Lost Cost Perspective

I'm in a hurry and cant really evaluate the article but do you feel this (Hyrbid hype) could be another way of blinding us to rising costs in gas prices. IE if we get such great milage we dont care as much about fuel price?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Sep 16 2006, 01:20 PM) [snapback]320553[/snapback]</div>

Have your figures properly taken into account the falling value of currency? I don't know about the $ but in the UK the value of the £ has been going down steadily for years. It's called inflation. In other words, prices rise. But because the value of the £ falls, the price rises are often an illusion because in real terms the value of the goods remains about the same. Petrol (gasoline) prices are a good example. At present it's over £4 a gallon. Many people here think that it's the most expensive it has ever been but the truth is that it is about the same price, or even cheaper, as it's been for years, if you take into account the lower value of the pound.

For example 10 years ago (Sept 1996) I was paying £2.72 a gallon (£0.599 a litre). But wages in those days were considerably lower than they are today. I haven't got the exact figures to hand but it's possible to calculate how long an employee on the average wage would have to work to earn a gallon of fuel, then and now, and I think you'll find that there is not so much difference as you think.

To take a more extreme example, my grandfather in 1936 was paying about one shilling for a gallon (that's about £0.05 today). As a carpenter his week's income was about £5 - so he could buy 100 gallons a week. But how many gallons could a carpenter in the UK today buy for say his £423 a week wages (£22,000 p.a.)? About 100! In other words gasoline here today is much about the same price as it was in 1936.

 

A few comments in this topic.

How can anyone say the Prius has a "hybrid premium"? Compared to what? There IS no "normal" Prius to compare it to. I have posted before, the only fair comparison is to a car with comparable size inside. A "normal" Camry, for example. About the same passenger room, about the same cargo room. Oh look, it's about the same price! Heavens!

As far as caring about gas prices, why would you? You WANT to have a nervous breakdown? Care about things you can control!

Someone posted elsewhere that gas would have to be $5 a gallon before you could recover the "hybird premium". I asked when he thought that would happen, because I'd guess in a year or two. Sure gas prices are falling now. A few months ago they rose even faster! They aint making that stuff any more, and finding it is getting more expensive! Also, when the "managers" of oil companies exhibit they think planning ahead means about as far as their nose extends, who here thinks refining/pipeline/drilling will keep up with demand? Supply shortage means rising prices.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Sep 16 2006, 05:21 PM) [snapback]320619[/snapback]</div>

OK. But was the American dollar the same value 5 years ago as it is today? How does the average wage of 5 years ago compare with today's? You seem to be assuming that a $ has a fixed value like an inch or a mile but if it's like other currencies it fluctuates in value from day to day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Sep 17 2006, 05:54 AM) [snapback]320765[/snapback]</div>

What cost $1.00 in 2000 would cost $1.11 in 2005.

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 2000,
they would cost you $1.00 and $0.90 respectively.

Gas has outpaced the meager overall rate of inflation the past fve years by at least a factor of 10.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Sep 16 2006, 03:21 PM) [snapback]320619[/snapback]</div>

Yep. On a trip to the Los Angeles area in 12/01 (have pictures from it), we were amazed to see gas for $1/gal for regular all over the place. We didn't even bother shopping around when we needed to fill up.

Related to this thread, someone else in Tivocommunity put it pretty well... [hope he doesn't mind]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showt...mp;#post4326254 [is where I stole the post from, but you won't be able to see it if you don't have an account there]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jburns @ Sep 17 2006, 07:32 PM) [snapback]320937[/snapback]</div>

But from here the price of gasoline in the USA seems very low. Why does the American public (or at any rate the US Prius public!) seem to expect gasoline to be extremely cheap when it is such a heavy pollutant and comes from a finite resource which is rapidly running out? Also it should be remembered that gasoline-powered vehicles cause many 1000s of deaths and injuries annually as well as costing the public vast sums in constructing and maintaining a road system.

You can see how inflation has reduced the value of the $ if you go to:

http://eh.net/hmit/compare/

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Oxo @ Sep 18 2006, 07:15 AM) [snapback]321071[/snapback]</div>

As a resource runs out the price will climb but we aren't there as of yet. The price of gas is pretty much the same for you as it is for us. It's the taxes that are different. Perhaps the tax money was needed for the 2,500,000 surveillance cameras that your government has placed around a country that is smaller in area than Utah.

We all have our problems and priorities.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jburns @ Sep 19 2006, 10:21 PM) [snapback]322074[/snapback]</div>

Big Brother is watching us! This results in our prisons being overcrowded. More prisons are under construction. Thousands of immigrants arrive every day to help build the prisons, then later many of them will be held in the prisons until they are deported back to their countries.