments within the last decade, it is difficult to pin point great break throughs after the silicon chip. It is strange to look around and see inventions documented in SF. I expect I will see many more in the future. Just think what it must be like to be Patrick Moore!