Date:         Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:39:00 -0400 
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "bill (w.r.) crick" <crick@bnr.ca>
Subject:      Re: Gas Prices 

>>I haven't seen any increase in the price of gas here in
>>Switzerland really. It's still around US $1 ....  a liter!
>>That's US $4 a gallon. So stop bitchin' will ya!   :-)
>>
>>Darie
>
>If you all in Switzerland had done some bitchin' years ago, the government
>might not have made your price so high!  :-)

>I think that's good old market forces making it that high-- every country
>in Europe has similar prices, and has had forever.

>But I do wonder why they can't buy it as cheaply from the Middle East
>as the U.S. obviously does.

They can: I think you will find the price difference is in taxes. At least
in Canada it is. About 55% of our gas price is taxes. This money is allegedly
used to pay for roads, road maintainance, .... All of the 'hidden costs' of
owning, and worse yet driving a car. Although we bitch lot, it is a good system
in that it is user pay. I drive, I pay gas taxes. My mother who walks to the 
grocery store spends very little directly to support roads. Note however, she
pays the gas tax cost of getting the goods to the store through the 
manufacturers/distributors paying gas tax, and adding this to the prices.

If you don't have gas tax, who pays for your roads? Everyone, whether they use
them or not? Hmmm! Sounds sort of like the commune system they had in Russia
a few years back?

Bill Crick 
76 type II/IV/VII

Talk about gas prices, anyone checked the cost of deuterium lately.
My van has Type VII cold fusion deuterium injectors installed by the
PO who worked at a government lab. Although I get 100,000 miles/mole
the damn little canister is down to a 1/2 already, and the van only has 
55,000 miles on it.  I figure its gonna
cost about $6,500 to refill. At these prices, I might just rip the whole thing 
out, and go back to gas, but it burns my ass to pay gas tax. I assume that 
some day they'll find out how many people are burning heavy water, 
and put road taxes on it too. Happened to diesel oil, and propane. Its only
a matter of time before the taxes cause people to start smuggling it out of 
power plants to avoid the taxes.










;-)