Gas prices

[JBee]

If anything there is at least a connection between administrations and fuel price, between the disgraceful retreat out of Afghanistan that emboldened Russia's position that lead to the precarious situation we're all in. That and corporate greed and lobbying, also something each administration could be better at modulating.

There's also a question of x $billions of military aid, a doubling of LNG exports from the US to EU, and the US oil sanctions against Venezuela that are artificially driving up the prices of oil that are all within the control of the administrations policy. Money makes the world turn around it seems. Still.

Any representive democracy administration is affected by vested interests that are not always beneficial to it's people, this is accepted common knowledge. This is what happens if you vote for politicians and not directly for policy. Ignoring any of these items just makes this divisive two party argument fairly dumb, and without standing. Every administration has to ability to do better, if they were released from the bondage to do the bidding of the coin, and should strive to do so. Some on the other hand don't even try. It would be refreshing to see either side admit any of that.

This underscores that the USA has decayed into more of a corporation for profit and no longer a country of its people. This is simply because the people are no longer afforded the right of self-determination and have been stripped of their "capability" of freedom of choice.

In a society of direct co-dependency you can only do what you can afford to do, and therefore are severely limited to express your freedom above your financial means.

Who of us would still be on this forum if the CT was priced at $200,000? Not many, accordingly, to the same measure, treasure what little freedom you have left on your bank account.

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[HaulingAss]

Um Haulingass I think you need to look up externalities, and figure out where your food comes from and what fertilises it. Let alone a gazillion other things. If you were so concerned then do us a favour and get off the internet that uses 10% of the worlds energy by itself. Lol

While no one eats 100% organic, I do avoid food grown with petrochemicals. It's a good goal. As far as the Internet using 10% of the worlds energy, all I can say is that is all the more reason to transition the grid to sustainable energies. We have made good progress in the last 20 years and that progress is accelerating (but it won't happen overnight).

Its simply a bogus argument to say you "want" higher fuel costs because you have 2 EV's and an electric mower. I mean come on man, selfish much, or are you just virtue signalling? You obviously have no idea how much fossil fuel you are indirectly using through anything you buy, including your EV or mower, let alone just using currency and fail to recognise how dependant food security is on fuel supply.

The fact that I want and like high gas prices isn't an argument, it's a fact. I like high gas prices. It has nothing to do with virtue signalling (and if you knew me, you would already know that) and everything to do with breathing less toxic fumes as I ride my bike, take walks in the city or near roadways and drive my car on public roads congested with cars emitting toxic gases. There is a reason they smell bad and make you tired - they are not good for your health. In fact, these emissions kill thousands of people every year. High gas prices help accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles. Yes, I know the manufacture and use of EV's have environmental costs but these are much smaller than those of ICE cars. Furthermore, EV's don't deposit their emissions in other road users faces.

Whilst I might partially agree with some of the arguments to have fossil fuel foot its own environmental bill, we are by no extent of the imagination anywhere close to not being reliant on fossil fuel to keep civilisation running. Withoit civilisation you will have to start hunting and gathering again, and will only have one last drive left in your EV. ?

I didn't argue for the banning of fossil fuel, I simply said I prefer it to have a high cost to encourage more efficient solutions.

As for who is subsidizing what, its you that is paying for it too, or don't you pay taxes? I'm not sure how to respond to your "have to have lots of children" comment. Are you sure you can win that argument?

It wasn't an argument, it was an observation. Have as many children as you personally decide to have, that's fine, I'm just pointing out that it's often the people with the biggest, least efficient cars, driving all over hell and back every day, that tend to complain the loudest about high gas prices.

My point is, design your own life - if you have a lot of kids and don't plan for efficient transport, understand this will come with an economic cost that is tied to those decisions. And, yes, I already pointed out that my tax dollars are subsidizing fossil fuels. The funny part is how loud people scream at EV subsidies when fossil fuel subsidies dwarf that of renewables.

Make the bed you want to sleep in. Gas at $5/gallon is still pretty cheap unless you compare it to an EV.

 

[Crissa]

Do you really need a vehicle with 7 seats when you have 2.5 kids, I think is the question.

You probably need four seats. Maybe if you have two vehicles, you could have one with four and one with seven, and then split the difference.

But the thing is... Most families don't have two kids. Why do they always drive around in giant bricks?

Higher gas prices means fewer giant bricks on the road, and that's fine.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

When the Feds dropped interest rate to near Zero, a finger rested on the economy’s scale. Part of the inflation we feel today is the rebound from the event. Pandemic, supply chain shortfall, Putin’s war are also contributors.

There is a market difference in the current administration. This administration understands onus Is their responsibility.

