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Wednesday, May 10, 2006

$6 Gallon of Gas

Posted by on May 10 at 11:03 AM

Mark Morford is a brilliant columnist at the SF Chronicle. Check out today’s Morford—could the man be more right?

No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten bucks a gallon, no matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet crude. That would so completely, violently, brilliantly do it. Revolutionize the country. Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don’t you agree?

Here’s what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up ‘78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV owners. Everyone else, 10 bucks a gallon, across the board. Eleven for premium.

It would take some finessing. Maybe also give a price break to some truckers and trucking companies (so vital to the overall economy), but not so much to global delivery companies (FedEx, DSL et al.), because not doing so would force them to raise shipping rates and force you (and me) to reconsider buying everything online and hence will encourage you to shop locally once again, thus reviving a stagnant local economy.

Voilá—gas crisis, oil crisis, warmongering agenda, pollution issues, road rage, traffic congestion, urban decay, oil profiteering—all completely almost totally somewhat solved. Or at the very least, dramatically, gloriously shifted toward … I don’t know what. Something better. Something more humane, less greedy, more sustainable. Could it work? How outraged and indignant would you be to have to pay that much for gas? How long would that feeling last?

Go read the whole brilliant thing.


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Everyone should sign up for his rant mailing list, which comes out once or twice a week - a tasty treat for your inbox...
http://sfgate.com/newsletters

I generally like Morford's column, but this is classic elitist priviliged bullshit - who cares about those working poor people who would bear the brunt of this proposal? Evidently not Mr. Morford - or the Stranger...

Mr. X - Morford's column suggests a deep gas discount for low-income people. Stop being a knee-jerk reactionary idiot. It'll do wonders for your complexion and waistline!

And, Morford's column is in no way attempting to be a white paper. It's a frigging column!

Did you read the whole thing, Mr. X?

Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV owners. Everyone else, 10 bucks a gallon, across the board. Eleven for premium.

...nope, I just read the excerpt (and the accompanying comment), and I stand corrected. Shoulda known that Morford would offer the poor folks an out, he's generally pretty good on class issues...

while we're engaging in liberal fantasy, why not also include a hike in the minimum wage to help those '78 civic drivers, better public transit so they can avoid driving, or possibly shiny new priuses to help make their commute more eco-friendly? With a subsidy, those poor workers could probably make more money selling black market discount gas than scrubbing toilets.

What about freight? Products that are currently cheap and readily available - from produce to books to vacuum cleaners - will skyrocket in price to keep up with rising shipping costs.

That said, I'm all for doubling or tripling gas costs for commuters and leisure drivers.

Can anyone read? ECB?

It would take some finessing. Maybe also give a price break to some truckers and trucking companies (so vital to the overall economy)...

Come on, Dan - you can't expect me to READ the whole thing. Some of us are putting out a paper here!

this idea makes perfect sense, so of course it will never happen here.

other countries heavily tax gas, recognizing that it is a luxury and not an inalienable right. this money can then be used to fund things like transit (or health care or other social services). higher prices at the pump reflect the actual costs of oil use (environmental, geopolitical, as well as economic).

the fossil fuel age will not last forever. taking deliberate steps to decrease our society's reliance on oil is the only way we'll be even close to prepared for the changes ahead.

...or fuck it, let's just fight over the last of the gravy until we ruin dinner for everybody!

As a Bay Area resident, I must admit that one of my favorite things about living here is getting the Chron on my doorstep every morning. I am a fan of Morford. I occasionally find that his style takes on an aren't-I-so-clever bent, but I happen to enjoy that in a paper. My commute goes by far quicker when the words that I am reading are injected with passion. I'm glad that Morford isn't tucked away on a blog somewhere, scanned over by just the enlightened (not to minimize those blogs at all, for they are incredibly important, often in desperate need of a much larger audience, and many times ought to be heeded, however it's worth knowing that an honest-to-god daily print newspaper actually employs columnists who aren't merely apathetically typing, and gives them space outside of the editorials section). How Morford ended up in Datebook, the entertainment and arts part of the Chron, I have yet to understand, but he's there twice weekly, spewing from the cover of the section.

That said, Morford is best taken with salt. He exaggerates, emphasizes, and expounds using those aforementioned adjectives, because that makes a point, instead of simply a blip. Do I think that something has to be done to curb the excessive culture in which we're living? Yes. Do I believe that tinkering with gas prices could, quite possibly, accomplish something? Yes. Do I agree with Morford's suggestion that there be a Global Warming Surcharge? Yes. Am I in favor of making gas prices ten bucks? Well, no. Granted, I'd very likely fall into the 'low income' section, and therefore would enjoy, if one can use that word, cheaper prices if I decided in favor of driving my car over taking public transit, but I'm still not convinced that is the solution. Gas prices will rise, there is pain though no shock in that (as Morford points out, humans adapt after all), but what should be happening is better consumption practices. (Jon Carroll, another great Chron columnist to be found in Datebook, recently took on this topic: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/02/DDGKAIHEDI1.DTL&hw=jon+carroll+gas+prices&sn=001&sc=1000 ).

