Oswaldtwistle
Banned
The gap between the two fuels does seem to have shrunk a bit of late......
Ouch, that is steep!
(Oswald continues to enjoy his car free time at uni while he can!)
fuel prices!!!
- Thread starter kained&able
- Start date
The gap between the two fuels does seem to have shrunk a bit of late......
Ouch, that is steep!
(Oswald continues to enjoy his car free time at uni while he can!)
bi0boy
Power User
Is it only Daily Mail readers who are affected by high fuel prices then?
It's mainly them that moan about them. Oil prices are rising because it's running out, and thus getting more expensive to extract. Deal with it.
I bet he moans about speed cameras as well.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
This report tries to quantify what you call 'insane' levels of taxation. It's impossible to come to an exact figure but this report recons that driving costs 2 to 3 times what it brings in from taxation
http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/STCC/downloads/SurfaceTransportCostsReport.pdf
Velouria
Long time lurker
The Government pissed it against the wall.
Bear in mind also that the sovereign wealth fund in Norway was partly made possible by instead taxing everything to the hilt. Norway's a fantastically expensive place.
Fancy paying 50% of your wages in taxes, £7 a pint, and a romantic dinner for two with a couple of drinks costing £100?
Fuck that.
david dissadent
New Member
By the end of the 70s the UKs industrial base was in ruins. The shipping was gone, much of the textiles was going and other manufacturing was failing to compete globally. This was leading to huge budget problems. The income from the North Sea and from privitisation plus the brutal cuts in expenditure went to fund the transition to a post industrial society and to help lower taxes.
Post industrial meant financials. You have to laugh.
... The basic problem is still the same: they spent it 
mhendo
Aussie in San Francisco
Long term, you're probably correct. But stats show that demand for fuel hasn't risen as quickly as a lot of people predicted, and in the short run, during the current economic crisis, demand has actually fallen, especially (but not only) in wealthy western countries like the US and UK.
About a month or so ago, pump prices started to climb pretty drastically here in the US, so i went online and did some reading to try and find out the reason for this particular short-term increase. I suspected that it might be due to usual rising demand in the US associated with the beginning of the summer driving and holiday season.
But, according to the reports i found, the demand for fuel was still static or even declining. The analysts suggested that the rising price of oil was actually a result of increased speculation by investment companies, hedging prices. They said that these investors were confident in the long-term need for oil, and were investing accordingly, but that in the short term it was actually their speculative investments that were driving prices up.
Prices seem to have peaked here, for the moment at least. A gallon (3.8 litres) of gas here in California (about the most expensive place in the country for fuel) costs about $2.95 to $3.05 right now, and that price has been steady for a few weeks now, after 6-8 weeks of constantly climbing prices.
According to this page (scroll all the way to the bottom) the spot price for Cushing crude, which was hovering around $70-71 a barrel for most of June, has dropped to $62.88 over the last week. In my experience, the price at the pumps here in the US follows the price of crude reasonably closely, so i'm expecting to see a drop of 10c or more pretty soon.
Obviously, fuel is extremely cheap over here compared to what you lot in the UK have to pay. At the current exchange rate, petrol is costing us just under 50p per litre. And, as i said, California is about the most expensive place in the country; in parts of the south and midwest, it's much cheaper. In Oklahoma, the heart of the country's oil industry, gas is currently selling for under $2.23 per gallon. Here's a map of pump prices in the US.
I'm sure you're right about speculation playing some part in the recent price spikes, although precisely what part I wouldn't like to say.
I take on board what you say about demand fluctuating and not rising as quickly as predicted recently. That is, as you say, in large measure an effect of the recession. However, in the longer run I'm still convinced that demand for oil is the prime mover in the general upward drift in prices.
I take on board what you say about demand fluctuating and not rising as quickly as predicted recently. That is, as you say, in large measure an effect of the recession. However, in the longer run I'm still convinced that demand for oil is the prime mover in the general upward drift in prices.
The blue line is inflation adjusted cost, the red volatility.
biography said:
I do believe it's all taxes.
It's 28p/L here.
Vote Tory.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
They won't bring the fuel duty down, it's a big earner. Besides, it has barely risen since labour got in. Under the tories, the fuel duty went up and up and up.I do believe it's all taxes.
It's 28p/L here.
Vote Tory.
I extended this graph to the right as I couldn't find an up-to-date one.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
Correct Crispy. Cameron made vague noises in his budget response last time, but the simple fact of the matter is the public finances are so fcuked I can't see them being any better. Like I say, we are so hooked on the revenue.......