My question to all including myself, what can we do to shoulder some of the improvement responsibility instead of investing in blame?

Sorry in advance, but I always harp on about this because many don't see, or don't want to see the connection, but one of my guiding principals has always been to use less money and do more things myself. The follow on effects of defunding bad behavior, by simply limiting fluidity of wealth transfer to the top, is profound.

This brings back control to the people that are productive and provide services to the community, rather than handing that over to a conglomerate or group that then needs to import/export goods and services on our behalf, to benefit from artificial currency and stock exchange rates that are all subsidized and enabled by trade through cheap transportation and production from fossil fuels.

Essentially this will be a similar structure of a Mars economy as it is cost prohibitive to import from earth, and local Mars production and services need to be self sufficient and autonomous to survive.

Being "autonomous" starts with the individual in that they recognize their own self worth and capability, that is not the product of a artificial social construct, but rather through the dependence of actual relationships inside a productive and altruistic motivated community that have the same ideology, and that can avoid the dominance of the private ownership fallacy. (aka sharing is caring) To add value to any community an individual needs to try to give more than they receive, so through that combined excess everyone can thrive.

The best way I found to undertake a reduction in the use of currency, is to first identify what items consume the most currency, and seek alternatives that can reduce those costs. Typical outgoings consist of housing cost (property and building), food, medical care and insurance, transportation, utilities and services etc. Once an alternative or variation to reduce those costs is identified it is possible to continually improve on each until each is minimized to the max.

To do this requires some critical and common sense thinking. Some examples for houses; it is better to buy an efficient fridge rather than buy a bigger solar system to run your power hungry fridge. It is better to have a highly insulated passive house than a larger air-conditioning unit to heat and cool it, it is better to have smaller multi-function spaces than large spaces, if using the same materials square houses are more efficient than rectangular ones (because of external surface area and construction costs), round ones a better again but can loose some utility because of furniture design. Aluminum windows can transfer more heat/cold through the frame than through the glass, double glazed should be the norm, and in sunny warm regions windows should be blocked with roller shutter or the like, as 1sqm of window can add 1kW of heat to the building. Furniture dictates room functionality, so buy furniture that increases the time of use for each room. Large bedrooms are a "waste" if they are only used for sleeping, meaning you are going to spend most of your time unconscious in there so why bother? ;-)

The effect of building a better house for a lower cost means that you pay less tax as well. Most people don't realise that between 25-50% of most house construction costs ends up going to tax (through sub-contractors, suppliers, retailers, wholesalers all that require a profit to be made and taxes and subsidies to be paid). That then translates to you paying interest on that tax for the next 20years or more until you have paid the house back, and have finally paid off those taxes you also accumulated when you built your house. Earning more money to pay more for goods and services produces a regressive cashflow to boot, and paying it off over 20 years also means you have to pay 20 years of income tax to pay that house tax and interest back too.

That example alone should make it clear that using more currency, both in and out, is not beneficial to achieving the goal of having a house. The same can be done for food and utilities, which all consolidates itself in a reduction of transportation, especially if you can start working from home and do no longer have to commute as well.

Your "dependency" reduces as your independence rises. The age of consumerism needs to end in the age of sustainability.

"If" you can offset most of these "existential" costs you will be left in a position that your spending budget need only to cover your now very limited external expenditure. In the first instance the threshold to reach, is to offset as many costs that you can reliably operate on, on a budget that is in a low or zero tax bracket, and that that currency amount is in excess of your external input product and service requirement. That way currency flow is minimized, as is the externalities and capability of corporate misappropriation of products and services as well as their control and power.

Anyway, these are some of my musings on how to effect meaningful change.

 

[JBee]

Do you really need a vehicle with 7 seats when you have 2.5 kids, I think is the question.

-Crissa

Have you had kids? Because thats not how kids work, you can't have 2, and then a half a kid! Lol

As for how many seats in a car; I believe for efficiency reasons there should eventually only be two personal vehicle formats, one a tandem 2 seater tadpole trike and the other a mutliseat 4 wheeler van with reconfigurable interior.

The reason is simply the energy use of most vehicles is by air displacement, meaning a small frontal area tandem two seater is required for commuting, and alternatively for more than two persons, it is convenient and cost effective to have side by side seating, and if proportioned properly can offer much better interior space and functionality at no cost to aerodynamic efficiency. In comparison to a sedan like the M3, with a vehicle of similar length. This is because the frontal area remains the same in a side by side and because the skin friction losses also are the same if the vehicle is the same length, and are fairly trivial anyway.

