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  • From: "Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Fuel price perspective
  • Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 15:28:59 -0700

. . . "Matters are no better on land. On Tuesday, hundreds of British
truck drivers in London and Cardiff brought traffic to a crawl in a
campaign to get their government to lower taxes on diesel fuel, which
now costs over $11 per U.S. gallon (3.8 liters).

As pointed out, most of the costs for fuel in European countries is taxes. A deliberate policy in the twenties and thirties then carried over for the recovery after the war years. The intent was to reduce foreign exchange for fuel when railways were a better alternative. They continued the taxes as people turned away from railways and mass transit toward cars and trucks. The revenue stream was just too good to shut off. The high prices have forced them to go for smaller cars.

Now things have changed. Policies have short changed the railroads bother here and there. Rail transport has found a much more profitable niche in bulk transportation such as coal and containers. In the US the rail roads have all but abandoned passenger transport and what little they do is forced upon them by the government. The current administration has tried to kill AMTRACK for years. Now that we need it there is no decent alternative to cars and trucks and increasingly air travel.

World wide Diesel use in increasing, much more so than gasoline. The Chinese Earthquakes is significantly increasing short term Diesel fuel usage but overall almost all the food you eat was planted, harvested, processed, and delivered by Diesel fuel powered tractors, trucks, ships, and airplanes. (Jet Fuel is very similar to Diesel fuel) At $120 a barrel and a maximum pumping rate of 85 million bbls a day, shortages and significant price increases are inevitable.

In the US independent truckers are struggling. They typically have around 200 gallons of fuel onboard leading to $1000 fillups. At not much over 6 mpg they see all too many fillups. Many are going out of business and the banks are quick to repossess because there is a strong market for used trucks in Russia and other eastern bloc countries. That means when (or if) this turns around there will not be a pool of used trucks to restart the independents.

Don Bowen KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html




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