Homestead mailing list

["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> . . . "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