[andyt]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

You must have too much money...

No, I just have some sense of the bigger picture. You keep grubbing away at the small stuff, voting for a party that will give you a little relief now, and you'll fuck up the whole country. GHG taxes or similar are coming, no way around it. Better to tax carbon, as I said before, and lower taxes somewhere else. Or, pay more taxes period, since we've been living beyond our means for decades. Can't keep going down that road. We have to accept that our standard of living, economically speaking, will probably decline a bit. (Let;s hope it's a bit) But just racing around in cars isn't much of a standard of living anyway. I know you have no option, but you don't really count - there are so few of you. We're an urban nation, and will become more so. Can't base our policies on what's best for Saturn.[/quote]

While my example is a personal one, I know for a fact I'm not the only one in that particular boat.

It'd just be one more example of rural Canadians getting the shaft. Nothing new.[/quote]

You're a small minority. You already get up to 4 votes for each vote an urban person casts. Don't know what else you want. We have to keep the hinterland functioning well enough to keep extracting the wealth from it. But other than that, no way can you run a country by what's good for a samll portion of the population. Well, not unless that small portion are the rich, anyway.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Seriously though, how does one effectively campaign around the country on a platform of environmentalism and higher gas prices without looking like a total fucking hypocrit?
I'm pretty sure her method of conveyance around Canada isn't a bicycle

Aw, c'mon, that's not worthy of you. That's the kind of thing the real right wing nuts come up with. You're saying that if your'e an environmentalist you can't use modern modes of transportation? I advocate for higher gas prices, I drive a car. How does that make me a hypocrite? I'm willing to pay my share. (hint, I drive a small car, and not very much).

What the greens have to all live in caves and wear furs? And same with anybody else who gives a shit about the environment? Pretty intellectually puny argument.

Not at all kemosabe. Let's just say that the Greens get in and gas gets hiked that extra $2/L. Who do you think it will affect, you and me or the politicians? When you go to work, does anyone pay for your gas? Are you going to feel like paying a rather large increase in price for consumer goods(you know, useless everyday crap like food, clothes, hygiene products) cuz the price of gas just tripled?

See, I'm all for being more responsible environmentally, it's not like I'm against the environment and want it wiped out.
However if one is going to preach about it they don't have to live in a cave, but it does help when you live in the real world.
Example: The "king" of the environment, Al Gore, lives in a 24 room mansion in the south. How much you wanna bet it's NOT powered by wind and/or solar.

I'm also willing to bet that if May worked at a $14-15/hr job that required her to commute for a half hour or so each way, she'd wouldn't be all that interested in paying around $12/gallon.
See, in a perfect world, nobody would have to drive to work. But this ain't a perfect world. All a tripling of gas prices would do is make sure a whole lot of people have a whole lot less spending power through the year.
But hey, if someone is in a position to sneak in the occassional frequent personal expense as a government expense, why the fuck should they care, right?

[saturn_656]

andyt andyt:

Don't know what else you want.

Consideration, or at least some lip service so we know they haven't forgotten we live up here.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Not at all kemosabe. Let's just say that the Greens get in and gas gets hiked that extra $2/L. Who do you think it will affect, you and me or the politicians? When you go to work, does anyone pay for your gas? Are you going to feel like paying a rather large increase in price for consumer goods(you know, useless everyday crap like food, clothes, hygiene products) cuz the price of gas just tripled?

See, I'm all for being more responsible environmentally, it's not like I'm against the environment and want it wiped out.
However if one is going to preach about it they don't have to live in a cave, but it does help when you live in the real world.
Example: The "king" of the environment, Al Gore, lives in a 24 room mansion in the south. How much you wanna bet it's NOT powered by wind and/or solar.

I'm also willing to bet that if May worked at a $14-15/hr job that required her to commute for a half hour or so each way, she'd wouldn't be all that interested in paying around $12/gallon.
See, in a perfect world, nobody would have to drive to work. But this ain't a perfect world. All a tripling of gas prices would do is make sure a whole lot of people have a whole lot less spending power through the year.
But hey, if someone is in a position to sneak in the occassional frequent personal expense as a government expense, why the fuck should they care, right?

