Bike fuel protests in manchester

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Can you let me know first which one it is going to be please, I'll need to sell all my shares....

esso and bp. they reckon if we all buy petrol from all other sources and hit the two biggies the hardest the price will fall to 69p a litre, hmmm maybe.

The boycott a company or two email has been going around for years. For an independant corroboration of this (and comments as to why it's a load of rubbish) have a peek at http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp It's focused around the American branded emails but it's all the same concept.

It's not the oil companies that are putting the prices up. It's speculation about the cost\price of oil in the future. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle3982900.ece Not a brilliant article but explains some of the points and somethign I found quickly trhough google.

If people want to know\learn more about the underlying mechanics of this a good start would be to look up an explanation of "Supply and Demand" economic theory.

You might as well be protesting the high price of street heroin.
The Government (rightly) taxes petrol. (Although how they in turn spend those taxes is another question.)
The oil companies are aware that we are hopeless addicts. They push the prises as high as they feel the market can take.

Us protesting on the streets will have as much of an effect on the board room choices Exon make as it would on the Opium producing overlords in Asia. They simply couldn't care less.
We need petrol.
We buy petrol.

The idea that now we drill under the ice cap because its melted is nauseating.
Its essentially saying "we seem to be screwed, although how about we just stick a few more nails in our coffin here while we are at it". If anyone thinks that the oil companies are going to do anything with this oil than keep us strung out another while longer, they are deluding themselves.

Originally Posted by philipMac

The Government (rightly) taxes petrol.

Twice. Which is quite wrong. They add the duty to the original cost and then add VAT to the total. That is paying tax on a tax.

[timwilky]

Am I the only one who seems to think the government has had an additional windfall with the massive increase over the past few months in terms of the added VAT raised. They must be seeing about 4p/Litre in extra VAT coming their way already.

Originally Posted by Woz

Twice. Which is quite wrong. They add the duty to the original cost and then add VAT to the total. That is paying tax on a tax.

(Businesses may be entitled to VAT back. )

I think its absolutely reasonable to tax petrol fairly stringently.
Driving about in your car/bike is a luxury, and people should be made understand that.


You can go out today and buy a car that easily gets 70 something mpg (diesel Lupo). You dont need to drive a big inefficient car.
People give out about car companies, and oil companies, and turn around and buy big inefficient cars/trucks.

This trend is particularly clear in the US.
Ow ow ow ow*hitting hand with hammer* it Huuuurts...so much pain... *crunching noise* Oh God I think I broke something! ITS SO UNFAIIIRR!

Originally Posted by philipMac

(Businesses may be entitled to VAT back. )

I think its absolutely reasonable to tax petrol fairly stringently.
Driving about in your car/bike is a luxury, and people should be made understand that.


You can go out today and buy a car that easily gets 70 something mpg (diesel Lupo).

I hate paying so much for fuel, but I think you're right.

However, to get the 70mpg you need a road network capable of supporting flowing traffic. For the billions of pounds we spend a year in tax I think it isn't unreasonable to expect the governemnt to do their bit.

And Tim, yeah the governement will apprently bring in an extra £2billion this year even without the extra 2p / litre duty scheduled for autumn.

Originally Posted by gettin2dizzy

I hate paying so much for fuel, but I think you're right.

However, to get the 70mpg you need a road network capable of supporting flowing traffic.

I think right now you have a road network capable of supporting flowing traffic.
It is, however, clogged full of people in cars driving around. The attitude that every time you need to go anywhere you jump into the car and drive there (usually alone) is a problem.

If that is rectified by $200 dollar barrels of oil, great. Bring it on as far as I am concerned.


edit nothing to do with anything really... but another symptom of the problem: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/am....ap/index.html

Originally Posted by Woz

Twice. Which is quite wrong. They add the duty to the original cost and then add VAT to the total. That is paying tax on a tax.

+1

I think what makes most of us sick is that alot of the tax generated is wasted. Plus we are being shafted by those who have our best interests atr heart.

Yeah, lets pay uber-high tax so we can pay for Blair's kitchen to get a makeover / pay for MP's food / tv licence / new tv etc etc etc.

Oh, and there is no way I'm going out to spend 8k on a car that does 70mpg. I can't afford it. I see your point saying that very econimocal cars exist, but it is not really an option for everyone.

If people want to know\learn more about the underlying mechanics of this a good start would be to look up an explanation of "Supply and Demand" economic theory.

A good start but most economists don't really see that increasing the demand, i.e. price of oil, won't actually increase the supply, flow of oil, by any great amount. In fact given the state of depletion of the world oil fields it is likely that is close or has been reached - 'Peak Oil'.

In fact since 2005 the production of 'All Liquids' which includes Crude Oil, biofuels, synthetic fuels has been flat at around 85 million barrels per day.

Since oil demand is relatively inelastic in the developed world, China and India are increasing their demand and supply is stalling this is why the price is going up.

In my opinion high fuel taxation has several advantages:
1. High taxation buffers volatility in fuel price when oil price is volatile. In the UK a doubling in the price of crude results in a 33% increase in the pump price. That may seem a lot but reducing personal fuel usage to get back to spending the same amount is a lot easier.
2. At some point the cost of fuel will have to effect consumption patterns (tax or no tax), having the tax to spend on public transport options, having longer to purchase more efficent transport options, moving closer to work, working closer to home can only be a good thing.

The sooner people realise that things are going to get more expensive, stop moaning and do something practical about it the better off they will be.