As for weight and rolling resistance my position is that with cast front and rear ends and structural battery pack, even with a similar wheelbase, the internal volume of the vehicle and the interior fitout with seats etc won't produce much of a weight penalty in comparison anyway, and if it did it would only be minimal to cope with the extra passenger weight, which when fully occupied would more than compensate for any efficiency loss of having less than 3 persons onboard. Which otherwise should in turn should trigger the use of the tandem two seater anyway.

Reconfigurable interior also means unused seats and equipment can be easily removed or secured on a floor rail system. Which in turn would allow the user to stow other things inside the vehicle, like bikes, prams and camping gear, reducing the drag they cause from being mounted on the exterior roof.

Overall I believe this combination of vehicles will be on average more effective and efficient at transporting people and goods.

 

[HaulingAss]

Have you had kids? Because thats not how kids work, you can't have 2, and then a half a kid! Lol

As for how many seats in a car; I believe for efficiency reasons there should eventually only be two personal vehicle formats, one a tandem 2 seater tadpole trike and the other a mutliseat 4 wheeler van with reconfigurable interior.

The reason is simply the energy use of most vehicles is by air displacement, meaning a small frontal area tandem two seater is required for commuting, and alternatively for more than two persons, it is convenient and cost effective to have side by side seating, and if proportioned properly can offer much better interior space and functionality at no cost to aerodynamic efficiency. In comparison to a sedan like the M3, with a vehicle of similar length. This is because the frontal area remains the same in a side by side and because the skin friction losses also are the same if the vehicle is the same length, and are fairly trivial anyway.

As for weight and rolling resistance my position is that with cast front and rear ends and structural battery pack, even with a similar wheelbase, the internal volume of the vehicle and the interior fitout with seats etc won't produce much of a weight penalty in comparison anyway, and if it did it would only be minimal to cope with the extra passenger weight, which when fully occupied would more than compensate for any efficiency loss of having less than 3 persons onboard. Which otherwise should in turn should trigger the use of the tandem two seater anyway.

Reconfigurable interior also means unused seats and equipment can be easily removed or secured on a floor rail system. Which in turn would allow the user to stow other things inside the vehicle, like bikes, prams and camping gear, reducing the drag they cause from being mounted on the exterior roof.

Overall I believe this combination of vehicles will be on average more effective and efficient at transporting people and goods.

What? No traditional pickup trucks? Whoa! You just blew the minds of about half of all Americans!

 

[Crissa]

You've just eliminated over 85% of vehicles sold, JBee. The most common seating configuration is 5.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

What? No traditional pickup trucks? Whoa! You just blew the minds of about half of all Americans!

Thats what I'm here for! ?

 

[JBee]

You've just eliminated over 85% of vehicles sold, JBee. The most common seating configuration is 5.

-Crissa

I'm just adding better pachaging and a extra 2-3 seats because of it. My experience is you can never have enough seats in a vehicle, and if they are removable/optional there is really no down side to having more space in the back.

 

[Crissa]

I'm just adding better pachaging and a extra 2-3 seats because of it. My experience is you can never have enough seats in a vehicle, and if they are removable/optional there is really no down side to having more space in the back.

Weight, air resistance, cost...

Lots of downsides.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

Weight, air resistance, cost...

Lots of downsides.

-Crissa

You must of missed my post above why this doesn't happen.

How much would it change the CT to add another two rearward facing seats in the bed to make it a 8 seater and drive that around instead of a few bags of cement in the back?

 

[Crissa]

You must of missed my post above why this doesn't happen.

How much would it change the CT to add another two rearward facing seats in the bed to make it a 8 seater and drive that around instead of a few bags of cement in the back?

How much would it change if it were a narrow-street four seater to begin with?

-Crissa

 

[John K]

How much would it change if it were a narrow-street four seater to begin with?

-Crissa

No. I am not just saying no because I awoke claustrophobic from a surgery, mostly got over it. I am not giving up on comfortable cabins.

Irrational fears are wearisome especially when I did not have them before.

 

[Crissa]

I'm just saying that a cabin comfortable for six is much larger than a cabin comfortable for four.

And bigger means more weight, more energy, slower charging, lower range.

-Crissa

 

[Old Pro]

For what it's worth, a bit of nostalgia...I remember paying .37 cents a gallon when I was a kid in High School. Plenty of money left over for a six pack of Mickey's Big Mouth and a trip thru the Jack in the Box late at night to quell a case of the munchies. I've had many "Air breathers" in my soon to be 69 years on this planet. I will be the coolest Senior on my block when I drive my CyberTruck around the neighborhood!

Photo with my posting is my 1979 VW Deluxe Bus that I brought back to running condition and sold when we purchased a Tesla Model 3 for my beautiful wife. That's her baby

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