The Greens won't get in if they advocate a $2 per liter tax increase, and as Roman pointed out, they call for a .12/l increase. Perfectly reasonable. I would support that, if it's offset somewhere else. Or, since we're all going to have to pay more taxes anyway, can't keep living on borrowed money, maybe this is the way to do it. Gas/consumption taxes are supposedly the least damaging. You've gotta face it - we live in a different world. The easy times probably aren't coming back. Food costs are going to rise, we either pay more taxes or make do with less govt services like healthcare. Or probably both.

I'm not going to vote Green this time. But we do need somebody that puts a green agenda forward - we can't sustain the way we've been living.

Anyway, if oil spikes, you won't be worrying about no gas taxes, just the price of gas, period. And you'll find a way to adapt. Bitching all the way, no doubt.

[bootlegga]

Scape Scape:

Norway is taking their oil revenue and investing it into next generation power. That's why its so high because they know they are running out.

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2010/10/17/ ... -oil-fund/

$1:

All of Norway’s oil and gas revenues are placed in the fund, with only around 4 percent of it pumped into the state budget. The fund was set up with the goal of stashing away much of Norway’s oil and gas revenue for future generations.

Right now we are spending hand to mouth, which is fine if you plan on no tomorrow. We know the oil will be harder and harder to get and at the same time we will have more mouths to feed. We need to invest in sustainable power projects on the scale of a national project like the trans-Canada highway. Petro-Canada meant we own a few pumps but what we need to create is our own means of sustainable energy. IMHO we may be sustaining an economy today at the expense of the future, it's like we are having a reckless party and we need to keep the kegs tapped or no one will come by and think we are cool. We need to start banking our revenue and invest it while we still can the party can't last forever.

Well, at current rates of production (assuming technology doesn't make more of it accessible), we've still got at least 540 years of production from the tar sands (180 billion barrels / 1 million barrels per day). If it ramps up to 5 million bpd like forecasts predict (2025 I think), then production will run out in about 120 years.

And Alberta has tried to put some of that wealth away for a rainy day, but what happens is that future politicians see a giant nest egg sitting there and think, "Instead of raising taxes, we should spend some of that".

Frankly, I wish Albertans had put more of it away. Take a gander at the following pic and see how much Alberta might have if we hadn't spent so much over the past two decades.

0:

heritage fund.png [ 44.8 KiB | Viewed 207 times ]

All of those options dwarf the $15 or billion the Heritage Trust Fund is today.

[andyt]

Bring in the HST and you could be putting away all sorts of money into the Heritage fund. That's how the Norvegians do it - pay taxes now so they won't be broke later.

[EyeBrock]

That and $20 shrimp sandwiches washed down with $300 bottles of Johnny Walker. I spent a good few months in Norge. It's a place that is taxed to death.

[andyt]

No it's not. Norvegians have one of the highest disposable incomes in the world. The Norvegians aren't grubbing in the dirt, they're living in a prosperous well ordered society. Nothing wrong with how they do it at all. Which is why they're smart enough to re-elect the pinko socialists responsible. I bet they have pols that promise them heaven on earth if they would only start spending some of that cash, man. But they're smart enough not to take the bait. Unlike us, that winge about every little thing.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Not at all kemosabe. Let's just say that the Greens get in and gas gets hiked that extra $2/L. Who do you think it will affect, you and me or the politicians? When you go to work, does anyone pay for your gas? Are you going to feel like paying a rather large increase in price for consumer goods(you know, useless everyday crap like food, clothes, hygiene products) cuz the price of gas just tripled?

See, I'm all for being more responsible environmentally, it's not like I'm against the environment and want it wiped out.
However if one is going to preach about it they don't have to live in a cave, but it does help when you live in the real world.
Example: The "king" of the environment, Al Gore, lives in a 24 room mansion in the south. How much you wanna bet it's NOT powered by wind and/or solar.