If only it were like the drive-in-downtown-London deal. Regularly pay five pounds (taxis exempt) and you have permission to fight for parking spots near Trafalgar Square. Realize that with tube stations a hundred or so yards from each other it's probably cheaper and quicker to just take the Underground, and, almost magically, the part is done for Londoners to walk in cleaner air. One just has to remember that such a policy works there because of a number of important factors that are significantly different than here in this country (state of public transit, prices of gas, societal thoughts about driving, types of cars, political dealings with oil companies, etc.) Work to change such factors here, and drastic results will be seen.

Something needs to be done, to that there is no question. I may not necessarily fully agree with Morford's solution, but there is no doubt that I wholeheartedly stand behind his sentiments. Certainly such thinking proves just how young and idealistic I am, but, if I honestly felt differently, then the cause would already be lost.

I'm not familiar with this Morford fellow, but I love this column. Morford puts forth his proposal a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the similar proposals coming from New Yorks Times columnists Tom Friedman and John Tierney (a conservative of all things). I mean, those guys are talking $4 or $5 gas -- not $10 gas -- and they're getting cast as radical, elitist dreamers. Then again, it looks like Morford has thought through some of the serious challenges of implementing a gas-tax increase.

By the way, European countries already tax petrol to the gills -- to the tune of $5.50 and more a gallon -- and yet somehow the Europeans aren't the ones suffering a "gas crisis" now. Or spending $280 billion of their own wealth (so far) to invade an oil-producing country.

I just wish an elected official would have the guts to talk seriously about this.

Freight - there's this invention, well it was invented in the 18th century, called railways. And one that precedes it, called barges.

Stop subsidizing trucks - unless they use biodiesel.

Will wrote: "Stop subsidizing trucks - unless they use biodiesel."

Will, it sounds like you're not quite getting the new paradigm a substantial gas tax creates. By taxing gas, you don't need to subsidize any particular alternative. The tax itself creates the playing field in which the alternatives can fairly compete. In the end, the marketplace decides.

So is he suggesting we do exactly what we accuse the big oil companies of doing: artifically inflating the price of gas and gouging consumers?

Um, I like the spirit of the idea, but that's an easy way to turn an entire populace against YOU, rather than against driving.

Re: "stop subsidizing trucks":

Yeah, because freight railways and barges are pollution-free.

Mark Morford is a paranoid, elitist-in-the-negative-way knee-jerk screecher who rarely leaves the bubble-wrapped liberal echo chamber that is San Francisco. No, not the Bay Area -- the man can barely bring himself to leave the city and when he does he writes long screeds about how wearying and terrifying the trip was.

Having said that, he does occasionally write things I can nod in agreement with. But this isn't one of those times.

Ack! This IS one of those times. I can't multitask...

Rail transport can run on many different kinds of power, including electric. If our country could get its act together, we could power railroads with electricity generated from renewable resources.

Here's my modest proposal: Anyone can live and work wherever he/she wants. He/she can drive as many miles as he/she wishes - to and fro'. He/she can use as much gasoline as he/she wants at any price. The only proviso is that the car's auto exhaust pipe must come into the cab of the car and the driver must wrap his/her lips around it so that he/she and he/she alone can consume the poisons he/she is creating.

Oh to have some of our country back again! As long as the ruling class in this country continues to be the wealthy and the very, very wealthy, there'll be no energy/transportation solutions to speak of because it isn't in their interests to solve the problem. The rich take care of themselves first and by default, each other and in Washington they're making out like bandits. Some come to Washington merely comfortable, but almost all leave quite rich - and that doesn't happen on $165,000 a year. Yes, there are the Kennedys who come to Washington already rich who seem to have concerns for the little guy, but for every Ted Kennedy in Congress, there are ten Duke Cunninghams.

Is there a solution? Yes, but it isn't a likely one. More people with a deep sense of right and wrong and a deeper sense of moral justice and social responsibility need to run for Congress. Candidates should have a limit on campaign time and should be given free access to the media - no more of those one-sided, Madison Avenue mini soap operas we see on TV for a year before the election. Finally, the Supreme Court should deem that money does not equal free speech.

Or you could just buy an island somewhere and resign to give the country up to the elite.

Oh yeah, screw the elites. Let's give it up to the uneducated and ill-informed. To the ones with no experience in business and no experience managing anything. Yeah. That's gonna go a long way towards improving things.

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