Gas $5 a gallon in Europe?

[Ripsnort]

With 75% taxes on it?  WHAT the hell is the European Gov't doing with all that money?

[Apache]

I saw that on the news this a.m. Also, schools in England may have to shut down tomorrow? Some hospitals denying service because of no ambulance service? 3 out of 4 gasoline stations closed? What the heck is going on?

[Macchi]

What do you want. Moving in a vehicle with a weight of 1 ton or more only to transport 1,3 (statistically) person with a weight of 70-80kg sounds not very wise. Massive individual traffic causes a big bunch of waste, it lowers live quality within cities, uses limited planetary resources.
So for me it is very logical these guys should pay for the stinking toejam they produce.
Long live public traffic.

Macchi

[This message has been edited by Macchi (edited 09-13-2000).]

[bike killa]

our goverment stealing most of our money  
1. almost 1$ per 1l of gasoline
2. monthly income about 300$ per mounth for most of peoples in PL
-----------------------------------------
= we'll need about 50mln of bicycles really soon  

btw can someone change "level" of my life from Nightmare to Easy mode?  

[Dowding]

I'll tell you whats going on:

We have the most expensive petrol in europe.

In britain we pay 84.9p a litre for unleaded, but 63.5p of that is tax. What is more annoying is that 16.9% of this money is spent on the roads!!!! So finally people have started protesting - not allowing tankers to leave fuel depots and refineries. When the Blair government came in we paid 59.47p a litre.

All nine refineries in Britain are blockaded by protesters.

90%-100% of all petrol stations are empty. (95% in North East where I live)

The NHS (National Health Service) is a great service despite its critics, but relies on private transport for blood donation transport, moving doctors, surgeons and nurses between hospitals. Private visits by doctors nurses to people's homes. Consequently these people have no fuel - people are suffering and very shortly people will start to DIE.

The protestors are letting out fuel for ambulances and firefighting equipment - but not enough. Greater Manchester ambulances will run out of fuel if this keeps up. Some hospitals are using emergency plans drawn up to cope with millenium night!

Seems to me that there is no central organisation behind protests - no planning of what supplies should go where.

Go slow protests on major motorways.

And finally truckers have blockaded the capital (maybe that'll make people there wake up to the problem).

Another week and supermarkets will have problems too.

To any fellow brits: do you support the action? What effect will this have on the Blair government, given the proximity of the election?

I gotta say that I do - taxation like this cannot go on.

Does it make you proud to be British? Finally, people are prepared to do something if they disagree with it instead of whining.

BTW - England is just one country in Britain - Scotland and Wales are hit harder. Schools are OK in England, but in Wales 19 schools look like they are going close.

[This message has been edited by Dowding (edited 09-13-2000).]

[Apache]

Ah, civil disobedience. WTG Brits! I had no idea taxes on gasoline were that high there. My gosh!

[bike killa]

hehe more news from Poland...
we have 83% of all kind of taxes in Gas priece!!!

[Vermillion]

A question.

If only 17% of the gas taxes are used for road projects, where is the other 83% of the taxs going?

Public assistance programs? Universal Health Care? the Military?

Honest question.

------------------
Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure

[Staga]

Here in Finland gas is only 1$/liter  

But howabout cars:
Chevy Alero 2,4_______ ~30,000 Usd
Camaro 3,8____________ ~36,400 Usd
Chrysler Neon 2,0 SE__ ~18,600 Usd
Saab 9-3 2,0t_________ ~25,300 Usd
Toyota Avensis 2,0____ ~22,800 Usd.

No wonder people buy their cars from another countries. You just need to live there and earn the money too. One reason why Finnish soldiers (Blue barrets) worked for U.N in Lebanon, Angola, Suez, Golan heights, Bosnia etc...

But we got good welfare and school system...

[Macchi]

Vermillion there are differences in taxes. Some are depending on the item which is taxed. In germany we have 2 terms for that. Generally a tax is not fixed onto the topic for what it is collected. So taxes for automobiles don't have to spend for traffic issues. Only a few "taxes" are time limited, like the support taxes for the ex DDR states. These taxes have to be used for these states only. Normal taxes can be used by the goverment like they want or need.
Indivisual traffic based on burning oil and gasoline has to be expensive because of the costs it produces.
Traffic raises more and more regardless of polluting the air.
People should better change to public traffic (if they have the luck to live in a fre land which gives you this opportunity.