I'm also willing to bet that if May worked at a $14-15/hr job that required her to commute for a half hour or so each way, she'd wouldn't be all that interested in paying around $12/gallon.
See, in a perfect world, nobody would have to drive to work. But this ain't a perfect world. All a tripling of gas prices would do is make sure a whole lot of people have a whole lot less spending power through the year.
But hey, if someone is in a position to sneak in the occassional frequent personal expense as a government expense, why the fuck should they care, right?

The Greens won't get in if they advocate a $2 per liter tax increase, and as Roman pointed out, they call for a .12/l increase. Perfectly reasonable. I would support that, if it's offset somewhere else. Or, since we're all going to have to pay more taxes anyway, can't keep living on borrowed money, maybe this is the way to do it. Gas/consumption taxes are supposedly the least damaging. You've gotta face it - we live in a different world. The easy times probably aren't coming back. Food costs are going to rise, we either pay more taxes or make do with less govt services like healthcare. Or probably both.

I'm not going to vote Green this time. But we do need somebody that puts a green agenda forward - we can't sustain the way we've been living.

Anyway, if oil spikes, you won't be worrying about no gas taxes, just the price of gas, period. And you'll find a way to adapt. Bitching all the way, no doubt.

Actually, I rarely use my car so the price of gas in that respects isn't a huge issue. However, if oil spikes it won't just be the price of gas or did you miss that partial list of 6000 everyday products that are made using oil.
I do agree however that some form of consumption or even luxury type tax wouldn't be a bad way to go. Vehicles that cost over a certain amount should have an extra levy on them(I'm looking at you and your Hummers GM). Or personal vehicles that don't meet a certain Km/L limit have an extra levy on them. The limit would include ALL classes of vehicles, not a separate limit for each class.|(I'm lookin at you and your Hummers again GM )
But this practice of punishing everyone because of the abusers is getting old.

[andyt]

Hummer is now owned by a Chinese company.

I didn't miss anything, I'm aware what role oil plays in our lives. And that's the point, we can't keep going the way we are with it - the good times are coming to an end. Time to adapt. I don't care about vehicle taxes. Just tax fuel, let people work out for themselves what they want to drive, and now much. Invest some of that money in transit to give people an affordable option. Give some back to lower income earners. Maybe by increasing the basic personal deduction.

We're all abusers - as you say, oil is involved in a lot more than fueling personal vehicles. Just in time delivery using trucks is a lot more fuel wasting than using trains to ship product for instance. We've got to get off our addiction, and keeping the price low isn't the way to do it - it will bite us in the ass sooner or later. And, less car use makes for a better society. Less people racing around, more people moving at a more human pace. There are a lot of social ills caused by our dependence of the automobile.

[saturn_656]

andyt andyt:

Hummer is now owned by a Chinese company.

Hummer is defunct. China never bought it.

[romanP]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Seriously though, how does one effectively campaign around the country on a platform of environmentalism and higher gas prices without looking like a total fucking hypocrit?
I'm pretty sure her method of conveyance around Canada isn't a bicycle

There are hybrid and fully electric buses now.

[romanP]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

I'm also willing to bet that if May worked at a $14-15/hr job that required her to commute for a half hour or so each way, she'd wouldn't be all that interested in paying around $12/gallon.

If it's not that far, hopefully she'd be smart and take the bus.

[romanP]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Well, at current rates of production (assuming technology doesn't make more of it accessible), we've still got at least 540 years of production from the tar sands (180 billion barrels / 1 million barrels per day). If it ramps up to 5 million bpd like forecasts predict (2025 I think), then production will run out in about 120 years.

Hopefully, we never get there. The tar sands will make northern Alberta's water completely undrinkable if we keep mining for oil.

[saturn_656]

romanP romanP:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Seriously though, how does one effectively campaign around the country on a platform of environmentalism and higher gas prices without looking like a total fucking hypocrit?
I'm pretty sure her method of conveyance around Canada isn't a bicycle

There are hybrid and fully electric buses now.

I'd like to see someone campaign across Canada in an electric bus... you'd have to stop every 100 kilometers or so to charge it.

Overnight.