Big Phil said:
That is a very lengthy report, and deserves a longer read than I can give it now. However I notice they talk about the costs of congestion. If you are going to do that, surely you have to also look at the benefits to the economy (and hence tax raised) from mobility of workforces and goods etc.
To count one and not the other seems like double standards to me.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Oh, and in derf's Indonesia petrol is subsidised below the market price because it's a producing country. However, decline is now such that they are a net importer rather than an exporter. Expect the fuel subsidy to erode further (it has done already)
Indeed. The Fuel Price Escalator - increasing the price of fuel by greater than the rate of inflation - was a Tory policy. Labour junked it after the fuel protests in 2000.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
They won't bring the fuel duty down, it's a big earner. Besides, it has barely risen since labour got in. Under the tories, the fuel duty went up and up and up.
I extended this graph to the right as I couldn't find an up-to-date one.
So tax, as a percentage of the cost of fuel, is decreasing.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Yep.
Although we pay a lot of tax on fuel, it's a flat-rate per litre tax (apart from VAT), so it insulates our sensitivity to price fluctuations. In USA, for example, their graph looks like just the bright and dark green portion - much more dramatic. When their petrol doubles in price, ours merely increases by 20%.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
I'd be in favour of more fuel protests this autumn providing the demands were sensible- with the aim of getting the winner of the next election to agree to only increase fuel duty in line with inflation.
Chances of an actual duty cut are around zero though.
bioboy said:
and I think that is partly because a lot of the current propaganda from the government is aimed at making people feel guilty about driving rather than actually stopping driving.
Like I say if people really drove less the NHS would be fucked, so I think by default the message has turned into "don't stop driving, just feel guilty so you pay these taxes without complaining"
I'm not suggesting there has been an actual organised conspiracy here- you don't need one. The moment anyone questions this tax the line "think of the planet" is dragged out, and all criticism from anyone left-of-centre or even vaguely Green stops. That becomes convienent, and so the line gets used over and over.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Look at the graph above. If what you demanded was true (fuel duty raised with inflation) the cost of fuel would be much more than it was now. The Tories tried to do with the fuel tax escalator.
Given the hole in the public finances consequent upon the recession, and the fact that demand for oil is relatively inelastic, I'm sure you're right. The fuel duty is too lucrative to be cut at a time when the government needs all the money it can lay hands on, and although people moan about high fuel prices, the reality is that for most people there's little alternative to paying up.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Fuel duty has not risen since 2000. Current increases are due to the increased cost of oil.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
The graph is wrong or out of date, because the fuel duty escalator has been re-introduced starting in September.
2p a litre on duty in September
another 2p a litre on first of January when VAT goes back up.
another 1p a litre plus inflation next April
For those like me who think in terms of good ole MPG, that's a real terms rise of 22p a gallon.
Roadkill said:
I agree, but I think it is still worth considering some sort of protest against the above inflation rises proposed.
To be strictly accurate, fuel duty has increased since 2000, but only in line with inflation rather than ahead of it.
That appears to be changing, however, with above-inflation rises planned later this year and thereafter. Here.
david dissadent
New Member
We are now an oil importer, so oil consumption adds to the trade deficit. Bit late for discouraging car use by building better public transport.....
Why 'a bit late?' It's got to happen sometime - although obviously it should have started years ago!
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Seems to me that driving is still the mode of transport that's encouraged...
10 bn road building program
Real cost of motoring fell by 13% in the last 10 years
Where as train increased by 7% and bus by 17%
Tax as a % of the price of fuel at 1990 levels - still now 11% less than 1999
The 'scrappage' scheme
I honestly don't get it. Everything points towards the need of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels but no transport policies to back it up.
I also don't get why the motorist feels so hard done by when it's getting cheaper to drive and we have the biggest road building program in our history.
david dissadent
New Member
Because everyone always feels hard done by about everything. They just happen to have less cause.
Most people don't look at the cost in real terms, though. They just see very high fuel prices at the pump, increasingly onerous administrative requirements (SORN, and so on), the possibility of further hikes in VED and a proliferation of parking restrictions, proposed and actual congestion charges and speed cameras that are widely thought (whether rightly or not is another debate) to be more about raising revenue than cutting accidents. It's not really all that surprising they're unhappy. I agree it's not a completely reasonable view, but it's not an incomprehensible one either.
djbombscare
Plays with knives
I figure the best thing would be to buy shares in BP at least that way you'll get a little something back when they chuck in their year end profits in the trillions.
Petrol went up to Rp5,500/L but was reduced in price to Rp4.500 a few months ago.
Well tried.
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