Macchi

[Udie]

 Go Brits!  I love seeing people stand up to over taxation. Here's an idea, instead of the governements around the world taxing us, how about they just come and burn our villages and steal our chickens and livestock?  Heck at least that way I'd only have to hide 2 of each animal to keep them reproducing enough for my "tax sacrifice"

 I think here in the US that our taxes somehow find thier way into the pockets of our polititians.  We "spend" 2 trillion every year, have a 1 trillion dollar "surplus" and it's still not enough. All the problems those taxes are supposed to go to fix keep getting worse.  It doesn't take a genious to figure out the money aint getting to where it's supposed to be going.

 Taxes are evil.  

Udie

[AKDejaVu]

One of the major reasons for the high taxes in England is due to the Island Mentality.  Other Island Nations suffer from it too (Japan comes to mind).

When you have a large number of people living on a small island, things are done to limit the amount of space taken up.  As someone pointed out earlier in the thread... cars take up space.  They also add polution to a densly populated area.

As someone forgot to point out, cars are still necessary for many applications.  This is why you have gasoline, but make it ridiculously expensive.  Those that have to be on the road will weigh the cost of fuel when making the decision to/not to drive.

AKDejaVu

[StSanta]

Yeh.

Taxes are evil.

So is air pollution.

It seems the only way to get people off their fat tulips and either onto a bike or some form of public transportation is by making the alternative too expensive.

<StSanta does not own anything that makes use of a combustion engine>

Jealousy speaking, mayhap?

------------------
StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"
"If you died a stones throw from your wingie; you did no wrong". - Hangtime

[Dowding]

The crazy thing is that I believe in taxation. At least to certain extent. But what has happened here is ridiculous. It wouldn't be so bad if the money had been put into public transport - I'd agree with that. But here in Britain, trains were privatised by Thatcher (and guess what? It has almost universally got worse if you want to travel anywhere by train). So the money goes on the woefully underfunded National Health Service and other civic organisations. Maybe the Millenium Dome - or maybe that was National Lottery money? Either way it is an abomination.

Goes on our military?     That's a laugh. We may have the best army in the world in terms of training (wtg in Sierra Leone), but it again is underfunded. If there are any Argentinians out there, come and take the Falklands, because there is no way we could take it from you again. We simply don't have the military anymore.

I know its politically incorrect, but does anyone remember when we were a world power? Two world wars saw an end to that, and now we pander to Germany and Japan for investment in our country. You got to admit things turned out funny in the end - at least in an ironic way.     Having said that, times have changed - I suppose its good Germany and Japan are prosperous - learned our lesson from Versailles.

Ooops, ranted a bit there. But the whole situation makes me seethe with rage.

Udie, if the money isn't going where its supposed to then thats your administration's fault. Change the way you do things - if enough people want it, or can be bothered to support then you can't be stopped.  


Staga - cars are a rip off here as well (pattern emerging here I think). On the subject of petrol - wanna post me some?    

StSanta - wanna try British public transport? Its expensive, dirty, slow and delayed. The car is the only alternative left to people who want to get on with their lives, considering that most people can't bike 40 miles to work. Privatisation has seen to that.



[This message has been edited by Dowding (edited 09-13-2000).]

[-duma-]

I support the intentions of the government, but not their methods. It's ridiculous. By trying to force people to use poor public transport they're completely missing the point - cars are an essential part of the economy.

Instead, they should be funding hydrogen fuel cell research and providing incentives to use alternative power methods for cars.

Still, at least they're doing something about the problem, however badly handled.

And in answer to your question Verm, the rest of the money goes on the most incredible and magical building in the history of the world - the Millenium Dome.

Incredible because millions (or is it billions yet?) of pounds of cash flows into it, and magical because the cash then disappears into thin air  

[This message has been edited by -duma- (edited 09-13-2000).]